Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/443

 Collectanea. 415

when he was stopped by some Uidies in a motor car, which was standing by the roadside. They pointed out to liim a spot on the road a Uttle way back, where someone had been hedging, and two sticks crossed lay on the road. One of the ladies asked Mr. Portman to throw the sticks over the hedge, to "turn the bad luck."' She had been afraid to proceed, for fear of some mishap, until this was done for her by some passer-by.

Mr. Portman also relates how when an old man at Crasswall died his executors were much surprised to find he had made a second will, leaving all his property to a friend for whom he had never expressed any special regard. The will was so unexpected that it was said and believed that the legatee had put a spell on the old gentleman by mixing powder from a "Devil's snuff-box" with his snuff. As long as this mixture was used the person who mixed it could control the will of the user. The story is vouched for by an old inhabitant of Crasswall ; it was told to her by an aged great-uncle.

A woman living at Cusop left her cottage because a man was drowned in a brook near by. She was greatly upset, and pre- ferred to return to a cottage she had occupied before the accident. Shortly afterwards a neighbour mentioned in conversation what a pity it was that her efforts to obtain a new-born baby to live in

tiiat house with Mrs. after the drowning had failed. If only

the baby had been there she need have had no fear that the spirit of the drowned man would come back. (Communicated by Mr. Portman.)

Leechcraft King's Evil. — A woman at Crasswall had a child suffering with king's evil. She was advised to take the child to Hereford to see the public hangman just after an execution, and pay him to pass the rope over the child's body and lash him with it. This was said to be a certain cure. (Communicated to Mr. Portman by a native of Crasswall.)

Seed-Time Rhyme. —

Plant your seeds four in a row : One for the dove, one for the crow, One to rot, and one to grow.

Riddle. — As I was going to Worcester, I met a man from Gloucester. I asked him where he was going, and he told me