Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/445

Rh Wells.—Wells, good for sore eyes and also for sore legs, were common in Monmouthshire, and pins were thrown into them. There was one on the left side of the New Monmouth Road, where it leaves Abergavenny, close to the house now called Brookfield—formerly Pen-y-cansey.

The Swastika as a Fire-Charm. —The idea that the crossed irons, usually of Swastika form, used on the outside of walls and screwed on to tie-beams to hold the house together were in that shape "to keep the lightning away" was given to me about 1S59 by my father's old servant, John' William Phillips, a native of Abergavenny, and there known as "Jack the Witch," his mother having been reputed a sorceress.

Binding the Faggot at Christmas.—Thousands of farmers and farm labourers in Devonshire and Somerset will to-night observe the ancient custom of "binding the ashen faggot," and from about nine o'clock until the early hours of Christmas morning farmhouses will be the homes of rollicking fun. Whatever else he may do, the farm labourer does not take his pleasures sadly, and no countryside festival is so popular as faggot-time.

The origin of the custom is obscure, but it is by many believed to be a survival of an old-time thanksgiving for a good harvest, for no matter what has happened between harvest time and Christmas Eve all who have helped in bringing in the crops are invited to the festivity. When the company is assembled great ash poles, bound tight with chains and otherwise prepared, are cast into the immense open hearths so characteristic of the old west-country homesteads.

In some farmhouses the faggots are cast on to an already lighted fire, but in many it is the custom for the employer to light a length of tow, proceed through lines of his servants, and set fire to the pile. As the flames rise bumper glasses are filled, and the toast