Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/354

 32 2 Collectanea.

fetched ^^35. The British Museum is said to have no specimen of the writing, of which Prince Henri d'Orleans made some attempt to interpret the signs in his book From Tonkin to India. The more important of the three manuscripts contains the wizard's spells and formulae for working his magic; the other two deal with special incantations to the Spirit of the Hills and to the serpent. A series of six ancient Coptic-Abyssinian illuminated manuscripts, formerly in King Theodore's library at Magdala, and believed to be the only ones ever offered for sale, produced a total of ^28. The Times, 15th December, 191 5.

Working Evil by a Duck's Foot.

Mrs. Montague's query (March, 1914, xxv. 126) is hereby renewed since various indications show that an answer is possible. An accursed people, the Cagots in sundry parts of France, had to wear a distinctive dress to which "was attached the foot of a goose or duck, whence they were sometimes called Canards" {Ency. Brit., nth ed. iv. 947). A use of such a foot in homoeo- pathic magic appears in Fogel's Beliefs a7id Superstitions of the Fennsylvattian Germans, No. 626, p. 137: "Put the foot of a goose on the stable door to keep the witches out." This book is doubtless not much known yet in Great Britain, and would have been a very good one if a little more care had been taken. It presents the language and beliefs from the upper Rhine of two hundred years ago. A. Ela,

Rockingham, Boston, Mass.

Influence of an Expectant Mother.

The Editor is indebted to Sir James Frazer for the following note by Lady Fowler. He remarks that the superstition is new to him, and deserves record in Folk- Lore :

About twelve years ago, a young Australian couple came to visit their family property on the West Coast of Ross-shire. Accustomed to an open-air life, they took a great interest in the Home Farm on the estate of Dundonnell in Little Lochbroom, and the young wife