Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/390

 382 Folk-lore Miscellanea.

out their future husbands by tying a handkerchief, or some- thing of the kind, round the stem of a bush [a gooseberry one generally], round which they walk seven times, or nine, sowing seeds, after which the future husband will come and untie the handkerchief"

Mr. Jones adds that the Rhondda district is a good one for collecting folk-lore, as people from every county in Wales live there.

The last two communications were received in response to appeals of mine on the subject of wells, and to dispel my doubts as to whether the habit of tying rags to trees near holy wells is known in Wales. Of course I cannot possibly entertain such doubts any longer as regards Glamorgan, at any rate.

" Lunaria, or moon-fern, was, in old times, believed to possess such a singular affinity for iron that it is often mentioned as drawing the shoes from the feet of horses grazing in fields where it grew. Culpepper, the famous herbalist, tells of a troop of Cromwell's horse, under the command of the Earl of Essex, who lost all their shoes from this cause while passing over a Devon- shire moor. In Sylvester's translation of Du Barta's poems, this supposed dangerous property of moon-fern is likewise alluded to. In grubbing up old stumps of ash-trees, from which many suc- cessive trees have sprung, in the parish of Scotton, there was found, in many instances, an iron horse-shoe. One shown measured 4)4 inches by 4}^ inches. The workmen seemed to be familiar with this fact, and gave the following account :— The shoe is placed to ' charm' the tree, so that a twig of it might be used in curing cattle over which a shrew-mouse had run, or which had been * overlooked'. If they were stroked by one of these twigs, the disease would be charmed away."

My interest at present in this is chiefly confined to the allusion it makes to the shrew-mouse, which, I presume, is the little rodent called in Welsh a llyg. For, in my native county of Cardigan, nothing can have been held more unlucky than to be run over by this beast. I have never heard of any man who had undergone such a misfortune ;