Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/349

 Miscellanea. , 341

He wrote to me some time ago asking me to recommend him to a friend of mine, Col. J., for a post in his office, and said he would call at my house next day. I was not at home when he came, and he wrote a few days later deploring his bad luck in having missed me, but ascribing it to a bad omen that he had had on setting out. I wrote to ask him what the omen was that caused his misgivings of success in his undertaking. This is his reply. The omen is a well- known one, but it strikes me that you may care to have a practical example of its vitality to-day : — ' As for the omen, I met with a widow carrying a bundle of hay on my starting. The meeting of a widow is believed to be inauspicious ; and this was further aggravated by the circumstance of her carrying hay, as this, too, is deemed inauspicious.' "

Jottings from Easingwold, Yorkshire (communicated by Mr. F. York Powell). — i. Round this part, and notably at Coxwold, a village seven miles from this, I am told it is customary for a baby to be given an ^<g^ and salt to take away the first time it enters a neigh- bour's house. People are sometimes very angry if this is omitted.

2. "The Lucky Bird." The first man that comes to the house, if he be fair, especially if he has a red head, brings luck ; if he be dark-haired it is unlucky. This was so much observed in the Brad- ford and Huddersfield district that a led-haired man was sometimes hired to come round.

3. Here is another version of the " Lucky Bird", told by John White. I omitted to insert New Year's Day in the West Riding version as the day on which it is customary there.

John White, when a boy, used to go round as a Lucky Bird. His hair was a dark brown. He started as early as 3 A.M., and got \s., 6d., or never less than a 4</. piece at each house, and was not allowed in the house unless he bore with him a piece of holly or something green. It was considered very unlucky if a woman was the first to enter the house on either New Year's Day or Christmas Day. In the other version, a woman or black-haired man are unlucky.

4. Robert Lawson of Thirlby, a small village at the foot of the Hambleton Hills, was known to the father of our carrier, John White. When trying to bolt a badger into his bag near the Fairies' Cave in the Hambleton Hills, the bag was drawn tight, and, as usual, he threw it over his shoulder without further examining it. He had only gone a few yards from the hole, when he heard a small voice saying :

" Have you seen out of my little pee pee Pee pee with an e'e (eye) ? Have you seen out of my little pee pee. Pee pee with an e'e ?"