Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/321



reference to the sun dancing on Easter Sunday, it may be of interest to mention that a somewhat similar custom of getting up early to see the sun rise prevailed in Norway until a few years ago. As mentioned in my recently published book, In the Northman's Land, there stands, on the borders of Hardanger District, a mountain of considerable height, which in olden times was a place of Easter pilgrimage. Thither, it is said, the peasants of the neighbourhood flocked on Easter morn to witness "the rising sun dance for joy in commemoration of the Resurrection of Our Lord."

A friend of mine has communicated to me the following, which is, I think, worthy of being recorded. I may add that my friend is a native of Somersetshire, the subject of the "cure," a clever man, and the head of a London firm of brewers.

"Among the many superstitions in the West of England down to the middle of this century was the belief in the healing virtues of the touch of a seventh daughter, and doubly so in that of a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Of course there must be no sons intervening. One of these lucky women lived at