Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/99

Rh.

Mr. E. J. Lloyd Atkinson, of Oakfield, Romilly Road, Cardiff, writes to Professor Rhys, under date the 11th October last:

"In July and August we were staying at Overton, near Port Eynon, Gower, where this year there happened to be an unusual number of adders, one of which had bitten a sheep, and as a consequence the creature's leg was in a sorry state. When I saw it I suggested that the young farmer should wash it with ammonia; but he replied, 'Oh, I cure it with a poultice made of groundash, tansy, and hazel-leaves.' I asked, 'Why hazel-leaves?' To my amusement he replied, 'Hazel-trees are poisonous to snakes, especially to adders. In fact, no creeping things can live in or near them.' This, of course, I believe to be a myth; but most interesting was it to me to read only last week one of Grimm's fairy tales, 'Hasel-ruthe,' and to find the same myth there repeated. Is it also a Welsh one, as it truly is a German one? Or do you think the Flemings carried it there?

"The farmer pronounced the word [hazel] with the German a."

Professor Rhys, in kindly forwarding the above, says:

"I only remember hearing in North Cardiganshire that when you want to kill a snake you should strike it with a hazel-rod, on the head, I think. There were no snakes about my home; but when I heard this it struck me that any rod would do if the snake was struck hard enough. But the point which my informant, who had been used to snakes, was emphasising was that the rod should be hazel. He had made the acquaintance of snakes on a farm called Ynys Hir, near the mouth of the Dovey, on the Cardiganshire side."

An old woman living on the shores of Loch Rannoch is credited with the gift of second sight. Her daughter describes her as often sitting for hours, deaf and blind to all around her. She is still consulted as to the whereabouts of drowned bodies.

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