Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/398

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I have heard a similar story told in Italy. In the pleasant town of San Remo, close to the eastern end of the principal street, there is a convent. Probably because of the positions of the neighbouring houses and of the mountains at the back of them, there is always a cold little wind stirring up and down in front of this convent; even when all around the air is still. The people say: "That is the wind waiting for the devil." On asking my Italian friends what this meant, I was told that the story was that the devil and the little wind were one day taking a friendly stroll through the town. When they arrived at the convent door the devil said: "Just wait a little here, whilst I go in and see some of my friends." "All right," answered the wind; and he has been waiting ever since.

I have a vague recollection of a somewhat similar story told elsewhere, but cannot for the moment fix it.

[It is told of Strasburg Cathedral.—]

In answer to the interesting note on a Lincolnshire May-Day custom, published in the last number of Folk-Lore, I am able to state that the Lincolnshire Christmas-bough, or kissing-bush, has eggs among its ornaments: not the eggs of little birds, indeed, but the shells of the hens' eggs used for the Christmas pudding, or other dishes prepared for the Yule festival. Though they have no such signification now, it is not improbable that they were once used as types of fertility. The mid-winter festival is in origin a rejoicing in honour of the sun, which will encourage growth and increase with its waxing strength.

Some years after the beginning of the nineteenth century, a