Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/605

Rh Miscellanies, Chetham Society, vol. xlv. p. 203), which is as follows:—

"I forgot to tell you that as the broom was out in Winckley Street [Preston] on account of our friend Cross's absence, Mrs. Mary Assheton and Miss Dale were busy making preparations for a ball, which they intended to give on Monday the 29th January before his return."

A Valentine, which may be sixty years old, now in my possession, also contains a reference to this custom.

In later days when the original significance, whatever it was, originally attached to the broom was forgotten practical jokers sometimes used other objects. One day in 1886, I saw the effigy of a woman fixed in the chimney of a house in Wilkin Street, Clitheroe. I enquired, and found it was the residence of a man whose wife had run away from him, and that some of his waggish neighbours had chosen this way of emphasising his misfortune.

The following appeared in the Clitheroe Times in 1891:—

"How is it that a husband whose wife is taking a holiday can enjoy himself the better for a clothesprop being stuck in his chimney, I find it difficult to comprehend. The problem is not simplified when that clothesprop has a barrel attached midway. And yet this was the decoration upon one of the houses, and it doubtless added considerably to the picturesque beauty of the view from neighbouring garret windows."

I think it is open to question whether putting the broom in the chimney was due to any superstitious ideas connected either with the chimney or the roof. My article, before alluded to, which was compiled from information obtained from old Clitheroe folks, gives a window as an alternative to the chimney, and where the chimney was adopted it was probably because it was a conspicuous position and afforded a convenient place in which to fix a broom. I suggest comparison should be made with the practice of attaching a broom to the mast heads of ships or other vessels to signify they are for sale.

In Brand's Popular Antiquities (ed. 1849, ii. 351 seqq.) reference is made to an ancient custom of putting up boughs upon anything as an indication that it was to be sold, and the author