Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/141

. n s. v. FEB. 10, 191-2.] ,NOTES AND QUERIES.

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P them out one after another, stick them in her sleeve, singing the while a Paternoster ; and thus ensure that her dreams would that night show her her future husband. Or going away from home, and taking her right-leg stocking, she might knit the left garter round it, repeating :

I knit this knot, this knot I knit To know the thing I know not yet, That I may see

The man that shall my hushand be, Not in his best or worst array, But what he weareth every day ; That I to-morrow may him ken From among all other men.

Lying down on her back that night, with her hands under her head, the anxious maiden was led to" expect that her future spouse would appear in a dream and salute her with a kiss. Vide ' Chambers's Book of Days,' 20 January. TOM JONES.

Though not nearly so important as the Eve of St. Mark, the Eve of St. Agnes was till lately and probably is yet a time for working love-spells in North Lincolnshire. Which Agnes is the preferred saint I am unable to say. It may be that of April, whose day falls near St. Mark's.

The practices on both eves are like those of Hallow-e'en. You may set out supper in a certain fashion, with the view of seeing the spirit of the " true love " who is fated to marry you, appear to partake of it. You may wash your shift and hang it to the fire to dry, when the spirit will come to turn the garment round, that it may be dried on both sides. You may prepare " dumb- cake," and, after eating it, go to bed in silence, walking backwards, and getting into bed backwards, to procure a vision of him.

There is little doubt that such beliefs and practices tend to immorality, when a girl is credulous enough to believe that the man seen on one of the mystic eves is bound by fate to wed her. E. A.

Keats was born in 1795, and the work known as ' Brand's Popular Antiquities ' was published the same year. It is there- fore reasonable to suppose that the poet obtained his folk-lore from this work. At all events, Brand quotes from an old chap- book called ' Mother Bunch's Closet Newly Broke Open ' :

" There is in January a day called Saint Agnes Day. It is always the one and twentieth of that month. This Saint Agnes had a great favour for young men and maids, and will bring unto their bedside, at night, their sweethearts if they follow this rule as I shall declare unto thee.

Upon this day thou must be sure to keep a true fast, for thou must not eat or drink all that day, nor at night ; neither let any man, woman or child kiss thee that day, and thou must be sure at night, when thou goest to bed, to put on a clean shift, and the best thou hast the better thou mayst speed ; and thou must have clean cloaths on thy head, for St. Agnes does love to see clean cloaths when she comes, and when thou liest down on thy back as streight as thou canst and both thy hands are laid underneath thy head, then say,

Now good St. Agnes play thy part, And send to me my own sweetheart, And show me such a happy bliss This night of him to have a kiss, and then be sure to fall asleep as soon as thou canst, and before thou awakest out of thy first sleep thou shalt see him come and stand before thee and thou shalt perceive by his habit what tradesman he is ; but be sure thou declarest not thy dream to anybody in ten days, and by that time thou mayst come to see thy dream come to pass."

HUGH S. MACLEAN. Bury, Lanes.

The custom poetically described by Keats belonged to ages long ago. Consult Brand's ' Popular Antiquities,' ed. Ellis, Bohn, 1849, i. 34-8, under 21 Jan.

W. C. B.

[ST. SWITHIN and SUSSEX also thanked for replies.]

BELLS RUNG FOB KING CHARLES'S EXECU- TION (11 S. v. 28). Tyack, in his ' A Book about Bells,' 1898, says, on p. 205, that until recently a muffled peal was rung each year on 30 January at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in memory of the execution of King Charles I.

On p. 241 is also noted the following extract from the church books of Come for 1710 : " Paid for ringing on ye martyrdome of King Charles. 00. 01. 00."

CHAS. HALL CROUCH.

62, Nelson Road, Stroud Green, N.

RAILWAY TRAVEL : EARLY IMPRESSIONS (11 S. v. 29). Perhaps the following extract might interest MR. ARCHER. It is from a letter written by Nathaniel, 2nd Earl of Leitrim, to his son Robert, Lord Clements, on 5 Jan., 1831 :

" I went from Liverpool to Manchester by the rail road, which as you have seen it I need not describe. My carriage was put upon one of their waggons about four feet from the ground, and we performed the journey very prosperously ; but a few days afterwards one of their trains met with a serious accident, by the engine coming in contact with a waggon in the dark, which had been most improperly left in the way ; the engine was broken and rendered unserviceable, the engineer pitched out of it, and very much hurt, but none of the passengers received any injury. These sort of accidents must, I suppose, occasion- ally happen, for some time, until all the persona