Page:Notes and Queries - Series 1 - Volume 6.djvu/79

 when one of the cats addressed him, "Joaney Reed, Joaney Reed, tell Dan Ratcliffe that Peg Powson is dead." Joaney hurried home to his wife, and instantly informed her of the circumstance, wondering at the same time who Dan Ratcliffe might be; when up sprang the cat from the hearth, and exclaiming "If Peg Powson's dead, it's no time for me to be here," rushed out of the house and was seen no more.

Weather Prophecy. &mdash; G. E. G. has not yet had the answer to his inquiry about "oaks and ashes." The proverb is,

The present wet summer gives the lie to the adage, for the oaks were out first.

St. Mark's Eve (Vol. iv., p. 470.).&mdash; Your correspondent has alluded to a popular superstition respecting St. Mark's Eve which has interested me very much. I cannot help quoting Collins' lines upon the same subject, and shall much thank, or any of your other correspondents learned in Folk Lore, to adduce some additional instances:&mdash;

Ode to Fear.

.

Warmington.

Children's Nails. &mdash; It is a general belief among the common people in this neighbourhood (Bottesford Moors), that if a child's finger nails are cut before it is a year old, it will be a thief. Before that time they must be bitten off when they require shortening.

Cheshire Cure for Hooping Cough. &mdash; Whilst passing a short time in the neighbourhood of Alderley in Cheshire, I found, among other instances of Folk Lore prevailing there, the propriety of communicating to the bees the death of any of the family keeping hives. I learnt also another case, that of a speedy and efficacious cure for the troublesome complaint the hooping cough, which I think ought to be put on record for the comfort of all mothers and children. The remedy consists in a plain currant cake, to be eaten by the afflicted child, the main virtue of which cake is, however, in its being made by a woman whose maiden name was the same as that of the man she married; and on no account whatever is any payment or compensation to be made directly or indirectly for the cake. My informant has the firmest belief in this specific, he himself having witnessed, in the case of his own child, the beneficial result; but he took care to mention, as probably an advantage, that the cake which cured his child was made by a woman whose mother had also married her namesake.

Sites of Buildings changed, &c.&mdash;There are other churches in Lancashire besides Winwick whose sites have been changed by the Devil, and he has also built some bridges; that at Kirkby Lonsdale owes much of its beauty to the string of his apron giving way when he was carrying stones in it. The stones may be seen yet in the picturesque groups of rock below the bridge. Old cross or boundary stones, with a hole full of water, are so common that nobody honours them with a plague story; but we abound in other traditions. According to some a priest, according to others the Devil, stamped his foot into the church wall at Brindle, to prove the truth of Popery; and "George Marsh the Martyr" did the same at Smithells Hall to prove the truth of Protestantism: the foot-marks still remain on the wall and the flag. There is unfortunately such a wearisome sameness in these traditions, one story doing for so many different places (except that at Winwick it was as a pig, at Leyland as a cat, somewhere else as a fish, that Satan played his pranks), that any attempt to gather them together for "N. & Q." would only tire out the editor and all his readers.

Bishop Horne, in his Commentary upon Psalm cxxii., involves me in rather a dilemma. He says:

"Theodore Zuinger, of whom some account may be found in Thuanus, when he lay on his death-bed, took his leave of the world, in a paraphrase on the foregoing psalm; giving it the same turn with that given to it above. It may serve as a finished specimen of the noble and exalted use which a Christian may, and ought to, make of the Psalms of David."

And in the note he says:

"A learned friend has obliged me with a copy of these Latin verses of Zuinger, transcribed from the 303rd page of Vitæ Germanorum Medicorum, by Melchior Adamus. They are as follow: