Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/394

 386

NOTES AND QUERIES.

. N 20., MAY 17. '56.

one can speak against them without speaking against the Holy Ghost, which, whosoever speaketh against, it shall not be forgiven him," &c. From p. 59. I excerpt the following personal details :

" As to my own deeds through life, ask at Adderbury, in the county of Oxford, the place where I was born, and Banbury, and North Newton, near Banbury, in the said county of Oxford, in which places only I have resided until this time, excepting about ten years in Birmingham, where I was known as a paper mould maker, either honest or not so, throughout most of the counties of the kingdom of Old England."

It appears that Gauthern was also the author of certain previous works, The Tanners Ass, Ban- bury, 1813 ; The Alarming Trumpeter; The Bang- up Inquisitor, &c. Perhaps some of the Oxford- shire correspondents of " N. & Q." may be able to furnish further particulars of this religious fanatic. WILLIAM BATES.

Birmingham.

FOLK LORE.

Cuckoo Superstition. A few days ago I no- ticed a person in this neighbourhood suddenly take to his heels and run rapidly round in a circle. When he had finished I asked him the reason of his singular act, when he told me he had heard the cuckoo for the first time this year, and that if he ran round in a circle as soon as he heard it, he would not be idle during the year. Can any readers of " N. & Q." tell me if this custom is prevalent elsewhere ? M. A.

Taunton, May 2.

Eastern Counties Superstitions : Snakes and Spiders.

Cure for Pains in the Head. Many Cambridge people still remember an old man called the " Duke of York," who earned his living by sitting on the steps of King's College Chapel, and ex- hibiting to the numerous strangers who went to see that famed building, live specimens of the common English snake (Coluber nalrix), which abounds in this neighbourhood. This man added to his earnings by selling the sloughs, or cast-off skins of these reptiles, as sovereign remedies for all pains in the head when bound round the fore- head and temples. My informant has frequently seen him dispose of them for this purpose.

Cure for the Hooping-cough. A farmer, from the neighbourhood of Reepham, in Norfolk, gravely told me the following certain cure for the hooping-cough. Whenever any of his children were attacked with it, he caught a common house- spider, which he tiecj up in muslin, and pinned over the mantel-piece. So long as the spider lived, the cough remained; but when it died, the cough went away. He assured me he had cured all his children in this way ; and that when two

were affected at the same time, they recovered when their respective spiders died, which was not in the order in which they were attacked. My informant, though illiterate, was a wealthy man ; farming several hundred acres, and bringing his sons up for professions. Have any of your corre- spondents met with similar superstitions in other localities ? NORRIS DECK.

Cambridge.

Cure of Ague. I remember, a few years ago, there lived near Deeping St. James, Lincolnshire, an old woman who stood in great repute with the fen people for her cure, which consisted of a small glass of gin with a pinch of candle-snuff in it, for which she levied contributions on the snuffers of her neighbours. G. H. R.

20. Cross Street, Hatton Garden.

Cure for Cramp. I have heard that a basin of cold water put under the bed of the person liable to cramp, is an effectual preventive of it. What is the origin of this belief? ANON.

Plough Monday Custom.. About 150 years ago, the following custom prevailed in the northern counties of England on Plough Monday: If a ploughman came to the kitchen-hatch, and could contrive to cry, "Cock in the pot," before the maid could cry " Cock on the dunghill," he was entitled to a cock for Shrove Tuesday. Are there any traces of this custom still remaining ?

HENRY KENSINGTON.

" On St. James's Day the Apples are christened" This saying is found among the people in Wilt- shire and Somersetshire. Was St. James con- sidered to be the patron of orchards ? and was he invoked for a blessing on the infant fruit ? as, at that season, May 1, the apple trees are in blossom.

J. A. H.

Superstition respecting Human Hair. Among our peasantrjjpt is considered very unlucky to leave lying acnmt, or to throw away any, even the smallest scrap, of human hair. I have often noticed the careful anxiety of countrywomen in picking up and consuming " each particular hair," and even sweeping up the place where hair had fallen or been cut, and scrupulously burning the sweeping in the fire. The only explanation they would give of this unusual care was, that if left about, the birds would build their nests with the hair ; a fatal thing for him or her from whose head it had fallen ; and that if a " pyet" (Anglice magpie) got hold of it for any such purpose, by no means an unlikely circumstance, considering the thievish propensities of the bird, the person's death, within " year and day," was sure. The solemn looks and head-shakings, accompanying these explanations, convinced me that the speakers were in earnest. This appears to be a fragment