Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/138

116 cause their death. On this point the Rev. Hugh Taylor writes: “My groom, a native of North Tyne, tells me no one would keep a May cat because it would lie on the children’s faces and suffocate them. He said there were many cases of children in that neighbeurhood having lost their lives from this cause. He himself has a cat they are obliged to watch. If it is left alone in the house for a few minutes it is found lying on the baby’s face. My housekeeper, a native of Chatton, in Northumberland, says that no one would keep a May cat because it sucks the breath of children and kills them, though indeed all cats seem to have this propensity. An instance occurred at Greenock on May 25 of the present year, when an infant of five months old, the child of a baker, was suffocated by a strange cat.”

To return to the Borders. A maiden can scarcely do a worse thing there than boil a dish-clout in her crock. She will be sure, in consequence, to lose all her lovers; or, in Scotch phrase, she would “boil all her lads awa.”

Thus in Durham, if you put milk in your tea before sugar, you lose your sweetheart.

If, on leaving your house, you see a black snail, seize it boldly by one of its horns and throw it over your left shoulder; you may then go on your way prosperously; but, if you fling it over your right shoulder, you will draw down ill-luck. This practice extends as far south as Lancashire. In Yorkshire it is unlucky to meet a white horse on leaving home; you must spit to avert misfortune.

Skir or kir-handed people, i.e. left-handed ones, are not safe for a traveller to meet on a Tuesday morning. On other days it is fortunate to meet them. Again, if you enter another man’s house with your “skir” foot foremost, you draw down evil on its inhabitants. If, therefore, you have carelessly done so, you must avert the mischief by going out, and making your entrance a second time with the right foot foremost. I conclude that this little superstition once held its ground in the South, for Dr. Johnson is said to have entertained it, and to have left a house and re-entered it right foot foremost, if on the first occasion he had planted his left foot on the threshold.