Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/145

 Rh

add—

or, as it runs in some of our midland counties,—

The Lancashire version is—

Archbishop Whately tells us, however, that in Ireland the swallow is called the “devil’s bird” by the vulgar, who hold that there is a certain hair on every one’s head, which if a swallow can pick off, the man is doomed to eternal perdition. In Scotland, on the other hand, the pretty little yellow-hammer is called the “devil’s bird,” and a superstitious dislike to it extends as far south as Northumberland. My friend the vicar of Stamfordham tells me that when the boys of his parish find its nest they destroy it, saying:

A cock crowing on the threshold or a humblebee entering a house are in Buckinghamshire deemed omens of a visitor. To turn the bee out is a most inhospitable action.

As to the robin redbreast, it is invested with a sacred character all Christendom over, though various reasons are assigned for it in different countries. In Brittany it is reverenced for an act of devotion to the Crucified Saviour, in extracting one thorn from