Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/148

 126 “If,” says Mr. Wilkie, “the bat is observed, while flying, to rise, and then descend again earthwards, you may know that the witches’ hour is come—the hour in which they have power over every human being who is not specially shielded from their influence.”

The raven, crow, and magpie, are ominous birds on the Border, as elsewhere. A North-country servant thus accounted for the unluckiness of the magpie to her master, the late Canon Humble. “It was” the girl said, “the only bird which did not go into the Ark with Noah; it liked better to sit outside, jabbering over the drowned world.” A yet quainter reason was given for it by the Durham lad, who said the magpie was a hybrid between the raven and the dove, and therefore, unlike every other bird and beast, had not been baptized in the waters of the Deluge. Yet, uncanny as the creature is, and mischievous too, there are parts of the Continent where no one dares kill it. An English traveller in Sweden once saw a flock of magpies greedily devouring the pig’s food, and, having a gun with him, offered to shoot some. He did so, and the farmer thanked him. heartily, but expressed his hopes that no harm might befall him in consequence.

I received my first lesson respecting the portents to be drawn from magpies very early in life. Well do I remember, when a