Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/239

 Rh true), and finally said its owner would find it at home on his return. He added a warning on giving salt out of the house, a most dangerous thing, and one which the pitman’s mother had done that day.

Returning home, they found that the shirt had been left there by a fellow-workman, who had carried it away in mistake, and that the house-mother had been guilty of the “dangerous act” of giving salt away. This danger is thus explained: If the salt passes into the hands of any person who has the power of wishing, i. e. of bringing down harm on another by uttering an ill wish, the possession of the salt places the giver entirely within the power of the wish. The same belief holds in Northumberland with regard to leaven. Mrs. Evans of Scremerston Vicarage, near Berwick, kindly informs me that there is only one person in the place who will give her a “set-off” if she has lost her leaven. All excuse themselves on one plea or another rather than give it even to the parson’s wife. Curiously enough this piece of superstition appears in Spain also.

The next Stokesley story is as follows. A miller, named W——, lost a set of new weights very mysteriously, and all his searchings and inquiries ended in disappointment; he could make out nothing about them. So he applied to the Wise-man. The miller seems to have been allowed the unusual privilege of stating his case, and the wizard, after consulting his books, announced that he knew about the weights; they should be restored; at present they were concealed in an “ass-midden.” Accordingly, in the course of a night or two, the weights appeared as mysteriously as they had vanished, being placed at the miller’s door, and “all clamed wi’ ass,” which, of course, was satisfactory.

Again, a young bull belonging to an inhabitant of the district was attacked by sickness, and in spite of all remedies was soon at what appeared the point of death—too weak to stand, and slung up by ropes to keep it from falling. The wise man was sent for, and in due time arrived at the house, but declined to speak of the animal; saying, in his usual way, that unless he could tell them all they could tell him, and a little more, it was not likely he could be of much use. At last he condescended