Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/331

 Rh are in like manner haunted by echoes of the fight; and the Northamptonshire peasant on Naseby field, and the Greek shepherd on the plains of Marathon, alike listen for them with thrilling heart.

I may, perhaps, allude here to the sympathy supposed to exist between bees and their owners, a belief in which seems to have extended over every part of our island. It is said here and there that bees will not thrive in a quarrelsome family; that if a swarm alight on a dead tree there will be a death in the owner’s house within a year—

but that a strange swarm settling in one’s garden brings good fortune; that stolen bees never thrive; that bees love children, “Bees have for thee no sting” (Lyra Innocentium); that if they make their nest in the roof of a house none of the girls born in it will marry; that bees must not be bought, they would thrive as ill as if they were stolen; they should be exchanged for another swarm in the following year, or bartered for something in kind; on the borders of Dartmoor the ordinary equivalent is a bag, i. e. half-a-sack of wheat; and, above all, that on the death of the master, or indeed of any member of his family, the bees will desert their hives, unless some one takes the house-key, raps with it three times on the board that supports the hives, informs the bees what has taken place, and fastens a bit of black crape to the hive. This last belief I know to be prevalent in Northumberland, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and Sussex, as well as Devonshire, and a Yorkshire lady speaks of it as follows: “When I came to F———, in 1847, everything was much as it had been when my husband’s mother was living. She had not then been dead a year. In the garden I noticed a row of bee skeps, to which were attached one or two pieces of black crape. The hives were empty. On inquiry, one of the servants said, ‘Ah! the bees are all flown, ma’am; they are offended because none of the family went to tell them of mistress’s death. I suppose the young ladies did not think of such things, and, though I put the bits of mourning on them, they all went away.’”