Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/66

44 when a party of friends were going on board a vessel at Scarborough, the captain astonished them by declining to allow one of them to enter it. “Not that young lady,” he said, “she whistles.” Curiously enough the vessel was lost on her next voyage; so, had the poor girl set foot on it, the misfortune would certainly have been ascribed to her. It is remarkable that no miner in Devonshire or Cornwall whistles underground, or allows others to do so. I have conversed with them about it, and do not gather that they think it unlucky, but unseemly and irreverent. All assure me that it is never done in a mine even by the youngest boy.

A crowing hen is counted on the Borders a forerunner of death. Thus, a few years ago, we are told, an old woman in the parish of East Kilbride heard one of her hens crow loudly on the top of a dyke before her house. She mentioned the circumstance to a neighbour, saying that no good would come of it, and accordingly her husband soon died. About a month afterwards she heard the creature again, and within a few days tidings reached her of the death of her only son. A week later the hen crowed once more, and the eldest daughter died. On this the old woman was roused to desperation; she seized the warning bird, wrung its neck, and burned it.

Mr. Wilkie records the following singular portent of death, which took place about seven years before it was related to him: “A farmer’s wife, who resided on the banks of the Ale, near St. Boswell’s, looking out at window, thought she saw a funeral approaching; and at once mentioned the circumstance to some neighbours, then with her in the house. They ran out to look, but came back and sat down again, saying she must be mistaken, for there was nothing of the kind to be seen; the woman felt restless, however, and out of spirits; she could not help going to the window again, and again she saw the funeral moving on. Her friends ran out-of-doors and looked along the road, but still could perceive nothing; a third time she went to the window, and exclaimed, ‘It is fast coming on, and will soon be at the door.’ No other person could discern anything; but within half an hour a confused noise was heard outside, and the farm-servants