Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/76

54 In some of the western counties, however, the dishes are set upon a table or “bunker” (as they call a long chest) close to the deathbed; and it is actually said that while the attendants sit with their hands in the dishes they “spae” or tell fortunes, sing songs, or repeat rhymes, in the middle of which the corpse, it is averred, has been known to rise frowning, and place its cold hand in one of the dishes, thus presaging death to her whose hand was in that dish already.

The Dishaloof so far over, the company join hands and dance round the dishes, singing this burden, “A dis, a dis, a dis, a green griss, a dis, a dis, a dis.” Bread, cheese, and spirits are then placed on the table, and, when the company have partaken of them, they are at liberty to go home.

The candle for “saining” should be procured from a suspected witch or wizard, a seer or Elleree, or from a person with “schloof,” or flat feet, “ringlit-eyed,” that is with a great portion of white in the eye, or “lang-lipit,” that is, with thick projecting lips; for all these persons are unlucky, and, in this affair, unlucky really means fortunate in the extreme. Unless the old mosstroopers are belied, they preferred for saining a torch made from the fat of a slaughtered enemy, or at least of a murdered man. The saining candle must be kept burning through the night, and the table covered with a cloth so long as the dead body remains in the house. Some people also make a point of turning the cat out-of doors all the time.

The corpse must be watched till its burial by one of its kindred and a stranger, who may be relieved, when weary, by another relation and another stranger. In point of fact, however, they are seldom left to themselves. Neighbours assemble from a great distance to join them, and keep what is called “a sitting” while the sun is above the horizon, or after dark “a lykewake.” These gatherings are common in North Wales also, but, whereas the Welsh pass the night in reading the Scriptures and singing Psalms, a strange sort of merriment seems to have characterised the Scotch “lykewake.” Songs were sung and games played—Blind Harrie, for example, according to the old song of the “Humble Beggar:”