Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/391

 Rh almost immediately, and entered the circle. From that time her rich neighbour detested her and warned the neighbours against her. The poor creature was persecuted so constantly that she had to appeal to the Pfarrer for protection, and he caused the chief sinner to be threatened with prison by the legal authorities, while he himself spoke of penalties "worse than prison," and told his people from the pulpit that he should "leave this sin lying on the congregation till the poor outcast was again kindly received by her fellow parishioners." At this threat the persecution ceased, but it is to be doubted whether the opinion of the villagers was in the least changed.

In Holstein there is a saying that if you eat the three first daisies that you find in the spring you will not suffer from fever during the year.

In Hamburg people say "the angels are playing at skittles," when it thunders. It is the custom in this city to take out the marking letters from the clothes in which a corpse is buried. If this is not done a person of the same name and from the same house as the dead man. or woman will speedily die.

In Greece there will be a wedding in the house where myrtle grows in the form of a crown.

Professor Stephens mentions several variants of the story of Thor slaughtering one of his goats in his Professor S. Bugge's Studies on Northern Mythology Shortly Examined, p. 116, but he does not appear to have met with the following folk-tale, which is evidently the old heathen legend slightly altered:—

"Once upon a time, in the early days of the world, the Lord God often took upon Him the form of a man and descended to earth, and walked about among men. Now one night He was belated at the hour when all creatures seek repose, in a village high up in the mountains of Bigorre. He called to beg hospitality at the doors of many rich people, but one and all refused to take Him into their houses, and He could find no shelter except in the hut of a poor cowherd. And as the cowherd had nothing to set before the poor traveller for supper, he generously killed his only calf, and made it ready, and set meat before Him. And God said to the poor cowherd, 'My dear host, put aside all the bones of that calf except this one, which I will take.'