Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/98

90 through a reason never discussed, with supernatural powers, so the unhappy hare, like the unhappy cat, although banned and despised, is readily made use of in folk medicine. Thus we read in Notes and Queries of but a year ago that a Dorsetshire mother in the autumn of 1881 was somewhat troubled with the care of recently-born twins. "On paying a visit to inquire, after the mother, my wife was consulted as to the desirability of a dose of hare's brains (as a soporific). Mentioning the circumstance to my keeper in the hope of eliciting some information as to the prevalence of the belief, he told me that about a fortnight ago the wife of the keeper of the adjoining manor, who had been recently confined, called at his house and told his wife that she had been down to the squire's house to beg a hare's head from the cook in order to give the brains to her baby as a sedative." Cogan, we have seen, mentions that the ankle-bone of the foot of a hare is good against cramp. The hare appears to be occasionally employed as an Easter emblem in Germany.

NOTES, QUERIES, NOTICES, AND NEWS.

Children's Street Song.—(Folk-Lore Record, iv. 176). This is used in the following modified form by children in Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, and North Bucks:

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Fairies under Trees.—One of our readers has forwarded us an old document, dated Nov. 30th, 1817, containing a quaint description of