Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/229

Rh goldfield, was specially invited by the principal chiefs of the Mount Poole and Mokely tribes to attend a ceremony of "making rain." On the day appointed the natives, with the exception of the females, who are not allowed to see either the rain-stone or the ceremony, assembled and formed in a circle, in the centre of which stood the oldest chief and Mr. Slee, no other person being permitted to enter the circle. After a great deal of talking, dancing, singing, and mystical performances had been gone through by all the natives, the old chief produced the "rain-stone," which had been carefully kept wrapped up in leaves and a piece of rag, and showed it to Mr. Slee, but would not let him touch it. He then buried it in the sand.

On one of the creeks near the diggings are some marks of a high flood, which the natives said took place after they had performed the above-mentioned ceremony over an unusually large rain-stone.—From Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, vol. viii. pp. 436-437. (Feb. 21, 1884.)

Jottings from Bliss's Reliquiæ Hearnianæ.—Great Marlow, in Bucks, tho' a poor market and but a poor town, is yet very pleasantly situated upon the Thames. There is plenty of fish, corn, and wood there, whence the people there commonly say: Here is fish for catching, corn for snatching, and wood for fetching.—Vol. ii. p. 154.

[Feb. 27, 1722-3.] It hath been an old custom in Oxford for the scholars of all houses, on Shrove Tuesday, to go to dinner at ten o'clock (at which time the little bell, called pancake bell, rings, or at least should ring, at St. Maries), and at four in the afternoon; and it was always followed in Edmund Hall, as long as I have been in Oxford, till yesterday, when they went to dinner at twelve, and to supper at six, nor were there any fritters at dinner, as there used always to be. When laudable old customs alter 'tis a sign learning dwindles.—Vol. ii. p. 156.

They have a custom at Northmore, near Witney, in Oxfordshire, for men and women, every Easter Sunday, after evening service, to throw in the churchyard great quantities of apples, and those that have been married that year are to throw three times as many as any of the rest. After which all go to the minister's house, and eat bread and cheese (he is obliged to have the best cheese he can get) and drink ale.