Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/194

186 Oh, repent; oh, repent, you wicked, wicked men! Repent while you are here! For when the Day of Judgment comes There's no repentance there.

There is a well where water flows To quench the heat of sin; There is a tree where true love grows To lead our lives therein.

The song is begun, and it's almost done: No longer can we stay. So God bless you all, both great and small, And send you a joyful May!"

Cornish Tradition about the Epiphany.—There is an old Cornish tradition that at Christmas-night, at midnight, the sheep out in the fields turned east and bowed their heads, in memory of the sheep belonging to the shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem, who are supposed to have bowed their heads on the angelic apparition. Certain persons have in recent times been incredulous on the point; but some old people now say, that, if you go out on the fields at Twelfth-night, at midnight, you will see the sheep bow their heads. Some peasants near the Land's End affirm that they have seen this done, and that by it they prove that the old Christmas-day was the true one; for the sheep bow on Twelfth-night now and not at Christmas-night, as they used to do.

Burning-Drakes.—"At an early period divining-rods and other superstitious means were resorted to by the miners when searching for mines; and, even in later periods, certain atmospheric phenomena have been denominated burning-drakes by the vulgar, and their apparent fall to the earth was thought to point out the situation of rich and undiscovered veins of ore: by which class of persons whistling in a mine was supposed to frighten away the ore or lessen its chance of continuance; and hence they say arose the custom that, however miners may sing or halloo when at their work, no boy or man is to whistle, under pain of severe chastisement from his fellow-miners."—(General View of the Agriculture and Minerals of Derbyshire, by John Varey, sen. vol. i. [1815] pp. 316-317.)—What are burning-drakes?

Budleigh Salterton, Devon.