Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/286

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This year we have had very severe weather the first days of April, and to account for this one of the natives state they are borrowed from March, and are called the "Borrowing Days."

In all mountainous districts here as elsewhere in Ireland March is the severest month on cattle: "an old cow on the 31st of March began to curse and swear at March, tossing her tail in the air, and saying, to the devil I pitch you—you are gone and April has come, and now I will have grass. March, however, was too much for her, and he borrowed three days from April, during which he made such bad weather that the old cow died."

In planting potatoes or sowing turnips the most careful man may miss a ridge—he may close in the potatoe ridge before the "slits" are put in, or he may skip a ridge when sowing the turnip-seed. In either case it is considered most unlucky, as as there is sure to be a death in his family before the year is out.

Neither of the above traditions are confined to the co. Donegal, as I have heard them elsewhere, or modifications of them.

In the Co. Wicklow I heard of a man who closed in two ridges of potatoes without having dropped the "slits." As he was an old man passed "the span," he said he was to go, and immediately had a tomb erected for himself, with name, blank for number of year, and blank for date: that was five years ago, and he is living still.

St. Mark's Eve.—In Yorkshire the old custom of sitting and watching on the night of St. Mark's Eve in the porches of churches from 11 p.m. till 1 a.m. is still kept by the lower classes. In the third year of its performance it is supposed that the watchers will see