Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/270

 262 lid was taken off, and the remains of a beautiful young girl were revealed. The men stood aside, and the four women bent over the coffin, and deft fingers went rapidly through the dead girl's hair and shroud, and all the pins that could be found on the remains were removed. Then a needle and thread were procured, and the shroud and hair sewn back into their places. The lid was then screwed back on the coffin, and the remains were again lowered into the grave, which was at once filled up. It was learned that the women were of a very superstitious nature, and that they believed that if a corpse is buried with a shroud pinned up, instead of sewed, the soul will be confined to the grave for eternity, and the persons guilty of the mistake will be haunted till death by the ghost of the victim. A mistake was made in this case, and one of the women claims that she had seen the ghost for two or three nights successively, and she could stand it no longer; so she got the other women together, and between them they hired the men to disinter the body. The ghost has not been seen since.—Bath Herald, 13th March, 1886.

Some curious Scottish Customs, temp. 1535.—In a diary of Peter Suavenius, during his mission in England and Scotland, there is recorded that "there are trees in Scotland from which birds are produced; he is told it is undoubtedly true; those birds which fall from the trees into water become animated, but those which fall to the ground do not; the figures of birds are found in the heart of the wood of the trees and on the root; the birds themselves (which are very delicate eating) do not generate .... There is a place within a circuit of eight miles in which cocks never crow .... The Scots who inhabit the woods live like Scythians; they have no bread and live on raw venison .... In England there is a noble family named Constable, who formerly received their fee from the king of the Danes; now annually, at Christmas, the oldest member of the family goes to the seaside northwards, and cries out three times that if there is any one who will receive the rent for the king of the Danes he is ready to pay it; at last, tieing a coin to an arrow, he shoots it as far as possible into the sea."—See Forty-fifth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Appendix, p. 15.

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