Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/403

Rh Cornish Harvest Custom still surviving in Places.—The last sheaf is decked with ribbons. Two strong-voiced men are chosen and placed (one with the sheaf) on opposite sides of a valley. One shouts, "I've gotten it." The other shouts, "What hast gotten?" The first answers "I'se gotten the neck."

N.B.—The spelling of this dialect is only conjectural. The last sheaf is called the "neck."

House Custom.—The late Lord Houghton published in 1841 a pamphlet entitled "One Tract more, or the System illustrated by 'The Tracts for the Times' externally regarded. By a Layman." The following note, which occurs on p. 22, may well be reproduced in the Folklore Journal:

"There is still a custom, in parts of the South of England, for a peasant, on moving from one house to another, to take with him as a good charm a black cat, a bag of salt, and a Bible."

Story of Solomon's Wisdom.—Mr. George Hibbert, together with his Derbyshire sayings and other scraps, sent me a copy of an old "printed leaflet," entitled "Cards spiritualised; or, the Soldier's Almanack, Bible, and Prayerbook: Showing how one Richard Middleton was taken before the Mayor of the City he was in, for using a Pack of Cards in the Church during divine service; being a droll, merry, and humorous account of an odd affair that happened to a Private Soldier in the 60th Regiment." The soldier defends himself by the plea that the several cards suggest serious thoughts to his mind, and in so doing introduces the following story: "When I see the queen, it puts me in mind of the Queen of Sheba, who came from the furthermost part of the world to hear the wisdom of King Solomon, for she was as wise a woman as he was a man; she brought fifty boys and fifty girls all clothed in boys' apparel, to show before King Solomon, for him to see which were boys and which were girls, but he