Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/55

Rh shirt with burs stuck all over it; and in this condition he was carried in procession through the town in a hand-barrow. This was done to bring better luck to the fishing.

There were formerly fishermen in Forfarshire, who, on a hare crossing their path while on their way to their boats, would not put to sea that day.

In some parts of Scotland, when a horseshoe that has been found is nailed to the mast of a fishing-boat, it is supposed to ensure the boat's safety in a storm.

A practice common among the Cromarty fishermen of the last age was termed "soothing the waves." When beating up in stormy weather along a lee shore, it was customary for one of the men to take his place on the weather gunwale, and there continue waving his hand in a direction opposite to the sweep of the sea, in the belief that this species of appeal to it would induce it to lessen its force. It was also (perhaps still is) customary with fishermen and seafaring men, when the sails were drooping against the mast, and the vessel lagging in her course, earnestly to invoke the wind in a shrill trembling whistle, with their faces turned in the direction whence they expect the breeze, pausing when a slight increase of air made itself felt, and renewing their solicitations yet more earnestly when it had died away.

Ellen E. Guthrie.

NOTES ON HARVEST CUSTOMS.

IN the following notes, where my information was derived from correspondence, I have thought it best, for the sake of accuracy, to give the writer's own words.

With regard to harvest customs in Ayrshire, I have received the following note from my sister. It is dated—

"Lanfine, Ayrshire, Oct. 4th, 1888.

"Caldwell says that in her part of the country (South Ayrshire), the last sheaf-cutting is called 'cutting the hare or hair, she does not