Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/61

Rh liable to be "dumped." He adds that the dumping was not (as some one had suggested) the exclusive function of the women reapers; and that the custom of interposing a sheaf between the sufferer and the ground seems, where it exists, to be only a modern refinement. "Dumping" was also practised in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, for Mrs. Nicholson, of Eden Lodge, Morningside, Edinburgh, remembers that as a girl at Bonaly, Collinton, not many years ago, she was warned not to go into the harvest fields, as one of the servants had been "dumped."

Sutherlandshire Folk-Lore.—Isabella Ross, of Sutherlandshire, a servant in our family, told the following to my mother:—

"On entering a house everyone is expected to bless it by saying, 'Peace to this house.' When she was at home last summer for her holiday, she was put out of a house because she had forgotten to bless it.

"It is very lucky to meet a horse and cart, or a man.

"A first-foot on New Year's Day must be a man; a woman would not be allowed to come into the house. The 12th of January is their New Year's Day, they never wish a good new-year to anyone before that.

"If people are going on some important errand, and the errand fails, they say that the first person they met must have been unlucky. If anyone leaves (forgets) a coat, umbrella, or anything behind them, they would rather stand and cry for a week than go back. (This was told with great energy and in these very words.)

"The harvest customs seem to be much the same as those at Balquhidder (see Folk-Lore Journal, vol. vi. p. 268 seq) They hang up the 'maiden' generally over the mantel-piece (chimney-piece) till