answer. ."* A note in the margin, with the signature of W. K., tells us, "this way of choosing Valentines by making little furrows in the ashes, and imposing such and such names on such line or furrow is practised in Kent and many other parts.—W. K.” Leeks and Ramsons.-In the West of England the following rhymes preserve a popular belief, which, without being actually a superstition, is very much akin to it. "Eate leekes in Lide, and ramsins in May, And all the yeare after physitians may play."+ Lide is a word used in the West for March; and ramsins, or as it is more generally written, ramsons, is a species of wild garlic. Wind. "On Malvern Hills, in Worcestershire, and thereabouts, when they fanne their corne and wante wind, they cryyoule! youle! youle!' to invite it, which word, no doubt, is a corruption of Eolus, the God of the winds."‡ Teeth. "When children shale (i. e. shed) their teeth, the women use to wrap or put salt about the tooth, and so throw it into a good fire. The above-mentioned Cramer saith that in Germany in his native country, some women will bid their children to take the tooth which is fallen or taken out, and goe into a dark corner of the house or parlour, and cast the same into it, thereby saying these words: 'Mouse, here I give thee a tooth of bone, But give thou me an iron one.'§ (or iron tooth) believing that another good tooth will grow in its place." * Aubrey's Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme, MS. folio 111. Idem, folio 105. Idem, folio 110; but I have already shown that youle has nothing at all to do with Eolus. § Idem, folio 104. Hares.—“If a hare crosseth the way, or one stumble at the threshold going out, it is still held ominous among the country people."* Holy Mawle.-If we may trust Aubrey, and I have no where else met with an allusion to this belief, the people at one time used to imagine that a mallet, or wooden hammer, was hung up behind the church door, with which sons might knock their fathers on the head, upon the old gentlemen's attaining the ripe age of seventy. His words are,-"The holy mawle, which they fancy hung behind the church door, which, when the father was seventie, the sonne might fetch to knock his father on the head, as effete and of no more use.”†—Mawle is the same as mall, and signifies a wooden hammer. Sieve and Shears.—“ The magick of the sive and sheeres (I thinke) is in Virgil's Eclogues. The sheeres are stuck in a sieve, and two maydens hold up the sieve with the top of their fingers by the handle of the shiers; then say, 'By St. Peter or St. Paul such a one hath stoln such a thing.' The other saith, 'By St. Peter or St. Paul he hath not stoln it.' After many such adjurations the sieve will turne at the name of the thiefe."‡ Magpie.—“ When a magpie chatters on a tree by the house, it declares the coming of a stranger thither that night. So likewise a thiefe in the candle."§ Running Streams.-" Mol Tayler was advised by the wizard of Feversh. to leap three times over a small running streame, to prevent her being taken when she escaped out of prison."|| Hag-ridden." A receipt to cure a horse of being bagTake bitter-sweet and holly, and twist them ridden. * Aubrey's Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme, MS. folio 109. + Id. idem. § Idem, folio 111. Id. idem. || Id. idem. together, and hang it about the horse's neck like a garland. It will certainly cure him. Probat."* The probatum at the end of this recipe is admirable. Aubrey seems resolved that a good story shall not be disbelieved for want of testimony, but, as if not quite satisfied, he gives us a second remedy against the same misfortune in these words" In the West of England, (and I believe almost every where in this nation) the carters, and groomes, and hostlers, doe hang a flint that has a hole in it over horses that are hagge-ridden, for a preservative against it." Whinny-Moor.-Grief and joy would seem to have been strangely blended together in the funeral rites of our ancestors, with a plentiful mixture also of superstition. In Yorkshire the vulgar believed, even in Aubrey's time,t that upon the death of any one, his soul went over to Whinny-Moor, a place which had its name from the abundance of whins, i. e. furze, growing on it, and which was therefore particularly calculated to test the good or evil qualities of the soul in its pilgrimage. At such times, what Aubrey calls a præfica,—that is, a woman hired to lament at funerals and sing the funeral song,-would attend and chaunt the following dirge for the benefit of the departed, or, as it may be rather suspected, of the living, for nothing could be better calculated to wake the dormant charity of the superstitious. "This ean night, this ean night, every night and awle; Fire and fleet, and candle light, and Christ receive thy sawle; * Aubrey's Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme, MS. folio 113. + Idem, folio 114. In a marginal note Aubrey explains fleet by water, but he gives no authority for his assertion, and I can not help suspecting that he has mistaken the word for sleet. * When thou from hence doest pass away, To Whinny-Moor thou comest at last, If ever thou gave hosen or shun, every night and awle, Sitt thee down and putt them on, and Christ receive thy sawle. But if hosen nor shoon thou never gave nean, every night and awle, The whinnes shall prick thee to the bare beane, and Christ receive thy sawle. From Whinny-Moor that thou mayst pass, every night and awle, To Brig o'Dread thou comest at last, and Christ receive thy sawle. From Brig of Dread, no broader than a thread,* every night and awle, To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last, and Christ receive thy sawle. If ever thou gave either milke or drinke, every night and awle, The fire shall never make thee shrink, and Christ receive thy sawle. But if milk nor drink thou never gave nean, every night and awle, The fire shall burn thee to the bare beane, Aubrey here favours us with a various reading, "From Brig of Dread that thou may'st pass." As these words have been given in the preceding part of the stanza, and do not amend the meaning, I have preferred what the reader now finds in the text. The whole reminds me of some of the monkish Latin hymns, which have a tone of quaint solemnity about them, that charms in spite of their want of classic purity-and I might add of their want of poetry. New Moon. At one time it was a custom among the women to welcome the new moon with a curtsy, and sometimes with a blessing, the regular formula being, "'tis a fine moon, God bless her," a relick no doubt of Druidism, or of Roman superstition. But the moon appears to have always exerted more influence over the minds of the superstitious than the stars or even the sun itself. Amongst other popular rites, Aubrey records that the women would sit astride across a gate or style on the first evening of the new moon's appearance, and interrogate her as to their future husbands.* "All hail to thee, Moon; all hail to thee; I prithee, good moon declare to me This night who my husband must be." Invisible Beans. "The Jewes have strange fancies concerning the invisible beane. Sc. Take the head of a man that dies of a natural death, and set it in the ground, and in his eie set a beane, cover it with earth, and enclose it about, that nobody may look into it; and without the enclosure set another beane or two. When those without the enclosure are ripe, that within will be ripe also. Then take the bean-stalke within the enclosure, and take a child, which hold fast by the hand, and the child must shell the beanes. There will be but one invisible beane of them all, which when the child have, the other party can not see her."† Aubrey, however, who relates this story refuses to believe it, which considering his usual capacity of belief, seems somewhat capricious. He adds, however, "thus much I am morally certain of, that about 1680 two (or three) Jews merchants did desire of Mr. Wyld Clarke, merchant of London, leave to make this following experiment in his garden at Mile End, which * See Aubrey, ut supra, fol. 116. Idem, fol. 167. |