The Goose.
Should a goose lay a soft egg, a small egg, or two eggs in a day, it is a sign of misfortune to the owner of that goose.
An old woman in Llandrinio parish, Montgomeryshire, who lived in a cottage by the side of the Severn, and who possessed a breed of geese that laid eggs and hatched twice a year, when I asked her the time that geese should begin to lay, said:—
Before St. Valentine’s Day
Every good goose will lay.
and she added:—
By St. Chad,
Every good goose, and bad.
St. Chad’s Day is March the 2nd.
Mr. Samuel Williams, Fron, Selattyn, gave me the following version of the above ditty:—
On Candlemas Day,
Every good goose begins to lay.
Every good goose ought to lay
On Candlemas Day.
Candlemas Day is February 2nd.
Geese should sit so as to hatch their young when the moon waxes and not when it wanes, for, otherwise, the goslings would not thrive. The lucky one in the family should place the eggs for hatching under the goose or hen.
For the following paragraph I am indebted to “Ffraid,” a writer in Bye-Gones, vol. i., p. 88:—
“The goose is thought to be a silly bird, and hence the expression, ‘You silly goose,’ or ‘You stupid goose,’ as applied to a person. The falling snow is believed to be the effect of celestial goose-feathering, and the patron of geese—St. Michael—is supposed to be then feathering his protegés. The first goose brought to table is called a Michaelmas goose; a large annual fair at Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant is called ‘Ffair y cwarter Gwydd,’ the quarter goose fair. Seven geese on grass land are supposed to eat as much grass as will keep a cow. Permanent grass land is called ‘Tir Gwydd,’ goose land. A bed of goose feathers is required to complete a well-furnished house. The fat of geese, called ‘goose-oil,’ is a recipe for many ailments. A small bone in the head of a goose, called the ‘goose’s tooth,’ is carried in the pocket for luck, and is a sure preventative against toothache.”
Much of the above paragraph is common to most parts of Wales, but the writer used to be told, when he was a lad, that the snow was caused by “the old woman feathering her geese,” and a Michaelmas goose was called a green goose, as well as a “Michaelmas goose.”
The Crow.
The crow figures much in Welsh folk-lore. In many ways he is made to resemble the magpie; thus, when one crow or one magpie was seen, it was thought to foretell misfortune, as implied by the saying:—
Un frân ddu,
Lwc ddrwg i mi.
But should the spectator shout out in a defiant way:—
Hen frân ddu,
Gras Duw i mi,
no harm would follow. The former lines in English would be:—
One crow I see,
Bad luck to me.
But this foretold evil, brought about by the old black crow, could be counteracted by repeating the following words, (a translation of the second couplet), with a pause between each line, and thus the last line would assume the form of a prayer:—
Old Black Crow!
God, grace bestow;
or the evil could be hurled back upon the Old Black Crow by the repetition of these words:—
Hen frân ddu,
Gras Duw i mi,
Lwc ddrwg i ti.
Freely translated, these lines would be:—
Old Black Crow!
God’s grace to me,
Bad luck to thee.
In the English-speaking parts of Wales, such as along the borders of Montgomeryshire, adjoining Shropshire, I have heard the following doggerel lines substituted for the Welsh:—
Crow, crow, get out of my sight,
Before I kill thee to-morrow night.
The bad luck implied by the appearance of one crow
could also be overcome, as in the case of the magpie, by making a cross on the ground, with finger or stick.
Although one crow implied bad luck, two crows meant good luck; thus we have these lines:—
Dwy frân ddu,
Lwc dda i mi.Two black crows,
Good luck to me.
Many prognostications were drawn from the appearance of crows. A crow seen on the highest branch of a tree implied that the person seeing it should shortly see his or her sweetheart. The manner in which they flew foretold a wedding or a burying. When they fly in a long line there is to be a wedding, if crowded together a funeral.
There is a common expression in Montgomeryshire—“Dwy frân dyddyn”—“The two crows of the farm”—just as if each farm had its two crows, either as guardians of the farm—for two crows implied good luck—or as if they were located by couples in various places, which places became their feeding ground and homes. This, however, is not true of rooks, which feed in flocks and roost in flocks.