FOLK LORE MISCELLANIES.
Yorkshire Tradition.—The following tradition of Osmotherly, in Yorkshire, was related to me as being current in that county. Can you inform me if it is authentic?
Some years ago there lived in a secluded part of Yorkshire a lady who had an only son named Os or Oscar. Strolling one day with her child they met a party of gipsies, who were anxious to tell her the child's fortune. After being much importuned she assented to their request. To the mother's astonishment and grief they prognosticated that the child would be drowned. In order to avert so dreadful a calamity, the infatuated mother purchased some land and built a house on the summit of a high hill, where she lived with her son a long time in peace and seclusion. Happening one fine summer's day in the course of a perambulation to have fatigued themselves, they sat down on the grass to rest and soon fell asleep. While enjoying this repose, a spring rose up from the ground, which caused such an inundation as to overwhelm them, and side by side they found a watery grave. After this had occurred, the people residing in the neighbourhood named it Os-by-his-mother-lay, which has since been corrupted into Osmotherly.
R. W. Carter.
Custom on St. Thomas's Day (Dec. 21).—At Harvington, in Worcestershire, it is the custom on St. Thomas's Day for persons (chiefly children) to go round the village begging for apples, and singing the following rhymes:
"Wissal, wassail through the town,
If you've got any apples, throw them down.
Up with the stocking, and down with the shoe,
If you've got no apples, money will do.
The jug is white, and the ale is brown,
This is the best house in the town."
Cuthbert Bede, B.A.
Custom on Innocents' Day (Dec. 28).—At Norton (near Evesham) it is the custom on Dec. 28 to ring, first a muffled peal for the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and then an unmuffled peal of joy for the deliverance of the Infant Christ.
Cuthbert Bede, B.A.
Marriage Custom at Knutsford, Cheshire.—A singular but pleasing custom exists among the inhabitants of Knutsford in Cheshire. On the occasion of a wedding, when the bride has set out for the church, a relative invariably spreads on the pavement, which is composed of pebbles, before her house, a quantity of silver sand, there called "greet," in the form of wreaths of flowers, and writes, with the same material, wishes for her happiness. This, of course, is soon discovered by others, and immediately, especially if the bride or bridegroom are favorites, appear before most of the houses numerous flowers in sand. It is said that this custom arose from the only church they had being without bells, and therefore, to give notice of a wedding, they adopted it; and though now there are other churches and a peal of bells, they still adhere to the above method of communicating intelligence of such happy events. Why sand should be used I have not been able to learn, and I should be much obliged for any information on the point, there being no sandpits in the locality of Knutsford, or such like reason for its use.
One circumstance I may mention connected with weddings there. On the return of the party from church, it is usual to throw money to the boys, who, of course, follow, and if this is omitted, the latter keep up a cry of "a buttermilk wedding."
Russell Gole.
Folk Lore in Hampshire.—In Hampshire the country people believe that a healing power exists in the alms collected at the administration of the sacrament, and many of them use the money as a charm to cure the diseases of the body. A short time ago a woman came to a clergyman, and brought with her half-a-crown, asking at the same time for five "sacrament sixpences" in exchange. She said that one of her relations was ill, and that she wished to use the money as a charm to drive away the disease. This superstition may have arisen from the once prevalent custom of distributing the alms in the church to those of the poor who were present at the sacrament.
I have heard that the negroes in Jamaica attach the same "gifts of healing" to the consecrated bread, and often, if they can escape notice, will carry it away with them. As no account of this superstition seems to be recorded in "N. & Q.," perhaps you would like to "make a note of it."
F. M. Middleton.
Propitiating the Fairies.—Having some years since, on a Sunday afternoon, had occasion to ride on horseback between two towns in the eastern part of Cornwall, I met a christening party, also on horseback, headed by the nurse with a baby in her arms. Making a halt as I approached her, she stopped me, and producing a cake, presented it to me, and insisted on my taking it. Several years after, when in the Isle of Man, I had the opportunity of hearing an elderly person relate several pieces of folk lore respecting the witches and fairies in that island. It had been customary, within his recollection, for a woman, when carrying a child to be christened, to take with her a piece of bread and cheese, to give to the first person she met, for the purpose of saving the child from witchcraft or the fairies. Another custom was that of the "Queeltah," or salt put under the churn to keep off bad people. Stale water was thrown on the plough "to keep it from the little
folks." A cross was tied in the tail of a cow "to keep her from bad bodies." On May morning it was deemed of the greatest importance to avoid going to a neighbour's house for fire; a turf was therefore kept burning all night at home. Flowers growing in a hedge, especially green or yellow ones, were good to keep off the fairies. And finally, the last cake was left "behind the turf-flag for the little people."
J. W. Thomas.
Dewsbury.
Cornish Folk Lore: King Arthur in the Form of a Raven.—In Jarvis's translation of Don Quixote, book II. chap. v., the following passage occurs:
"'Have you not read, sir,' answered Don Quixote, 'the annals and histories of England, wherein are recorded the famous exploits of King Arthur, whom in our Castilian tongue we always call King Artus; of whom there goes an old tradition, and a common one all over that kingdom of Great Britain, that this king did not die, but that by magic art he was turned into a raven; and that, in process of time, he shall reign again, and recover his kingdom and sceptre; for which reason it cannot be proved, that, from that time to this, any Englishman has killed a raven?'"
My reason for transcribing this passage is to record the curious fact that the legend of King Arthur's existence in the form of a raven was still repeated as a piece of folk lore in Cornwall about sixty years ago. My father, who died about two years since at the age of eighty, spent a few years of his youth in the neighbourhood of Penzance. One day, as he was walking along Marazion Green with his fowling-piece on his shoulder, he saw a raven at a distance and fired at it. An old man who was near immediately rebuked him, telling him that he ought on no account to have shot at a raven, for that King Arthur was still alive in the form of that bird. My father was much interested when I drew his attention to the passage which I have quoted above. Perhaps some of your Cornish or Welsh correspondents may be able to say whether the legend is still known among the people of Cornwall or Wales.
Edgar MacCulloch.
Guernsey.
St. Clement's Apple Feast in Staffordshire.—On the feast of St. Clement's (Nov. 23) the children go round to the various houses in the villages to which they belong singing the following doggerel:
"Clemany! Clemany! Clemany mine!
A good red apple and a pint of wine,
Some of your mutton and some of your veal,
If it is good, pray give me a deal;
If it is not, pray give some salt.
Butler, butler, fill your bowl;
If thou fillst it of the best,
The Lord'll send your soul to rest;
If thou fillst it of the small,
Down goes butler, bowl and all.
Pray, good mistress, send to me
One for Peter, one for Paul,
One for Him who made us all,
Apple, pear, plum, or cherry,
Any good thing to make us merry;
A bouncing buck and a velvet chair,
Clement comes but once a year;
Off with the pot and on with the pan,
A good red apple and I'll begone."
How the above came to be conglomerated I know not, as there seem to be at least three separate compositions pressed into St. Clement's service.
I shall be glad to know if any of your contributors can furnish farther illustrations of St. Clement's apple feast. I believe, in Worcestershire, St. Catherine and St. Clement unite in becoming the patrons on these occasions.
G. E. T. S. R. N.
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.—Another German custom prevalent in Philadelphia is the custom of celebrating the departure of the old year and the arrival of the new by discharges of fire-arms. As soon as the sun sets the firing commences, and it is kept up all night with every description of musket, fowling-piece, and pistol. It is called "firing out the old year" and "firing in the new year."
Uneda.
Philadelphia.