FOLK LORE.
Eagles' Feathers.
—Will any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." favour me with an explanation of the allusion in the following passage?
"You must cast away the workes of darknes, and then put on the armour of light: first you must put off, and then put on. As the eagle's feathers will not lie with any other feathers, but consume them which lie with them: so the wedding garment will not bee worne with filthie garments," &c.
The passage is from a sermon on Rom. xiii. 14., entitled "The Wedding Garment." It is contained in a volume in small 4to. (Lond. 1614), the earlier portion of which contains six sermons by Maister Henry Smith; and the latter, in which the above occurs, though it has no distinct title-page, yet appears, from style and general appearance, to be by the same author.
ARNCLIFFE.
East Wind on Candlemas Day.
—The following couplet embodies a little bit of folk lore which, from the long prevalence of easterly winds from which we are suffering, may interest some of your readers.
"When the wind's in the east on Candlemas day,
There it will stick till the second of May."
G. B.
Placing Snuff on a Corpse.
—"The custom of placing a plate of salt on the body of the dead" has already been noticed in "N. & Q." I am informed that a custom obtains in some parts of Ireland, of placing a plate of snuff in the same situation; and that it is etiquette for all those who are invited to the funeral to take a pinch on arriving at the house of mourning. Hence has arisen the not very delicate threat, "I'll get a pinch of snuff off your belly yet!" by which Paddy would intimate to his rival his intention to survive him, and to crow over his remains. This must, indeed, be a pinch of "rale Irish."
ALFRED GATTY.