Roving Tinkers.
In the Irish county of Donegal there is a tradition antagonistic to the race of tinkers. The alleged cause of this is the belief that, when the blacksmith was ordered to make nails for the Cross, he refused, but that the tinker consented. Hence he and his race had cast on them the doom of being perpetual wanderers, without any roof to cover them.
The Freischutz.
The free-shooters is the name given in the legend to a hunter or marksman who, by entering into a compact with the devil, procured balls, six of which infallibly hit, however great the distance, while the seventh, or, according to some, one of the seven, belonged to the devil, who directed it at his pleasure. Legends of this nature were rife among the troopers of Germany of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and during the thirty years' war. The story was adapted, in 1843, to the opera composed by Weber in 1821, which has made it known in all civilized countries.
Moon-struck.
In the 121st Psalm it is written of those who put their trust in God's protection, "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." The allusion to the moon is explained by the common belief in the East that exposure to the moon's rays while sleeping is injurious. Travelers in oriental countries have noticed that when the natives slept out of doors they invariably, if the moon was shining, covered their faces.
Curious Locality for Saying Prayers.
Francis Atkins was porter at the palace gate at Salisbury from the time of Bishop Burnet to the period of his death, in 1761, at the age of 104 years. It was his office every night to wind up the clock, which he was capable of performing regularly till within a year of his decease, though on the summit of the palace. In ascending the lofty flight of stairs, he usually made a halt at a particular place and said his evening prayers. He lived a regular and temperate life, and took a great deal of exercise; he walked well, and carried his frame upright and well-balanced to the last.
Egyptian Physicians.
Montaigne says it was an Egyptian law that the physician, for the first three days, should take charge of a patient at the patient's peril, but afterwards at his own. He mentions that, in his time, physicians gave their pills in odd numbers, appointed remarkable days in the year for taking medicine, gathered their simples at certain hours, assumed austere and even severe looks, and prescribed, among their choice drugs, the left foot of a tortoise, the liver of a mole, and blood drawn from under the wing of a white pigeon.