Footnote 748: [(return)]
W. Henderson, op. cit. pp. 148 sq.
Footnote 749: [(return)]
Rev. Walter Gregor, Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland (London, 1881), p. 186.
Footnote 750: [(return)]
R. N. Worth, History of Devonshire, Second Edition (London, 1886), p. 339. The diabolical nature of the toad probably explains why people in Herefordshire think that if you wear a toad's heart concealed about your person you can steal to your heart's content without being found out. A suspected thief was overheard boasting, "They never catches me: and they never ooll neither. I allus wears a toad's heart round my neck, I does." See Mrs. Ella M. Leather, in Folk-lore, xxiv. (1913) p. 238.
Footnote 751: [(return)]
Above, p. [301].
Footnote 752: [(return)]
Robert Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England, Third Edition (London, 1881), p. 320. The writer does not say where this took place; probably it was in Cornwall or Devonshire.
Footnote 753: [(return)]
Rev. Walter Gregor, Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland (London, 1881), p. 184.
Footnote 754: [(return)]
County Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, No. 2, Suffolk, collected and edited by the Lady Eveline Camilla Gurdon (London, 1893), pp. 190 sq., quoting Some Materials for the History of Wherstead by F. Barham Zincke (Ipswich, 1887), p. 168.
Footnote 755: [(return)]
County Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, No. 2, Suffolk, p. 191, referring to Murray's Handbook for Essex, Suffolk, etc., p. 109.
Footnote 756: [(return)]
(Sir) John Rhys, "Manx Folklore and Superstitions," Folk-lore, ii. (1891) pp. 300-302; repeated in his Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx (Oxford, 1901), i. 306 sq. Sir John Rhys does not doubt that the old woman saw, as she said, a live sheep being burnt on old May-day; but he doubts whether it was done as a sacrifice. He adds: "I have failed to find anybody else in Andreas or Bride, or indeed in the whole island, who will now confess to having ever heard of the sheep sacrifice on old May-day." However, the evidence I have adduced of a custom of burnt sacrifice among English rustics tends to confirm the old woman's statement, that the burning of the live sheep which she witnessed was not an act of wanton cruelty but a sacrifice per formed for the public good.
Footnote 757: [(return)]
(Sir) John Rhys, "Manx Folklore and Superstitions," Folk-lore, ii. (1891) pp. 299 sq.; id., Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx (Oxford, 1901), i. 304 sq. We have seen that by burning the blood of a bewitched bullock a farmer expected to compel the witch to appear. See above, p. [303].