The colliers at Dudley, in the event of a fatal accident to one of their number, all in the same pit immediately cease from working until the body is buried. A certain sum is also spent in drink, and is called "dead money." The same custom, more or less modified, prevails in many districts.
The "seventh son of a seventh son" is believed to be endowed with extraordinary curative powers in certain diseases, and the same with regard to a daughter under similar circumstances.
In the vicinity of the Malvern hills there is a superstition among the poorer people that when any one is bitten by a viper—which reptile is occasionally to be met with in bushy ground about the southern part of the range—if it can be killed forthwith, an ointment made from its liver will be a specific for the wound.
A "handsel," or first money received for an article sold, if taken from a particular person or under particular circumstances, Mr. Lees says, is supposed to be productive of good luck; and some complain that they cannot do business for want of a handsel from the person of whom they wish to receive it.
In the year 1643, when some thieves plundered the house of Mr. Rowland Bartlett, at Castle Morton, among other things they took a "cock eagle stone, for which thirty pieces had been offered by a physician, but refused." These eagle stones were ætites, a variety of argillaceous oxide of iron; they were hollow, with a kernel or nucleus, sometimes moveable, and always differing from the exterior in colour and density. The ancients superstitiously believed that this pebble was found in the eagle's nest, and that the eggs could not be hatched without its assistance. Many other absurd stories were raised about this fossil.
The custom of burying exclusively on the south side of churchyards prevails very generally in the rural districts of this county, except where the smallness of the ground or the extent of the population has rendered it compulsory to use the north side, which, however, was formerly reserved for suicides and strangers. Many fanciful theories have been invented to account for this preference of the south side, but the most probable is, that, as the principal entrance to the church was usually on that side, it was natural for burials to be there also, that the deceased might have the benefit (so accounted in those days) of the prayers of the congregation as they walked to and fro and beheld the inscriptions.
The very ancient custom of divination by the flight of birds is not yet forgotten. The robin and wren are birds of good augury: if a raven flies over a house, there will soon be a corpse there. The number of magpies met with as you set out on a journey indicates what is to happen:
"One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
Four for a birth."
Mr. Allies tells of a remarkable superstition that prevailed not many years ago at Suckley, where the country people used to talk a great deal about "The Seven Whistlers," and that they oftentimes at night heard six out of these seven whistlers pass over their heads; but that no more than six of them were ever heard at once, for when the seven should whistle together there would be an end of the world. This is supposed to have some reference to fairy lore, and is still believed by the Leicestershire colliers, who, when they hear "the whistlers," will not venture below ground, thinking that death to some one is foreboded. The superstition has probably a German origin.