If two young people, in conversation, happen to think of the same thing at the same time, and one of them utters the thought before the other, that one is certain to be married first.
“BY HOOK OR BY CROOK.”
In the parish of Egles-Hayle are two crosses, known as “Peverell’s Crosses;” and near Mount Charles, also in this parish, is another “moorstone” cross, called the Prior’s Cross, whereon is cut the figure of a hook and a crook, in memory of the privileges granted by a prior, belonging to the family of the Peverells, who are said to have possessed lands in this parish since the time of Richard II.
The poor of Bodmin were greatly distressed through the scarcity of fuel, the “turf,” or peat of the moors being insufficient to supply their wants. The prior gave “privilege and freedom” to the poor of Bodmin for gathering, for “fire-boote and house-boote,” such boughs and branches of oak-trees in his woods of Dunmear, as they could reach to, or come at, with a “hook and a crook,” without further damage to the trees.
Hence the proverb concerning filching, “that they will have it by hook or by crook.”
WEATHER SIGNS.
The Weather Dog.—It frequently happens in unsettled weather that banks of rain-cloud gather around the horizon, and that, over isolated tracts, the rain falls. If these depositions from this low stratum of clouds occur opposite to the sun, the lower limb of a bow is formed, often appearing like a pillar of decomposed light; and sometimes two of these coloured bands will be seen, forming indeed the two extremities of the arch. These are “weather dogs,” and they are regarded as certain prognostications of showery or stormy weather.[67]
The usual proverb with regard to the full bow; which prevails generally, is common in Cornwall,—