In a recently published little volume entitled, “What They Say in New England,—a book of old signs, sayings, and folk-lore,” will be found a chapter devoted to this sort of absurdity. Half a dozen citations will serve as specimens. To keep off rheumatism, wear an eel-skin around the waist. To prevent cramps, wear an eel-skin around the ankle. Another preventive of rheumatism is to wear a red string around the neck. To prevent cramps in a child, tie a black silk cord around its neck. To avoid the itch, wear sulphur in a bag around the neck. To prevent fits, carry an onion in the pocket.
Christmas Observances
Out of the customs, practices, and ceremonies in the observance of the Feast of the Nativity, for hundreds of years, we have sifted and saved what is worth keeping. In the changes that have been wrought, the new Christmas is better than the old, better in itself, better for the time in which we live. It is not so picturesque, but it is imbued with more of the spirit of charity and fraternity, of the love that warms and the kindness that cheers, of thoughts and things that win us from ourselves to human fellowship, of peace on earth and good will to men. From hall to hovel, from childhood’s playthings to the touching pledges of later life, its passing moments are the brightest of the year. From the stately temple, with its “long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,” its “gules and or and azure on nave and chancel pane,” to the little meeting-house with its severe simplicity and lack of adornment alike, as
“* * beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.”
Reference is often made to Walter Scott as by far the best of the descriptive poets of the Old Christmas. Says he, in closing his lines in “Marmion,”—
“England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;
’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;