FOLK LORE.
Death-bed Mystery.—In conversation with an aged widow,—as devout and sensible as she is unlettered,—I yesterday learned a death-bed mystery which appeared new to me, and which (if not more commonly known than I take it to be) you may perhaps think worthy of a place in "Notes and Queries," to serve as a minor satellite to some more luminous communication, in reply to B. H. at Vol. i., p. 315. My informant's "religio" (as she appears to have derived it by tradition from her mother, and as confirmed by her own experience in the case of a father, a
husband, several children, and others), is to the effect that a considerable interval invariably elapses between the first semblance of death, and what she considers to be the departure of the soul.
About five minutes after the time when death, to all outward appearance, has taken place, "the last breath," as she describes, may be seen to issue with a vapour, or "steam," out of the mouth of the departed.
The statement reminds me of Webster's argument, in his Display of supposed Witchcraft, chap. xvi., where, writing of the bleeding of corpses in presence of their murderers, he observes:
"If we physically consider the union of the soul with the body by the mediation of the spirit, then we cannot rationally conceive that the soul doth utterly forsake that union, until by putrefaction, tending to an absolute mutation, it is forced to bid farewell to its beloved tabernacle; for its not operating ad extra to our senses, doth not necessarily infer its total absence. And it may be, that there is more in that of Abel's blood crying unto the Lord from the ground, in a physical sense than is commonly conceived," &c.
Sir Kenelm Digby (I think I remember) has also made some curious remarks on this subject, in his observations on the Religio Medici of Sir T. Brown.
J. Sansom.
Easter Eggs.-The custom of dyeing eggs at Easter (alluded to, Vol. i., pp. 244. and 397.) prevails in different parts of Cumberland, and is observed in this city probably more specially than in any other part of England. On Easter Monday and Tuesday the inhabitants assemble in certain adjacent meadows, the children all provided with stores of hard-boiled eggs, coloured or ornamented in various ways,—some being dyed an even colour with logwood, cochineal, &c.; others stained (often in a rather elegant manner) by being boiled in shreds of parti-coloured ribbons; and others, again, covered with gilding. These they tumble about upon the grass until they break, when they finish off by eating them. These they call pace-eggs, being no doubt a corruption for pasche.
This custom is mentioned by Brande as existing among the modern Greeks; but I believe it will be found more or less in almost all parts of Christendom.