FOLK LORE.
Power of Prophecy.—MR. AUG. GUEST (Vol. ii., p. 116.) will perhaps accept—as a small tribute to his interesting communication on the subject of that "power of prophecy" which I apprehend to be still believed by many to exist during certain lucid intervals before death—a reference to Sir Henry Halford's Essay on the [Greek: Kausos] of Aretæus. (See Sir H. Halford's Essays and Orations read and delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, Lond. 1831, pp. 93. et seq.)
J. Sansom.
Bay Leaves at Funerals.—In some parts of Wales it is customary for funerals to be preceded by a female carrying bays, the leaves of which she sprinkles at intervals in the road which the corpse will traverse.
Query, Is this custom practised elsewhere; and what is the meaning and origin of the use of the bay?
N.P.
Shoes (old) thrown for luck.—Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, observes, that it is accounted lucky by the vulgar to throw an old shoe after a person when they wish him to succeed in what he is going about. This custom is very prevalent in Norfolk whenever servants are going in search of new places; and especially when they are going to be married, a shoe is thrown after them as they proceed to church.
C.P.R.M.
Some years ago, when the vessels engaged in the Greenland whale-fishery left Whitby, in Yorkshire, I observed the wives and friends of the sailors to throw old shoes at the ships as they passed the pier-head. Query, What is the origin of this practice?