Wedsecnarf.
Mice as a Medicine (Vol. ii., pp. 397. 435.).—I was stopping about three years ago in the house of a gentleman whose cook had been in the service of a quondam Canon of Ch. Ch., who averred that she roasted mice to cure her master's children of the hooping cough. She said it had the effect of so doing.
Chas. Paslam.
"Many Nits, [nuts]
Many Pits."
A common saying hereabouts, meaning that if hazel-nuts, haws, hips, &c., are plentiful, many deaths will occur. But whether the deaths are to be occasioned by nut-devouring or by seasonal influence, I cannot ascertain. In many places, an abundant crop of hips and haws is supposed to betoken a severe winter.
Chas. Paslam.
Swans hatched during Thunder.—The fable of the singing of swans at death is well known; but I recently heard a bit of "folk lore" as to the birth of swans quite as poetical, and probably equally true. It is this: that swans are always hatched during a thunderstorm. I was told this by an old man in Hampshire, who had been connected with the care of swans all his life. He, however, knew nothing about their singing at death.
Is this opinion as to the birth of swans common? If so, probably some of your numerous correspondents will detail the form in which such belief is expressed.
Robert Rawlinson.