Trin. Col. Cambridge.
FOLK LORE.
The Christmas Thorn.—In my neighbourhood (near Bridgewater) the Christmas thorn blossoms on the 6th of January (Twelfth-day), and on this day only. The villagers in whose gardens it grows, and indeed many others, verily believe that this fact pronounces the truth of this being the day of Christ's birth.
S. S. B.
Milk-maids in 1753.—To Folk-lore may be added the following short extract from Read's Weekly Journal, May 5, 1733:
"On May-Day the Milk-Maids who serve the Court, danced Minuets and Rigadoons before the Royal Family, at St. James's House, with great applause."
Y. S.
Diseases cured by Sheep (Vol. iii., p. 320.).—The attempted cure of consumption, or some
complaints, by walking among a flock of sheep, is not new. The present Archbishop of Dublin was recommended it, or practised it at least, when young. For pulmonary complaints the principle was perhaps the same as that of following a plough, sleeping in a room over a cowhouse, breathing the diluted smoke of a limekiln, that is, the inhaling of carbonic acid, all practised about the end of the last century, when the knowledge of the gases was the favourite branch of chemistry.