That crickets are lucky about a house, and will do no harm to those who use them well; but that they eat holes in the worsted stockings of such members of the family as kill them. I was assured of this on the experience of a respectable farmer's family.
The belief in ghosts, or bogards, as they are termed, is universal.
In my neighbourhood I hardly know a dell where a running stream crosses a road by a small bridge or stone plat, where there is not frectnin (frightening) to be expected. Wells, ponds, gates, &c., have often this bad repute. I have heard of a calf with eyes like a saucer, a woman without a head, a white greyhound, a column of white foam like a large sugar-loaf in the midst of a pond, a group of little cats, &c., &c., as the shape of the bogard, and sometimes a lady who jumped behind hapless passengers on horseback. It is supposed that a Romish priest can lay them, and that it is best to cheat them to consent to being laid while hollies are green. Hollies being evergreens, the ghosts can reappear no more.
P. P.
Folk lore in Lancashire (Vol. iii., p. 55.).
—Most of, if not all the instances mentioned under this head by MR. WILKINSON are, as might be expected, current also in the adjacent district of the West Riding of Yorkshire; and, by his leave, I will add a few more, which are familiar to me:
1. If a cock near the door crows with his face towards it, it is a sure prediction of the arrival of a stranger.
2. If the cat frisks about the house in an unusually lively manner, windy or stormy weather is approaching.
3. If a dog howls under a window at night, a death will shortly happen in that house.
4. If a female be the first to enter a house on Christmas or New Year's day, she brings ill luck to that house for the coming year.