Keep the devils frae their speed."
It is common practice with the housewives in the same district, to tie a piece of red worsted thread round their cows' tails, previous to turning them out to grass for the first time in the spring. It secures their cattle, they say, from an evil eye, from being elf-shot by fairies, &c. &c.
ABERDONIENSIS.
Souling.
—On the 2nd of November, All Souls' Day, it is in Shropshire the custom for the village children to go round to all their neighbours souling, as they call it, collecting small contributions, and singing the following verses, which I took down from two of the children themselves:—
Soul! soul! for a soul-cake;
Pray, good mistress, for a soul-cake.
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for Them who made us all.
Soul! soul! for an apple or two;