"Eusebia.—Like that sweet superstition current in Brittany, which would explain the cause why the robin redbreast has always been a favourite and protégé of man. While our Saviour was bearing HIS cross, one of these birds, they say, took one thorn from HIS crown, which dyed its breast; and ever since that time robin redbreasts have been the friends of man."—Communications with the Unseen World, p. 26.
W. FRASER.
Monk and Cromwell (Vol. iv., p. 381.).
—Will your correspondent state by what intermarriage the estate granted to the Duke of Albemarle, vested in Oliver Cromwell, who died in 1821; and how, if he knows, it departed from Monk? If acquired by purchase from the successors of Monk, the interest ceases.
G.
Souling (Vol. iv., p. 381.).
—The custom of "souling", described by MR. W. FRASER, is carried on with great zeal and energy in this neighbourhood on All Souls' Day. The song which the children sing is exactly the same as MR. FRASER gives, with the exception of the second verse. In the evening, grown persons go round singing and collecting contributions from house to house. It is universally believed in this neighbourhood to be a remnant of the old custom of begging money, to be applied to the purpose of procuring masses for the souls of the dead.
LEWIS EVANS.
Sandbach, Cheshire.