Witchy Wednesday Folklore stories.
FOLKLORE OF LONDON DRESSMAKERS.
London dressmakers consider it to be most unlucky to use a black pin in fitting a gown. At a recent visit to my dressmaker I was told that a black pin had inadvertently been used not long since in fitting a wedding dress. "That wedding gown was never worn, because the gentleman the young lady was to marry was killed!" Green is an unlucky colour. "It is not always unlucky, but I made a beautiful green dress not long ago, and it was never worn by its owner, because she went into deep mourning just as it was finished." After a dress is finished and is being worn there seems to be no objection to the use of black pins.
E. M. L.
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THE NIGHTINGALE AN ILL-OMENED BIRD.
Recently at Newport, Shropshire, a pair of nightingales built for the first time near the canal, and people used to collect at night to listen to them singing. People now say that it would be a good thing if they never returned, because bad luck, including seven deaths, occurred in the neighbourhood as a result of their sojourn.
E. F. BENNION.
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An Omen from Dress.
In the neighbourhood of Watford, King's Langley, and Abbots Langley in West Herts, it is a common belief that if the lower edge of a woman's skirt has become turned up so as to form a kind of pocket, some good fortune, such as a present of a new dress, will come to the owner.
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Beads and Knots.
The studies hitherto made of the origin of the rosary have not brought us nearer to any solution. The only fact which has been established is the almost universal use of a string of beads in connection with some form of religious device. But how it came about that beads should have been put to that use has remained unexplained. I do not intend to enter here upon a disquisition on the manifold forms of rosaries, of the various numbers of beads used by the followers of various religions, nor upon the material out of which the beads are formed, nor upon the highly suggestive fact of inscribed or artistically carved beads with figures and symbols. Each such category deserves separate treatment. But none of them touches the kernel of the problem, — how did beads come to be used, strung together, for religious purposes.
Starting from a different series of investigations, I have come to certain conclusions, which I will put down here as briefly as possible, leaving to others to follow these bypaths further, or to offer a better solution.
Before entering upon the discussion of the problem," it is neces- sary to point out that beads are often worn as ornaments, especially those of rare stones or of special metal. It is now an adknowledged fact that ornaments are often the last decayed survivals of more ancient religious practices. Moreover, to this very day, the character of the stone so used determines the value of such strings as amulets against the evil eye, or for averting some dreaded evil, or for some medicinal purpose. The wearer of certain stones is expected to be immune from this or that disease. It might be argued even that the primitive use of the rosary was of a similar protective character.
However alluring such a suggestion might be at the first blush, it cannot be maintained : for, as a rule, whatever is carried in the hand as an offering to the god and goddess, must be deposited before their shrine for their acceptance. Rosaries, however, have not been offered up anywhere. They must serve, therefore, another purpose than that of averting evil, or being used as amulets. They must have had another origin, and I believe one
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The Headless Horseman.
In a Kachchhi ballad about the battle of Jhara in Cutch, fought in 1762, we have the familiar statement that when a warrior's head was cut off the trunk went on fighting. Then is added the curious statement, new to me, that it did not stop fighting till it was addressed by a woman, when it, too, fell dead.
The verse runs :
" Matho chhanyo pat-te Khodh te viry& Jade istri galayo
Tade chhani pat peo."
" The head dropped on the ground, The trunk continued fighting. When a woman addressed it, Then it, too, dropped and fell upon the ground."
G. A. Grierson.
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Superstition regarding Chimnev-Sweeps.
Sitting in front of two women on top of an omnibus yesterday I heard one remark in excitement to the other, " Look, there is a sweep ! " and the other replied, " Yes — and there are two more ! We are in luck ! " Then each speaker bade the sweeps good- morning, and as the omnibus bore them past the sweeps one remarked, "We shall get something to-day — or perhaps we shall make some wonderful bargains at the sales."
In our family we always say good-morning to a sweep, the idea being that doing so ensures a present during the day.
D. C. Haverfield.
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The Death Coach.
Mr. Westropp says in Folklore^ June 30th, 19 10, p. 192, that " the ' headless coach ' or ' coach a bower ' seems of far later date than the banshee." If so, it must still be of a very respectable antiquity.
Death-carts are to be heard of in Lancashire and Lincolnshire, from which fact it may be argued that they are sure to be known in other English counties.
Death-carts driven by the last person buried in the churchyard, or by some other personification of the King of Terrors, may be said to swarm in Brittany, where, I believe, there are also death- boats.
The following quotation from the Lapp who cheated Death, which was published in the Manchester Guardian, April 20th, 1909, shows that the North of Europe cherishes the same super- stition :
"Summer had come. The dwarf birches were in leaf, the Arctic brambles in blossom. Svanti, my Lapp host, lay at full length chewing tobacco. . . . Such a question as " Why is snow white ? " never failed to draw forth some of his legendary lore.
" Snow is white and ice is white because white is the colour of death. Ice and snow come from the home of the dead, the land of darkness, far away in the north. There dwells the Reindeer of Death. When he comes south his sledge is empty, driverless ; when he goes north it is filled with the souls of the dead, and the chief among them holds the rein. Sometimes on still winter nights one may hear the click of hoofs, though the herd is far off, and no living creature stirs ; then it is that the mother hushes her child and whispers, ' Be still, lest the Reindeer of Death should hear you, for he is roaming about seek- ing souls to fill the empty sledge.' Only once has a living man sat in that sledge." Svanti paused tantalisingly.
[Here follows the story of Joukko.]
"Tell me one thing," I begged. "If the White Reindeer carries off the
dead in its sledge across the snow, what happens to the souls of those Samelats
\i.e. Lapps] who die in summer?" Svanti looked at me sideways with a
puckered brow and muttered something in Lappish. " It is not lucky to speak
so much of the dead," he said at last in Norwegian, " for we know that the
souls of Samelats wander about during the days of sunshine, waiting until the
sledge comes to fetch them in the dark months. So now let us rather talk of
snaring birds or trapping lyn
xes."
^ ^^ ^ ^ H. Mackenzie.
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Kat 😊
