connected mtk Objects of Natural History. 565 



in Yorkshire it is generally called nanpie, which name is 

 also applied to the paeony. 



East Wilto?i, Yorkshire, May 7. 1832. 



[The word " piannet " is given, in Bailey's Dictionary, as 

 a name of " the lesser woodpecker."] 



Additional Superstitions. Love -fortune ascertained by 

 Means of the Leaves of the common Ash Tree (Frdxinus excel- 

 sior W.). — Mr. Bree has informed us, in p. 553., that the 

 lads and lasses of Warwickshire ascertain their love-fortune 

 by the growth of the shorn florets of Centaurea nigra. In 

 Cambridgeshire, I remember that the same end was attained 

 playfully, and seemingly by much younger parties, by the help 

 of the leaves of the common ash. Such leaves were sought, and 

 sought till found, as consisted of as many leaflets as the boy 

 was years of age ; and the first lassie met, or perhaps seen, 

 after the leaf had been acquired, was to be the future partner. 

 The leaflets of the leaf of the ash vary in number, from five 

 to eleven, and, upon quite young vigorous-growing ash trees 

 (ashlings) to even thirteen; and very rarely the number is 

 an even one, from one of the last pair of leaflets and the ter- 

 minal leaflet having been produced grown together. The 

 search for the required leaves was at least amusing, and not 

 uninstructive. The children of Suffolk have, I have been 

 told, several playful phrases which they, in their sports, recite 

 in application to 



The alternate Spikelets of the Perennial Darnel (Lolium 

 perenne L.) : the issue of the recitation depends on the word 

 which happens to correspond, in the order of succession, with 

 the terminal spikelet of the spike. 



A home-made Kind of Salve was, as lately as within the 

 first fifteen years of the present century, in use with some of 

 the good grandmothers in Cambridgeshire for curing burns 

 or scalds, it is not unlikely for curing both. One of the in- 

 gredients in this salve was 



" Grave-stone Moss," that is, moss off* grave-stones ; and I 

 believe that, in collecting it, less heed was paid to the species 

 of the moss, or even to whether it were a moss or a lichen, 

 than to the condition that it was taken off" a grave-stone or 

 grave-stones. I remember one young woman who wore un- 

 seemly scars after, although I cannot say assuredly in con- 

 sequence of the use of this salve. 



Witch-Stones were once in use. These were stones naturally 

 traversed by a hole through which a string could be passed ; 

 such as one now at times sees appended to a bunch of keys. 



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