550 Some Superstitions appertaining 



usually tough and gnarled portion of timber, it will sometimes 

 rebound at the stroke, without making any incision. On 

 such occasions, the woodmen in this part of the country say 

 the axe " buffs ; " and they have, some of them, a sort of 

 floating traditionary notion, handed down to them from their 

 forefathers, that this rebounding of the axe is attributable to 

 a toad which lies enclosed within the root of the tree, and 

 which, accordingly, they may expect to find there. I remem- 

 ber an old woodman, the father of a man who now works for 

 me, who seemed to entertain a more than half belief in this 

 notion ; though, upon enquiry, I could not learn that he had 

 ever known it verified by fact. The similarity in sound be- 

 tween the verb " buiF," and " bufo," the Latin for a toad, is 

 here remarkable ; and the coincidence might induce some 

 etymologists to derive the one word from the other. But it 

 strikes me as hardly probable that these simple woodmen 

 should be indebted to the learned languages, and should have 

 borrowed their provincial term from the Latin ; still less do 

 I suppose that they have ever read the line in Virgil, 



. " Inventusque cavis bufo." Georg. i. ]84. 



" And toads in crannies found." Trapp's Translation, 



Superstition and credulity are by no means confined to the 

 vulgar and illiterate; the minds of the better informed are 

 often powerfully biased by such influence. I knew a gentle- 

 man of liberal education, who maintained that it was 



Easy toforetel what Sort of Summer it would be hy the Posi' 

 tion in which the Larva of Cicada {Aphrophora) spumdria 

 was found to lie in the Froth {Cuckoo-spit) in which it is enxie^ 

 loped. If the insect lay with its head upwards, it infallibly 

 denoted a dry summer ; if downwards, a wet one ! * An 

 old lady of my acquaintance entertained an opinion that 



The Jelly-like Substance (a Species of Tremella P), which is 

 frequently to be found, after rain, upon turf or neglected 

 pathways, was the remains of a fallen star ; the snuff, as it 

 were, of the extinguished luminary ! f The same lady also 

 deemed it hazardous to walk abroad in the shrubbery or the 

 garden after dusk, for fear of 



The Bats; which, she maintained, had a villanous pro- 

 pensity of striking at people's eyes ! I need hardly observe, 



* Is there any foundation in fact for the following proverbial saying, 

 which is common in this neighbourhood, viz. : — 



" A good bark harvest, a good corn harvest ? " 



This year (1832), the two seasons have certainly corresponded pretty 

 accurately: the earlier part of each was very favourable; afterwards, in 

 both cases, came heavy rains. 

 f For " spittle of stars," and " shot stars," see Brand, ii. 684. 



