Mar. 27. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



293 



field, near the Black Rock. L"* S. embarks on Sun- 

 day. [Sept' 1770.1" 



J. F. F. 

 Dublin. 



POLK liORE. 



Churching of Women. — In Herefordshire it Is 

 ■considered contra bonos mores for the husband to 

 appear in church on the day of his wife's churching, 

 or, at all events, in the same pew with her. An 

 antiquary of that county considers this a relic of 

 Roman paganism, connected with the worship of 

 Bona Dea. Query, is this so elsewhere ? 



C.S.P. 



Wassailing Orchards in Sussex. — I am happy 

 to be able to send you the following particulars 

 respecting the apple-tree superstitions, as they 

 prevail in this county ; and it is as well to preserve 

 the recollection of them, for I suspect they are 

 wearing away. In this neighbourhood (Chailey) 

 the custom of wassailing the orchards still remains. 

 It is called apple-howling. A troop of boys visit 

 the different orchards, and encircling the apple- 

 trees they repeat the following words : 



" Stand fast root, bear well top, 

 Pray the God send us a good howling crop. 

 Every twig, apples big. 

 Every bough, apples enow. 

 Hats full, caps full, 

 Full quarters, sacks full." 



They then shout in chorus, one of the boys 

 accompanying them on the cow's horn ; during 

 this ceremony they rap the trees with their sticks. 

 This custom is alluded to in Herrick's Hesperides, 

 p. 311. 



" Wassail the trees that they may beare 

 You, many a plum, and many a peare. 

 For more or less fruits they will bring, 

 As you do give them wassailing." 



E. W. B. 



• Lucky Omens. — " The schoolmaster with his 

 primer in his hand," to quote Lord Brougham, is 

 unquestionably abroad, and dispelling, with sur- 

 prising rapidity, the prejudices of the people ; in 

 some cases, perhaps, to make way for prejudices 

 yet stronger and more tenacious than those they 

 displace. You are doing good service by collecting 

 and recording some of those that are fast disap- 

 pearing. In this neighbourhood I know ladies 

 who consider it " lucky " to find old iron ; a horse 

 shoe or a rusty nail is carefully conveyed home 

 and hoarded up. It is also considered lucky if 

 you see the head of the first lamb in spring ; to 

 present his tail is the certain harbinger of mis- 

 fortune. It is also said that if you have money 

 in your pocket the first time you hear the cuckoo, 

 you will never be without all the year. The 



magpie is a well-known bird of omen. The fol- 

 lowing lines were familiar when I was a boy : 

 " One for sorrow, two for mirth, 

 Three for a wedding, four for death ; 

 Five for a fiddle, six for a dance, 

 Seven for England, eight for France." 



T. D. 



Lambs. — The Denbighshire peasantry watch 

 with great anxiety for the position in which young 

 lambs are seen by them the first time in the year. 

 If their heads are towards them it is lucky ; if their 

 tails, great misfortunes will ensue. - Agmond. 



Key Experiments (Vol. v., p. 152.). — Perhaps 

 J. P. Jun. may not be aware that an experiment 

 somewhat similar to these is practised in the Isle 

 of Man. The operator holds a thread between 

 the finger and thumb, with a shilling fixed hori- 

 zontally to it, gradually drops the shilling into a 

 glass, and after it has once become stationary, the 

 shilling begins to oscillate, and, as the superstition 

 goes, invariably strikes the hour of the day against 

 the glass. I have frequently practised it, and 

 consider the motive power to be the pulse, which 

 is completely under the operator's control. This 

 performance has been known in the Isle of Man 

 certainly more than a century, and bears a re- 

 semblance to the experiments of Mayo and Keich- 

 enbach with the Od Force, or the vagaries of the 

 Magnetoscope. 



Perhaps some of your correspondents can in- 

 stance cases and tricks of this kind of much earlier 

 date. Agmond. 



Minor ^attS, 



Hhymes connected with Places. — There are many 

 villages in England, the names of which have old 

 traditionary couplets attached to them, illustrating 

 some natural or other peculiarity ; some such have 

 already incidentally found their way into the pages 

 of " N. & Q." Might not a complete collection be 

 easily made, and would it not be an interesting one ? 

 I send, as a beginning, two Staffordshire villages 

 in my immediate neighbourhood, which are very 

 characteristically described. One is — 

 •' Wootton under Weaver, 

 Where God came never," 

 being very lonely, and out-of-the-way ; and the 

 other — 



" Stanton on the stones, 

 Where the Devil broke his bones," 

 which explains itself. W. Fbaser. 



French Dates. — I annex a singular connexion 

 between the dates of some of the most important 

 occurrences in the history of France, which was 

 mentioned to me by a French lady, with whom I 

 had the pleasure of travelling from Soissons to 

 Paris the day after the melancholy death of the 



