26 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 245. 



there — pilgrimages of deep devoted affection to shrines 

 hallowed in the sanctuary of the heart. It was here 

 I chanced to overtake a dusty and way-worn traveller 

 ■who had come upwards of forty miles to pay a visit to 

 his mother's grave. He told me that for many years 

 it had been his annual custom to set apart a few days 

 to pay this tribute of affection to her memory. On 

 another occasion I met at a neighbouring village two 

 young men, who, as they informed me, had just ex- 

 piated in gaol a crime of which they had been found 

 guilty. They were in a deplorable state, with scarcely 

 a rag to cover them, without shoes or stockings, and 

 bareheaded. I assisted them to decipher a few letters, 

 almost obliterated, which were chiselled, alas ! on their 

 mother's tomb also. I saw them sit down beside it, and 

 pour out their feelings in deep anguish. It was a new 

 sight to behold such men, from whom we conceive no 

 hardships or sufferings would have wrung a tear, yield- 

 ing to the influence of some sweet remembrance of 

 tender care ; of some cherished thought of parental 

 solicitude ; or, it may be, in sorrow, feeling the con- 

 sciousness of early disobedience, with the sad reflection 

 of its bitter consequences, and the contrast of their own 

 turbulent, reckless life, with the solemn silence and 

 peacefulness of their mother's grave. The hour was 

 sanctified by such a scene ; and as it seemed an intru- 

 sion to be even an accidental spectator of their com- 

 munings, I left them, pilgrims as they were, though 

 not habited ' in cockle hat and sandal shoon,' still 

 seated by the grave, forthwith to continue, let us hope, 

 under the guardianship of the angels who had thus so 

 tenderly touched the sweetest chords of their soul, and 

 led them responsive to contrition at that shrine where 

 their purest, holiest affections rested. If there are 

 churchyards whose gates are padlocked and barred, 

 may the remembrance of these incidents relax the bolts 

 in favour of those who would pass a solemn moment 

 there !" 



J. M. G. 

 Worcester. 



rOLK LOKE. 



French Folk Lore : Miraculous Powers of a 

 Seventh Son. — The following abridged translation 

 of an article which appeared lately in a French 

 provincial paper, Le Journal du Loiret, may prove 

 interesting to the collectors of facts bearing on 

 popular superstitions : 



•' We have more than once had occasion to make our 

 readers acquainted with the superstitious practices of 

 the Marcous. The Orleanais is the classic land of 

 Marcoiis, and in the Gdtinais every parish at all above 

 the common is sure to have its mareou. If a man is 

 the seventh son of his father, without any female in- 

 tervening, he is a mareou : he has on some part of the 

 body the mark of a jleur-de-Us, and, like the kings of 

 France, he has the power of curing the king's evil. 

 All that is necessary to effect a cure is, that the mareou 

 should breathe upon the part affected, or that the suf- 

 ferer should touch the mark of the fleur-de-lis. Of all 

 the mareous of the Orleanais, he of Ormes is the best 

 known and most celebrated. Every year, from twenty, 



thirty, forty leagues around, crowds of patients come 

 to visit him ; but it is particularly in Holy Week 

 that his power is most efficacious ; and on the night of 

 Good Friday, from midnight to sunrise, the cure is. 

 certain. Accordingly, at this season, from four to five 

 hundred persons press round his dwelling to take ad- 

 vantage of his wonderful powers." 



The paper then goes on to describe a disturb- 

 ance among the crowds assembled this year, in 

 consequence of the officers of justice having at- 

 tempted to put a stop to the imposture. The 

 article concludes thus : 



" The mareou of Ormes is a cooper in easy circum- 

 stances, being the possessor of a horse and carriage. 

 His name is Foulon, and in the country he is known 

 by the appellation of Le beau mareou. He has the 

 fleur-de-lis on his left side, and in this respect is more 

 fortunate than the generality of marcous, with whom 

 the mysterious sign is apt to hide itself in some part of 

 the body quite inaccessible to the eyes of the curious.'* 



HONORE DE MaKEVILLE. 



Naval Folk Lore. — In reading a French novel 

 the other day, I met with the following passage : 



" Antoine Morand etait un de ces vieux matelots, 

 nourris dans les principes de I'ancienne ecole, qui sif- 

 flent pour appeler le vent, et apaisent I'orage en fouet- 

 tant les mousses au pied du grand mat." 



To whistle for a ■wind is a practice common 

 I believe to all sailors ; but I do not remember to 

 have heard before, that the Spirit of the Storm 

 was to be propitiated by flogging the unfortunate 

 middles at the main-mast. Can any of your 

 readers Inform me whether this superstition exists 

 among the sailors of other nations besides the 

 French, and whether there are any traces of it 

 to be found on board of British ships ? 



An infallible recipe for raising a storm is to 

 throw a cat overboard. The presence of a clergy- 

 man, a corpse, or a dead hare on board a ship is 

 said to bring bad weather. A collection of naval 

 superstitions %vould be an Interesting addition to 

 our folk lore, and I wish that some of your aquatic 

 readers would favour us with what they know on 

 the subject. Honoke de Mareviu-e. 



JOHN HENDERSON. 



The generation who knew anything of this 

 extraordinary man are now rapidly passing away, 

 and whilst a few of them are yet left, it seems 

 desirable to collect and preserve the little that 

 may be remembered of him, which is not already 

 to be found in the note to Cuttle's Recollections of 

 Coleridge. With this view, I send some parti- 

 culars relating to his last illness, which I took 

 down nineteen years ago from the lips of a highly 

 respectable inhabitant of Bristol, since deceased, 

 who knew one at least of the parties concerned, 

 and I believe all of them who were resident in 

 that city. 



