July 24. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES; 



71 



when one of the cats addressed him, " Joaney Reed, 

 Joaney Reed, tell Dan Ratclifie that Peg Powson 

 is dead." Joaney hurried home to his wife, and 

 instantly informed her of tlie circumstance, won- 

 derinii at the same time who Dan RatclifFe might 

 be ; when up sprang the cat from the hearth, and 

 exclaiming " If Peg Powson's dead, it's no time for 

 me to be here," rushed out of the house and was 

 seen no more. P. P. 



Weather PropTiecy. — G. E. G. has not yet had 

 the answer to his inquiry about " oaks and ashes." 

 The proverb is, 



" If the oak's before the asli, 

 Then you'll only get a splash. 

 If the ash precedes the oak, 

 Then you may expect a soak." 

 The present wet summer gives the lie to the adage, 

 for the oaks were out first. P. P. 



St. Mark's Eve (Vol. iv., p. 470). — Your cor- 

 respondent Mr. Peacock h:is alluded to a popular 

 superstition respecting St. Murk's Eve which has 

 interested me very much. 1 cannot help quoting 

 Collins' lines upon the same subject, and shall 

 much thank Ma. Peacock, or any of your other 

 correspondents learned in Folk Lore, to adduce 

 some additional instances : — 



" Bl> mine to read the visions old 

 Which thy awakening bards have told ; 

 And, lest thou meet my blasted view, 

 Hold each strange tale devoutly true; 

 Ne'er be I found, by thee o'eraw'd, 

 On that thrice-hallow'd eve, abroad. 

 When gliosis, as cottage maids bi'lieve. 

 Their pebbled beds pennitted leave ; 

 And goblins haunt, from fire, or ten. 

 Or mine, or flood, the walks of men !" 



Ode to Fear, 

 Rt. 

 Warmington, 



Children s Nails. — It is a general belief among 

 the common people in this neighbourhood (Bot- 

 tesford Moors), that if a child's finger nails are cut 

 before it is a year old, it will be a thief. BL-fore 

 that time they must be bitten off when they re- 

 quire shortening. Edwahd Peacock, Jun. 



Cheshire Cure for Hooping Cough. — Whilst 

 passing a short time in tiie neighbourhood of 

 Alderley in Cheshire, I found, among other in- 

 stances of Folk Lore prevailing there, the propriety 

 of communicating to the bees the death of any of 

 the family keeping hives. I learnt also anofher 

 case, that of a speedy and efficacious cure for the 

 troublesome complaint the hooping cough, which 

 I think ought to be put on record for the comfort 

 of all mothers and children. The remt-dy consists 

 in a plain currant cuke, to be eaten by the afflicted 

 child, the main virtue of which cake is, however, 

 in its being made by awcmian whose maiden name 

 was the same as that of the man she married ; and 



on no account whatever is any payment or com- 

 pensation to be made directly or indirectly for the 

 cake. My informant has the firmest belief in this 

 specific, he himself having witnessed, in the case of 

 his own child, the beneficial result ; but he took 

 care to mention, as probably an advantage, that 

 the cake which cured his child was made by a 

 woman whose mother had also married her name- 

 sake. F. R. A. 

 Sites of Buildings changed, Sfc. — There are other 

 churches in Lancashire besides AVinwick whose 

 sites have been changed by the Devil, and he has 

 also built some bridges ; that at Kirkby Lonsdale 

 owes much of its beauty to the string of his apron 

 giving way when he was carrying stones in it. 

 The stones may be seen yet in the picturesque 

 groups of rock below the bridge. Old cross or 

 boundary stones, with a hole full of water, are so 

 common that nobody honours them with a plague 

 story ; but we abound in other traditions. Ac- 

 cording to some a priest, according to others the 

 Devil, stamped his foot into the church wall at 

 Brindle, to prove the truth of Popery ; and 

 " George Marsh the Martyr " did the same at 

 Smithells Hall to prove the truth of Protestantism : 

 the foot-marks still remain on the wall and the 

 flag. There is unfortunately such a wearisome 

 sameness in these traditions, one story doing for so 

 many different places (except that at Winwick it 

 was as a pig, at Leyland as a cat, somewhere else 

 as a fish, that Satan played his pranks), that any 

 attempt to gather them together for "^.&Q." 

 would only tire out the editor and all his readers. 



buchakan and theodoke zuinger. 



Bishop Home, in his Commentary upon Psalm 

 cxxii., involves me in rather a dilemma. He says : 



" Theodore Zuinger, of whom some account may be 

 found in TImanus, when he lay on his death-bed, took 

 his leave of the world, in a paraphrase on the foregoing 

 psalm ; giving it the same turn with that given to it 

 above. It may serve as a finished specimen of the 

 noble and exalted use which a Christian may, and 

 ought to, make of the Psalms of David." 



And in the note he says : 



" A learned friend has obliged me with a copy of 

 ihese Latin verses of Zuinger, transcribed from the 

 303 rd page of VitcB Germanorum Medicorum, by Meli 

 chior Adamus. They are as follow : 

 I. 

 " O Lux Candida, lux mihi 

 La'ti conscia transitus ! 

 Pro Christ! merituin patet 

 Vitse porta beatae. 

 II. 

 " Me status revocat dies ' 

 Augiistam Domini ad domum ; 

 Jam sacra selherii premam 

 L:ctus limina teinpli. 



