Dec. 25. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



601 



Hngton," aud " The Blind Beggar's Daughter of 

 Bethnal Green." 



There are others apparently as old, which I 

 tave not met with in any collection of ballads, 

 *' A Sweet Country Lile," " The Husbandman 

 and the Serving Man." 



There is also "Lord Bateman was a Noble 

 Lord," a pretty ballad, made ridiculous a few 

 years since by Cruickshank. 



These ballads are not only remarkable as poetry, 

 but are sung to very pretty tunes, curious in their 

 style, and probably old as the ballads. 



H. F. Broadwood. 



■Children crying at Baptism, — I have often heard 

 that it was lucky for infants to cry at the time 

 when they were baptized, but have only lately 

 been informed of the reason, which is, that if they 

 are quiet and good then, it seems to show that 

 they are too good to live. Is this the generally- 

 received explanation of this very widely-spread 

 superstition ? W. Fbaseb. 



Night Rains. — I was lately in East Anglia, in 

 the neighbourhood of the breach, called locally the 

 " Gull," made by the late floods in the Ouse, which 

 laid many thousand acres of the fens under water. 

 Of course nothing else was talked of at the time 

 but the inundation, and the probable extent of the 

 damage it would cause. I heard some gentlemen 

 remark, that they had heard from an old woman a 

 saying, common in her youth, but Avhich no one 

 remembered to have heard before, which had been 

 singularly true of the late autumn. She recalled 

 the old rhyme, 



" Night rains, 

 Make drown'd fens : " 



and it was observed that it had certainly been the 

 case that the greater part of the excessive quantity 

 of rain which fell in the last quarter of 1852 had 

 fallen at night. This old saying seems to me to 

 deserve being put on record in the Folk Lore 

 columns of " N. & Q." E. A. J. 



Norfolk and Suffolk Spells. — I take this oppor- 

 tunity of adding to the spells which have been 

 communicated, from time to time, to " N. & Q.," 

 the following, still used by the country maidens in 

 Norfolk and Suffolk : 



" A clover of two, if you put in your shoe. 

 The next man you meet in field or lane 

 Will be your husband, or one of the name." 



G. A. C. 



Nursery Rhymes. — Something the other day re- 

 called to my memory the following rhymes which 

 I heard in the nursery, years ago. I have never 

 heard them since, or seen them in print ; nor is 

 there intrinsically anything in them worth pre- 

 serving ; yet there is an originality which invests 



them with pretensions to appear in some future 

 edition of Nursery Rhymes. They are at the 

 service of any of your correspondents or readers 

 making collections : 



" There was a man, a man indeed. 



Who saw his garden full of seed, 



And when the seed began to grow, 



'Twas like a garden full of snow ; 



And when the snow began to waste, 



'Twas like a bird upon her nest ;* 



And when the young began to fly, 



'Twas like an eagle in the sky ; 



And when the sky began to roar, 



'Twas like a lion at tlie door ; 



And when the door began to crack, 



'Twas like a stick upon my back; 



And when my back began to smart, 



'Twas like a penknife in my heart; 



And when my heart began to bleed, 



'Twas like a little pig indeed ; 



And when the pig began to squeak, 



I thought my very heart would break." 



I believe there were more of these jingles, which 

 I cannot now recollect. G. A. C. 



Cornish Miners' Superstition. — Amongst the 

 miners in Cornwall a superstition greatly prevails, 

 namely, that whistling below ground brings " evil 

 spirits" amongst them, and for that reason you 

 never hear a miner whistling whilst under ground. 

 Can you tell me if this superstition is common 

 amongst other mining districts besides that of 

 Cornwall? H.B. 



Teeth wide apart a Sign of Good Luck. — A 

 young lady the other day, in reply to an observ- 

 ation of mine, " What a lucky girl you are ! " re- 

 plied, " So they used to say I should be when at 

 school." " Why ? " " Because my teeth were set 

 so far apart ; it was a sure sign I should be lucky 

 and travel." A. D. 



Confirination Superstition. — Similar to the bap- 

 tismal superstition mentioned in "N. & Q." 

 (Vol. ii., p. 197.), is the desire to have the bishop's 

 right hand — at confirmation the right hand being 

 thought lucky, the left unlucky — in Devonshire. 



The present practice of the Bishop of Exeter is, 

 I believe, to lay both hands on each recipient. 



G.T. 



Exeter. 



Cure for Cramp. — In the neighbourhood of 

 Penzance the following is considered an infallible 

 cure for cramp : " On going to rest, put your 

 slippers under the bed and turn the soles upwards." 



J. M. B. 



^ Dead Birds. — No one who has resided any 

 time in the country can fail to have been struck 



* Norfolcte, naste. 



