76 NOTES ON ESSEX DIALECT AND FOLK-LORE. 



peared, but its reality is still discoverable by the word hatch being 

 affixed to the name of the place as above. 



I am not prepared to say how many times the Devil has appeared 

 in our county, but it is reported that he showed himself to the 

 inhabitants in the form of a Minorite friar during a thunderstorm 

 at Danbury, 1402, when the nave and a great part of the chancel of 

 the church was destroyed. 



In the parish of Tolleshunt Knights there is an uncultivated field, and at 

 some distance from it is an old mansion known as •' Barn Hall." The legend is 

 that the Hail was intended to have been built on the first named spot, but the 

 devil destroyed in the night time all that had been done in the day. A knighi 

 with two dogs was sent to watch, and when the evil one came there was a sharp 

 tussle, but of course Apollyon was vanquished by Greatheart. The irritated demon 

 thereupon snatched a beam from the building and hurled it through the darkness, 

 exclaiming : 



■' Wheresoever this beam shall fall 

 There shall stand Barn Hall," 



and further added that on the knight's death he would have him, whether he was 

 buried in the church or out of it. To avoid this calamity the warrior was buried 

 in the church wall — half in and half out. A:curious doggerel was common in the 

 district named. 



The " Legend of the Flying Serpent," an account of which 

 appeared in a pamphlet published by Peter Lillicrap in the year 

 1669 with the title of "The Flying Serpent, or Strange News out of 

 Essex, being a true relation of a monstrous serpent which hath at 

 divers times been seen at the parish of Henham-on-the-Mount, 4 

 miles from Saffron Walden." This was reprinted a few years ago by 

 our member, Mr. Miller Christy. 



" It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off super- 

 stitious prejudices. They are sucked in as it were with our 

 mother's milk and growing up with us at a time when they take the 

 fastest hold and make the most lasting impressions become so inter- 

 woven into our very constitution that the strongest good sense is 

 required to disengage ourselves from them." These were the words 

 of Gilbert White, written in 1776, and if true in his day they are as 

 true in ours. 



In Essex it is considered lucky to see the new moon over your 

 right shoulder, but unlucky to see it through glass. One good 

 woman I came across always shut her eyes when she closed the 

 shutters, lest she should see the moon. 



It is lucky to put on your stocking wrong side out, but unlucky to 

 turn it immediately on discovering the mistake. 



