44 Truntiactio'us. 



happened to visit the worksliop, and the apprentice, unnoticed 

 by his master, pounced upon the bird and slipped it into the 

 colHn. Shortly afterwards master and apprentice carried the 

 coffin to its destination. No sooner had tlie lid been unscrewed 

 than the sparrow took to flight, to the evident discomposure of 

 the assembled friends, who looked upon the bird as the disem- 

 bodied soul of the deceased. 



Very difl^erent were the manifestations associated in the 

 popular mind with the death of the wicked. Our local annals 

 supply us with at least one example in which exaggeration lias 

 been carried to the verge of the ridiculous. We refer to the 

 stories told in connection with the death of the notorious 

 prosecutor Lag. Thus it is said that shortly before he died he 

 was actually experiencing on eartli a foretaste of the penalties 

 that had been prepared for him in the world to come. So terrible 

 was the agony he endured that he prayed for bucketfuls of water 

 to be thrown over him to cool the burning heat of his body, a 

 heat which must have been terrible indeed, for we are told that 

 when he spat on the floor his spittal "frizzed" for several seconds 

 on the spot where it fell, and left thereon an indelible impress. 

 Even death did not terminate these unwonted manifestations, for 

 a black dog and a I'aven were seen to accompany the funeral 

 cortege all the way to the grave, while the four horses which were 

 engaged in the unhallowed work of taking him thither all shortly 

 afterwards perished in the same mysterious fashion. I have 

 myself conversed with a woman who heard a sound as of chains 

 rattling, and saw long specti-al shadows flit fitfully past as she 

 stood by the " nettle neuk " where the hated prosecutor lay. 



Happily, death is not always, or even frequently, accompanied 

 by cantrips of this kind, and it is almost with a sense of relief we 

 turn to the more oi'dinary nssociations of this the most solemn 

 period in man's chequered history. When a person died it was a 

 common practice to stop the clock, and to cover the mirror with 

 a cloth, while on the breast of the dead a vessel of salt was placed 

 as a protection against evil influences. Napier suggests that this 

 latter custom had its origin in the rites of the " sin eaters," who, 

 having placed a plate of salt and one of bread on the breast of 

 the corpse, repeated a seiies of incantations and afterwards 

 devoured the contents of the plates, by which means the deceased 

 person was supposed to be relieved of such sins as would have 



