510 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 61. 



garter, and place it under the pillow. Get into bed 

 backwards, saying, 



" Le jour de St. Thomas, 

 Le plus court, le phis bas, 

 Je prie Dieu journellement, 

 Qu'il me fasso voir, en dormant, 

 Celui qui sera mon amant ; 

 Et le (jays et la contree 

 Ou il (era sa demeuree, 

 Tel qu'il sera je i'aimeral, 

 Ainsi soit-il." 



Viator. 

 Nov. 6. 1850. 



Black Doll at Old Store-shops (Vol. i., p. 27.). 

 — Is it not probable that the black doll was 

 an image of the Virgin, sold at the Relbrraa- 

 tion with a lot of church vestments, and other 

 " rags of Pojiery," as the Puritans called the sur- 

 plice, and first hung up by some Puritan or 

 Hebrew dealer. 



Images of the black Virgin are not uncommon 

 in Roman Catholic churches. Has the colour an 

 Egyptian origin, or whence is it ? 



A. IIoi-T White. 



Gladwins, Harlow. 



Snake Charming. — Two or three summers ago, 

 I was told a curious story of snake charming by 

 a lady of undoubted veracity, in whose neighbour- 

 hood (about a dozen miles from Totnes) the oc- 

 currence had taken place. Two coast-guard men 

 in crossing a field fell in witli a snake : one of them, 

 an Irishman., threw Lis jacket over the animal, and 

 immediately uttered or muttered a charm over it. 

 On taking up the garment, after a few seconds had 

 passed, the snake was dead. 



When I heard this story, and understood that 

 the operator was an Irishman, I bethought me of 

 bow Rosalind says, " I was never so be-rhymed 

 since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat," 

 and accounted satisfactorily for the fact that, " as 

 touching snakes, there are no snakes in Ireland;" 

 for, as the song voucheth, " the snakes conunitted 

 suicide to save themselves from slaughter," i. e. 

 they were charmed to death hy St. Patrick. 



I fear it would now be impossible to recover the 

 charm made use of by the coast-guard man ; but 

 I will have inquiry made, and if I can obtain any 

 further particulars, I will forward them to you. 



J. M. B. 



Mice as a Medicine (Vol. ii., pp. 397. 435.). — 

 The remedy of the roast mouse recommended in 

 2'he Pathway to Health (which I find is in the British 

 Museum), is also prescribed in Most Excellent 

 and Approved Remedies, IC52 : — "Make it in 

 powder," says the author, " and drink it off at one 

 draught, and it will ju-esently help you, especially 

 if you use it three mornings together." The 

 following is " an excellent remedy to stanch 

 bleeding : " — 



" Take a toad and dry liim very well in the sun, 

 then put him in a linen bag, and hang him with a 

 string about the neck of the party that bleedeth, and 

 let !t hang so low that it may touch the breast on the 

 left side near unto the heart ; and this will certainly 

 stay all manner of bleeding at the mouth, nose," &c. 



Sage leaves, yarrow, and ale, are recommended 

 for a "gnawing at the heart;" which I think 

 should be "made a note of" for the benefit of 

 poor poets and disappointed authors. 



Wedsecnarf. 



Mice as a Medicine (Vol. ii., pp. 397. 435.).— I 

 was stopping about three years ago in the house of 

 a gentleman whose cook had been in the service of 

 a quondam Canon of Ch. Ch., who averred that 

 she roasted mice to cure her master's children of 

 the hooping cough. She said it had the efi'ect of 

 so doing. Chas. Paslam. 



" Many Nits, [nuts] 

 Many I'its." 



A common saying hereabouts, meaning that if 

 hazel-nuts, haws, hips, &c., are plentiful, many 

 deaths will occur. But whether the deaths are to 

 be occasioned by nut-devouring or by seasonal 

 influence, I cannot ascertain. In many places, an 

 abundant crop of hips and haws is supposed to be- 

 token a severe winter. Chas. Paslam. 



Swans hatched during Thunder. — The fable of 

 the singing of swans at death is well known; but 

 I recently heard a bit of " folk lore " as to the 

 birth of swans quite as poetical, and probably 

 equally true. It is this : that swans are always 

 hatched during a thunderstorm. I was told this 

 by an old man in Hampshire, who had been con- 

 nected with the care of swans all his life. He, 

 however, knew nothing about their singing at 

 death. 



Is this opinion as to the birth of swans common ? 

 If so, probably some of your numerous correspon- 

 dents will detail the form in which such belief is 

 expressed. Robert Rawlinson. 



Snakes (Vol. ii., p. 1G4.). — Several years ago, 

 in returning from an excursion from Clevedon, in 

 Somerset, to Cadbury Gamp, I saw a viper on the 

 down, which I pointed out to the old woman in 

 charge of the donkeys, who assailed it with a stout 

 stick, and nearly killed it. I expressed surprise 

 at her leaving it with some remains of life ; but 

 she said that, whatever she did to it, it would " live 

 till sun-down, and as soon as the sun was set it 

 would die." The same superstition prevails in 

 Cornwall, and also in IJevon. H. G. T. 



Pixies or Piskies. — At Chudlcigh Rocks I was 

 told, a few weeks ago, by the old man who acts as 

 guide to the caves, of a recent instance of a man's 

 being pixy-led. In going home, full of strong 

 drink, across the hill above the cavern called the 

 " Pixies' Hole," on a moonlit night, he heard sweet 



