386 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[2nd §, No 20., May 17. °56. 
one can speak against them without speaking 
against the Holy Ghost, which, whosoever speaketh 
against, it shall not be forgiven him,” &c. From 
p. 59. I excerpt the following personal details : 
“ As to my own deeds through life, ask at Adderbury, 
in the county of Oxford, the place where I was born, and 
Banbury, and North Newton, near Banbury, in the said 
county of Oxford, in which places only I have resided 
until this time, excepting about ten years in Birmingham, 
where I was known as a paper mould maker, either 
honest or not so, throughout most of the counties of the 
kingdom of Old England.” 
It appears that Gauthern was also the author of 
certain previous works, Zhe Tanner’s Ass, Ban- 
bury, 1813; The Alarming Trumpeter; The Bang- 
up Inquisitor, &c. Perhaps some of the Oxford- 
shire correspondents of “ N. & Q.” may be able 
to furnish further particulars of this religious 
fanatic. Witx1am Bates, 
Birmingham, : 
FOLK LORE. 
Cuckoo Superstition. — A few days ago I no- 
ticed a person in this neighbourhood suddenly 
take to his heels and run rapidly round in a circle. 
When he had finished I asked him the reason of 
his singular act, when he told me he had heard the 
cuckoo for the first time this year, and that if he 
ran round in a circle as soon as he heard it, he 
would not be idle during the year. Can any 
readers of “N. & Q.” tell me if this custom is 
prevalent elsewhere ? M. A, 
Taunton, May 2. 
Eastern Counties Superstitions: Snakes and 
Spiders. — 
Cure for Pains in the Head. — Many Cambridge 
people still remember an old man called the 
* Duke of York,” who earned his living by sitting 
on the steps of King’s College Chapel, and ex- 
hibiting to the numerous strangers who went to 
see that famed building, live specimens of the 
common English snake (Coluber natrix), which 
abounds in this neighbourhood. This man added 
to his earnings by selling the sloughs, or cast-off 
skins of these reptiles, as sovereign remedies for 
all pains in the head when bound round the fore- 
head and temples. My informant has frequently 
seen him dispose of them for this purpose. 
Cure for the Hooping-cough.— A farmer, from 
the neighbourhood of Reepham, in Norfolk, 
gravely told me the following certain cure for the 
hooping-cough. Whenever any of his children 
were attacked with it, he caught a common house- 
spider, which he tied up in muslin, and pinned 
over the mantel-piece. So long as the spider 
lived, the cough remained; but when it died, the 
cough went away. Te assured me he had cured 
all his children in this way ; and that when two 
were affected at the same time, they recovered 
when their respective spiders died, which was not 
in the order in which they were attacked. My 
informant, though illiterate, was a wealthy man ; 
farming several hundred acres, and bringing his 
sons up for professions. Have any of your corre- 
spondents met with similar superstitions in other 
localities ? Norris Deck. 
Cambridge. 
Cure of Ague.—I remember, a few years ago, 
there lived near Deeping St. James, Lincolnshire, 
an old woman who stood in great repute with the 
fen people for her cure, which consisted of a small 
glass of gin with a pinch of candle-snuff in it, for 
which she levied contributions on the snuffers of 
her neighbours. G. H. R. 
20. Cross Street, Hatton Garden. 
Cure for Cramp.—I have heard that a basin 
of cold water put under the bed of the person 
liable to cramp, is an effectual preventive of it. 
What is the origin of this belief ? ANON. 
Plough Monday Custom.— About 150 years 
ago, the following custom prevailed in the northern 
counties of England on Plough Monday :—If a 
ploughman came to the kitchen-hatch, and could 
contrive to cry, “Cock in the pot,” before the 
maid could ery “ Cock on the dunghill,” he was 
entitled to a cock for Shrove Tuesday. Are there 
any traces of this custom still remaining ? 
Henry Kensineton. 
* On St. James’s Day the Apples are christened.” 
— This saying is found among the people in Wilt- 
shire and Somersetshire. Was St. James con- 
sidered to be the patron of orchards ? and was he 
invoked for a blessing on the infant fruit? as, at 
that season, May 1, the apple trees are in Lye 
Superstition respecting Human Hair.— Among 
our peasantry it is considered very unlucky to 
leave lying about, or to throw away any, even 
the smallest scrap, of human hair. I have often 
noticed the careful anxiety of countrywomen in 
picking up and consuming “ each particular hair,” 
and even sweeping up the place where hair had 
fallen or been cut, and scrupulously burning the 
sweeping in the fire. The only explanation they 
would give of this unusual care was, that if left 
about, the birds would build their nests with the 
hair; a fatal thing for him or her from whose 
head it had fallen ; and that if a “ pyet” (Anglicé 
magpie) got hold of it for any such purpose, — by 
no means an unlikely circumstance, considering 
the thievish propensities of the bird,—the person’s 
death, within “year and day,” was sure. The 
solemn looks and head-shakings, accompanying 
these explanations, convinced me that the speakers 
were in earnest. This appears to be a fragment 
