ond §, No21., May 24. °56.] 
Replies. 
EASTER SUNDAY SUPERSTITIONS. 
(21 S..3. 331.) 
Superstitious practices, bearing a great resem- 
blance to that mentioned by Mr. Haimstons, are, 
I am sorry to say, far from uncommon in Lincoln- 
shire ; several cases have come beneath my own 
notice. A few years ago, in pulling down an old 
house in a neighbouring village, a wide-mouthed 
bottle was found under the foundation, containing 
the heart of some small animal (it was conjectured 
a hare), pierced as closely as possible with pins. 
The elders said it had been put there to “ with- 
stand witching.” Some time after, a man digging 
in his garden in the village of Yaddlethorpe came 
upon a skeleton of a horse or ox, buried about 
three feet beneath the surface, and near to it two 
bottles containing pins, needles, human hair, and 
a stinking fluid, probably urine. ‘The bottles, 
pins, &c., came into my possession. There was 
nothing to indicate the date cf their interment 
except one of the bottles, which was of the kind 
employed to contain Daffy’s elixir, a once popular 
patent medicine. The other bottle was an ordi- 
nary wine pint. At the time when these things 
were found, I mentioned the circumstance to 
may persons among our peasantry: they all said 
that it had “summut to do with witching ;” and 
many of them had long stories to tell, setting forth 
how pins and needles are a protection against the 
malice of the servants of Satan. One anecdote is 
worth recording as a specimen of popular credu- 
lity. About thirty years ago, there lived in this 
village an inoffensive old man, who was feared and 
hated by all his neighbours because he had what 
is called “an evil eye.” If the east wind caused 
rheumatism, if cattle died, or pigs would not 
fatten, poor Thomas K*** was sure to be at the 
bottom of it. It chanced once that there had 
been an unusual run of bad luck in the parish, 
most of the farmers had had serious losses among 
their cattle; and, as a consequence, the hatred 
against K*** was more active than ordinary. The 
climax came, by his next-door neighbour, who 
had two young horses making up for Lincoln 
April fair, finding them both dead the very morning 
he was about to set out with them. The obvious 
suspicion of poison, wilful or accidental, never 
entered his mind; he was sure K*** had accom- 
plished the deed with that evil eye of his. So he 
went to a person learned in forbidden lore, popu- 
larly called a “ wise man,” who told him that if he 
cut out the heart of one of the dead animals, 
stuck it full of pins, and boiled it in a pot, the 
man who had the evil eye would present himself 
at the door, and knock loudly for admittance ; 
but was on no account to be let in, for if he once 
crossed the threshold the charm would fail, The 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
415 
man did as he was ordered, and used to assert 
that K*** loudly knocked at the door, and tried 
every means to effect an entrance; but in vain, 
all means of ingress had been securely fastened. 
The result was that the wizard was so badly 
scalded, that he could not work for several months. 
The squire hinted that the east wind had given 
him the rheumatism, but the people knew far 
better. 
Those who are not in daily intercourse with 
the peasantry can hardly be made to believe or 
comprehend the hold that charms, witchcraft, 
wise-men, and other like relics of heathendom 
have upon the people. Epwarp Peacocg. 
Bottesford, Brigg. 
HERALDIC COLOURS INDICATED BY LINES. 
(2" §. i, 354.) 
These lines were invented by Father Silvester 
Petra Sancta S. J., and are used in his treatise on 
heraldry, entitled — 
“ Tesserze Gentilitie, a Silvestre Petra Sancta, Romano 
Societatis Jesu, ex legibus Fecialium descripte.” Rom., 
fo., 1658, pp. 678. 
At page 59. he gives the following explanation 
of the lines used to express the tinctures : 
“Sed ut monuerim etiam fore, vt soluis beneficio sculp- 
ture, in tesseris gentilitijs, quas cum occasio feret, pro- 
ponam frequenter, tum iconis tum arez, seu metallum 
seu colorem, Lector absque errore deprehendere possit, 
Schemata id manifestum reddent; etenim quod punctim 
incidetur, id aureum erit: argenteum, quod fuerit expers 
omnis sculpture: puniceum, quod cxsim et ductis ab 
summo ad imum lineolis exarabitur: cyaneum, quod de- 
lineabitur ex transverso: prasinum vero, quod obliqué ab 
angulo dextero secabitur; violaceum, quod obliqué pariter 
scindetur, sed ab supero angulo levo; nigrum quod can- 
cellatim et in modum seu crucularum seu plagularum 
intercidetur.” 
Gibbon Bluemantle, who liad a passion for turn- 
ing everything into Latin verse, explains them 
thus : 
“ Aurum puncta dabunt; Argentum parmaq; simplex ; 
Fascia Ceruleum, palaris linea Rubrum; 
Obliquus tractus Viridem; Nigrumq; colorem 
Transversum filum dabit et palare vicissim ; 
Tractibus obliquis sit Purpura nota sinistris,” 
Or the fourth verse thus: 
“ Ductus transversi dant et perpendiculares. 
Petra Sancta Was born at Rome at the end of 
the year 1590; admitted into the noviciate of the 
Society of Jesus, Dec. 31, 1608. He was after- 
wards president of the college at Loretto, and 
died at Rome, May 8, 1647. (See an account of 
him in Southwell’s Bibliotheca Scriptorum Soc. 
Jesu, p. 471.) Tuomrson Coorer. ~ 
Cambridge. 
” 
The use of dots to mark gold, and of lines to 
mark colours, was the invention of Father Sil- 
