auli 

 still obtaining in Dorset 



By E. A. RAWLENCE. 



N the remote villages of Dorset, and especially of 

 the Blackmore Vale, a great deal of supersti- 

 tion and folk-lore still lingers amongst the 

 old inhabitants ; but the difficulty is to get 

 behind the scenes in order to find it out, as 

 there appears to be a subconsciousness that 

 such dealings are unorthodox, and possibly 

 some fear of ridicule. In some cases a saying will only drop 

 out when it just illustrates the circumstance. In one instance 

 a farmer illustrated something by an old " saw." Shortly 

 afterwards I asked him to repeat it while I wrote it down, 

 but for the life of him he could not do so. It flowed out 

 naturally enough in its right place. Realising that with the 

 present generation probably all these relics of the past will 

 disappear, and that, with education and the advent of books, 

 papers, and improved locomotion, the time is gone for ever 

 when the children sat round the cottage hearth and heard 

 from " Vather the do'ens an' zay'ens o' gran-ver," about five 



