188 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



unbaptized infants. 1 On certain parts of the east coast 

 of England many of the old fishermen believe that 

 they turn into gulls when they die. Writing on the 

 subject a few years since Mr. P. H. Emerson remarks : 

 " It was with great difficulty I first found out that this 

 strange belief in a post-mortem transformation existed 

 at all, but once having learned it, I found to my as- 

 tonishment that the belief was common, but was spoken 

 of with much reserve." Children, it seems become 

 kittiwakes, but women " don't come back no more, they 

 have seen trouble enough." 2 A story is told at Brad- 

 well, in the Peak of Derbyshire, concerning a child 

 who had been murdered and whose ghost could not 

 be appeased. Recourse was had to a wise man. He 

 pronounced the words : " In the name of the Father, 

 Son and Holy Ghost, why troublest thou me ? " and 

 turned the ghost into a fish, which thenceforth haunted 

 Lumley Pool and terrified people who came to draw 

 water from the wells there on Christmas Day. 3 In 

 Poland about Dobromil it was believed that every 

 member of the Herburt family changed after death 

 into an eagle. In a Polish manuscript of the year 

 1526 it is stated that the first-born daughters of the 

 mighty house of Pilecki, if they die unmarried, change 

 into doves, or, if married, into nocturnal birds, and 

 that to every member of their family they announce 



1 Swainson, 98, citing Macquoid, About Yorkshire. Numerous 

 cases are on record in which on the occasion of a death a 

 mysterious bird appears, flutters about and flies away, or disappears. 

 The most commonly cited example is that of the Oxenham family 

 recorded by Howell (see Gent. Mag. Lib. Pop. Sup. 212). These 

 are perhaps traceable to the same belief. 



2 F. L. xiv. 64, quoting English Idyls, by P. H. Emerson 

 (2nd ed. 1889). 3 Addy, Househ. Tales, 60. 



