Mooney. ] 260 [Oct. 19, 
funerals,’ as they ar calld. Another most important factor is the deter- 
mind fight which the Catholic priests hav always made against the prac- 
tices of the wake, until at last they hav almost succeeded in abolishing 
the custom. Thé old observances, however, had a strong hold upon the 
minds of the people and frequently come to the surface again when least 
expected. This was exemplified in a striking manner a few years since in 
the south of Ireland. A young man had died in a district in which the 
funeral cry had long fallen into disuse. Just as the procession was leaving 
the house his mother, or some near female relativ, broke into a passionate 
eulogy of the dead, when instantly every woman present, as if movd by 
a common impulse, raisd the uwllagone and took her place behind the 
leader, and once more the wild wailing of the caoine floated over the hills 
until the corpse reachd its final resting place. Such is the power of an 
old custom acting upon impressionable natures at a critical moment. 
OmEns—THE BEAN-SIGHE AND Farry INFLUENCE. 
The Irish hav a number of death omens, most of which ar common to 
the rest of Europe, and therefore need not be described here. Many of 
these ar taken from the actions and appearance of animals. Thus the 
howling of a dog presages the death of a member or relativ of the family, 
according as the animal looks toward the hous or away from it at the time. 
For this reason it is customary in Connemara when a dog howls at night to 
send some one outside to see which way the animal is facing. In the same 
way a dul ringing or crying sound in the right ear betokens the death of a 
near friend; in the left ear, that of a distant relativ. The same belief is 
held in Scotland. The croaking of a raven near the hous is also a fatal 
omen. Should a rooster fly up in the rafters and crow before midnight, it 
is regarded as a sign of an approaching death, and the omen is considerd 
infallible if the bird be a Ootileach Martain (pronounced QOul-yakh Marr- 
than) or ‘March cock,’’ that is, one hatched in March from an eg laid in 
the same month. There ar a number of strange beliefs in connection with 
the Coilleach Martain, which is thought to possess occult powers. The 
untimely crowing of a rooster is regarded as a death omen throughout 
Europe, and also in China, where several precautions ar taken to avert the 
threatend calamity.* Flics lighting upon the body of a sick person, or 
putterflies hovering about in the sick-room, also presage the approach of 
death, while of magpies it is said that 
“One is for sorrow, two for luck, 
Three for a wedding, and four for death.” + 
Great attention is also paid to dreams and to a hundred other things 
which are lucky or unlucky in their consequences, such, for instance, as 
* A.M. Fielde, Chinese Superstitions, in Popular Science Monthly, xxxii, 798, New 
York, April, 1888. 
+ In Scotland it runs thus: ‘‘One bodes grief, two's a death, 
Three’s a wedding, four’s a birth.’’ 
James Napier, Folk Lore or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland, 113, Paisley, 1879, 
