Traditions. 83 
then, made eighty years ; add three years since the 
last thatching ; and the old lady supposed she was 
seventeen or eighteen at the first—ie. just a century 
since. But in all likelihood her recollections of the 
first thatching were confused and uncertain: she was 
perhaps eight or ten at that time, which would reduce 
her real age to a little over ninety. A great part of 
the village had twice been destroyed by fire since she 
could remember. These fires are or were singularly 
destructive in villages—the flames running from 
thatch to thatch, and, as they express it, ‘wrastling’ 
across the intervening spaces. A pain is said to 
‘wrastle,’ or shoot and burn. Such fires are often 
caused by wood ashes from the hearth thrown on the 
dustheap while yet some embers contain sufficient 
heat to fire straw or rubbish. 
The old woman’s memories were wholly of gossipy 
family history ; I have often found that the very aged 
have not half so much to tell as those of about sixty 
to seventy years. The next oldest was a man about 
eighty ; all he knew of history was that once ona 
time some traitor withdrew the flints from the 
muskets of the English troops, substituting pieces of 
wood, which, of course, would not ignite the powder, 
and thus they were beaten. Of date, place, or per- 
sons he had no knowledge. He ‘minded’ a great 
snowfall when he was a boy, and helping to drag the 
coaches out and making a firm road for them with 
hurdles. Once while grubbing a hedge near the road 
G2 
