Curious Customs and Beliefs 341 



the manes of the departed husband. I was greeted 

 with — 



" ' It 's all very good o' you, sir, but they ain't like t'other 

 poor dears as is dead and gone ! ' " 



In Yorkshire the bees are invited to the funeral. 



In the Carolina mountains of the United States the 

 people still " tell the bees " of a death in the family ; as 

 one of the mountaineers recently described it, " You knock 

 on each hive, so, and say, ' Lucy is dead.' " 



In some parts of France the hives are put into mourning 

 when one of the family dies, and the inhabitants of the 

 Pyrenees have a custom of burying an old garment 

 belonging to the deceased under the bench where the bee- 

 hives stand, and they neither sell, give away nor exchange 

 the bees of the dead. 



There is a wide-spread superstition that it is unlucky 

 to buy the bees of a dead man, while in some parts of 

 England, Germany, France, and the United States it is con- 

 sidered necessary to move the hives upon the death of the 

 -owner, either to change their place or to turn them around, 

 a custom said also to be practised in China. 



The faith with which this belief was held in England is 

 illustrated in the following, quoted by Harris from a book 

 written in 1 62 1 : — 



" Who would believe without superstition (if experience 

 did not make it credible) that most commonly all the bees 

 die in their hives if the master or mistress of the house 

 chance to die, except the hives be presently removed into 

 some other place ? And yet I know this hath happened 

 to folk no way stained with superstition." 



Sometimes this disturbing of the bees is received ill- 

 naturedly and causes trouble at the house of mourning. 

 Jean Paul recounts a mishap of this nature at the funeral 

 of a man of high rank, where the obsequies were being 



