By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



321 



within my own memory : and I have repeatedly noticed that those 

 who were ready enough to enunciate their belief in such generally- 

 received maxims twenty years ago, can scarcely be persuaded to 

 speak of them at present. And this, not from any misgivings as to* 

 their truth, but because they shrink from exposing their cherished 

 notions to the scepticism of the unbelieving, and naturally hide 

 amongst themselves the opinions which they soon learn to see are 

 ridiculed and scoffed at by the outside world. 



It is time then for the Wiltshire Archaeological Society to try, by 

 means of its many members, to rescue the memory of such super- 

 stitions and traditions from oblivion, before they are buried in the 

 bosoms of our most uncommunicative classes : and as every day 

 makes the task more difficult, I would urge on my fellow arch geologists 

 to assist in committing to paper instances of this kind with which 

 they may become acquainted ; assured, as I am, that they will soon 

 possess a value which most people perhaps now little dream of, as 

 the march of Education carries off in its rapid strides (not, I think, 

 the traditions and superstitions themselves, but) the key by which 

 alone we can hope to get at them, viz., the willingness to relate 

 them on the part of their possessors. 



I proceed now to mention two or three examples of these traditions 

 and superstitions, as they have come before my own notice ; and I 

 would observe here, that I class ;them together, because they are so 

 intimately connected that 1 cannot sever them : the one runs into 

 the other as it were insensibly, and it is difficult to say where the 

 one ends, and the other begins. 



Sickness and death are perhaps the two subjects which have called 

 forth most of these old traditions, and no wonder. For whilst the 

 monasteries flourished, the people looked confidently, and not with- 

 out reason, to the good fathers for medical aid; but when the 

 religious houses were dissolved, and those on whose advice they had 

 been accustomed to rely were dispersed, they were obliged to shift 

 for themselves, as they best could. Thus, when the science of 

 medicine was at the lowest ebb, and a people ignorant of the prin- 

 ciples of the healing art, but deeply distressed at the danger 6f 

 their loved ones, knew not where to turn for remedies, nor how to 



