Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore

, sir, to g

seed in

Jo

ero of our boyish days, the redoubtable "Jack, the Giant-killer," had his "coat of darkness," which conferred upon its proprietor this marvellous peculiarity. In the classical mythology,

hough he was engaged in an illegal enterprise, he was in league with companions of such high social status that the officers of the law would be unable to perceive their criminality if detected. He s

not Gyge

that gives i

ne Percevall, the Peacemaker," the following passage occurs:-"I thinke

ring themselves visible, or otherwise, at pleasu

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isible,

their c

wer, and its complement, that of being visible, at

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between the hours of eleven and twelve o'clock on Christmas night, will enable one man to do the work of twenty or thirty others not so favoured. Browne, in his "Britannia's Pastorals," speaks of "the wonderous one night seeding ferne;" and Richard Bivot, in his "Pand?monium," published in 1648, quaintly informs us that "much discourse hath been about gathering of fern seed (w

ly be found among the fern on St. John's night. It is said to be of a yellow colour, and to shine in the night like a candle; which is just what is said of the mandrake in an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century. Moreover, it never sta

man poem, beautifully illustrates th

stole through t

she sought the

low-worm, O le

e mystic St. Joh

herb whose l

year shall mak

glow-w

s silve

rkled a

e night of

young maid her

oisele

hamber s

ral moon her wh

oom here, thou

ung bride in h

its head, that

te death of a v

d leaf on the

a burial tha

year was

er bier the y

glow-w

s silve

rkled a

e night of

cold grave o'er th

s "efflorescence," will be overcome by drowsiness, and that beings of a supernatural character will succ

astonished to find that his wife and children appeared utterly unconscious of his presence. When he called out to them, "I have not found the foal," the greatest alarm and confusion followed, for the members of his household could hear his voice but failed to detect his person. Fancying he was hiding in jest, his wife called out his name. He answered, "Here I am rig

s seed." We are further informed that "herbs of different kinds are sought with many ceremonies." Monsieur Bergerac, in his "Satyrical Characters," translated "out of the French, by a Person of Honour," in 1658, makes a magician of the period enumerate amongst his many powers and duties the "wakening of the country fellow on St. John's eve to gather his hearb, fasting a

d on the Holy Bible, and is believed to be able to render those invisible who will dare to take it; and he

s that if we fasted on Midsummer Eve, and then at twelve o'clock at night laid a cloth on the table, with bread and cheese, and a cup of the best beer, setting ourselve

. The best story of this class that I have met with, is related by Samuel Bamford, in his "Passages in the Life of a Radical." One B

but he was no better; philters and charms had been tried to bring down the cold-hearted maid, but all in vain.... At length sorcerers and fortune-tellers were thought of, and 'Limping Billy,' a noted seer, residing at Radcliffe Bridge, havin

the eyes, and left flapping like a lid by a piece of tanned scalp, which still adhered. The interior cavities had also been stuffed with moss and lined with clay, kneaded with blood from human veins, and the youth had secured the skull to his shoulders by a twine of three strands made of unbleached flax, of undyed wool, and of woman's hair, from which also depended a raven black tress, which a wily crone had procured from the maid he sought to obtain.... A silence, like that of death, was around them, as they entered the open platting. Nothing moved either in tree or brake. Through a space in the foliage the stars were seen pale in heaven, and a crooked moon hung in a bit of blue, amid motionless clouds. All was sti

hn, this se

ared; sha

ce res

n is downwa

ars are now

ick; shak

art shall s

him

a glame that a venerable form,

n were seen walking in their holiday clothes, and graceful female forms sung mournful and enchanting airs. The men stood terrified and fascinated; and Bangle, gazing, bade 'God bless 'em.' A crash fo

-the skull's eyes glaring at his back, and the nether jaw grinning and jabbering frightful and unintelligible sounds. He had preserved the seed, however, and, having taken it from the skull, he buried the latter at the cross road from

ce where it is, and thunder, lightning and hail rarely fall there.'[28] This is in apparent contradiction with the Polish superstition, according to which the plucking of fern produces a violent thunderstorm; but it is a natural superstition, that the hitherto rooted and transformed thunderbolt resumes its pristine nature, when the plant that contained it is taken from the ground. In the Thuringian forest fern is called irrkracet, or bewildering weed (fro

er." It appears that Freyja, in exacting an oath from all created things never to harm this "whitest and most beloved of the gods," inadvertently overlooked one of the lightning plants. It was an arrow formed from the branch of the mistletoe, flung by the hand of the blind Hodr or Helder, with which Baldr was struck dead. Baldr, says the legend, was

cies found in Lancashire, is generally confounded in these traditions with the Osmunda Regalis, or royal fern, or, as it is sometimes improperly styled, the "flowering fern," which, of course, is an absurdity, as expressing neither more nor less than the flowering non-flowering plant! The name is said to be of Saxon origin, Osmunda being one of the appellations of Thor, who, as we have previously seen, was the "consecra

s,-"Vervain, or wild verbena, has been the flo

onson

ands, and with

ain on t

f France do the peasantry continue to gather the vervain, with ceremonies and words known only to themselves; and to express its juices under certain phases of the moon. At once the doctors and conjurors of their village, they alternately cure the complaints of their masters or fill them with dread; for the same m

royal proclamation is preserved in the British Museum, enjoining the country people not t

which is applied to many superstitious uses. The fern has large pinnate fronds, and is thus related to the mountain ash and the mimos?. In fact, says Kuhn, it were hardly possible to find in our climate a plant which more accurately corresponds in its whole appearance to the original signification of the Sanscrit name parna as leaf and feather. Nor does the relationship between them end here, for fern, Ang

the locality in a legal document, had found, on referring to some old title deeds, that a "family of the name of 'Bowker' had formerly occupied a residence situate in or near the clough; and that their dwelling was designated 'Bowker's

ne who had been more fortunate, or unfortunate, as the case might be, she said firmly, after a slight scrutiny of my countenance and figure-"Yes; Sam Bamford has!" I put similar questions about an hour afterwards to the maid at the "Bell" public-house, in Moston Lane, which, to my surprise, elicited exactly similar responses. I pressed this girl still further on the subject

rred. Once call a place "Boggart Ho' Clough," and especially such a place, and I can easily imagine, in a very short time, that many of the floating traditions of the neighbourhood would fasten themselves upon it. This being afterwards rendered more definite by the action of literary exponents of traditio

rtions having the ominous name of Boglehole." Doubtless many other localities could be pointed out where a nomen

TNO

Jacob