may be tormented with them. He often carries off young maidens into the water, has intercourse with them, and keeps them with him until they have been deivered; then lays such children in cradles, takes the genuine children out, and carries them away. But such changelings, it is said, do not live more than eighteen or twenty years.' Again: 'Eight years ago there was a changeling in Dessau, which I, Dr. Martin Luther, have both seen and touched: it was twelve years old, and had all its senses, so that people thought it was a proper child; but that mattered little, for it only ate, and that as much as any four ploughmen or thrashers, and when any one touched it, it screamed; when things in the house went wrong, so that any damage took place, it laughed and was merry; but if things went well, it cried. Thereupon I said to the Prince of Anhalt, "If I were prince or ruler here, I would have this child thrown into the water, into the Moldau, that flows by Dessau, and would run the risk of being a homicide.” But the Elector of Saxony, who was then at Dessau, and the Prince of Anhalt, would not follow my advice. I then said they ought to cause a pater-noster to be said in the church, that God would take the devil away from them. This was done daily at Dessau, and the said changeling died two years after.' And on one point at least the early Scotch and English Calvinistic divines evinced the greatest credulity. It is notorious that they believed unhesitatingly in the existence of sorcery, and were ever ready to extend and enforce the legal penalties against it. It is not to be b denied,' says Sir Walter Scott,1that the Presbyterian ecclesiastics, who in Scotland were often appointed by the Privy Council commissioners for the trial of witchcraft, evinced a very extraordinary degree of credulity ir such cases, and that the temporary superiority of the same sect in England was marked by enormous cruelties of this kind.' The notices, however, of the Folk Lore of my fellowcountrymen which I have been able to collect during the last six years, are widely varied in their origin. If some of them are unmistakable relics of heathenism, some have their origin in the rites and customs of the unreformed Church, and some in the myths and historical traditions of our ancestors the Saxons and Danes; while others, again, appear to be the spontaneous growth of sensitive and imaginative minds, yearning for communion with a mysterious past and yet more mysterious future. They are varied too in their character; some breathing deep religious feeling, some full of light graceful fancy, while some are gross, vulgar, even cruel superstitions.. Let me add, that while recording them a conviction has deepened upon me that there are very, very many more incidents of a similar kind to be collected. Unless this be speedily done, I firmly believe that many a singular usage and tradition will pass away from the land unnoted and unremembered. It would be very desirable if a scheme could be organised for 1 Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter viii. systematically collecting and classifying the remnants of our Folk Lore; but at least I would intreat all those in whose eyes the subject possesses any interest, accurately to note down every old custom, observance, proverb, saying, or legend, which comes before them. NOTES ON FOLK LORE. CHAPTER I. LIFE AND DEATH OF MAN. Day of birth-Hour of birth-Border customs at the birth of a child -Unchristened ground-Unbaptized children at the mercy of fairies, &c.-Folk lore connected with baptism-The toom cradle-The child's first visit-Cutting of nails-' Weeds and onfas'-The caul and veil -Folk lore of childhood of boyhood-Schoolboy superstitionsCobbing match-Confirmation-Marriage portents-Marriage customs: On the borders in Yorkshire-Throwing the shoe-Kissing the bride-Hot pots-Rubbing with pease-straw-Race for a ribbonPortents of death- Whistling woman and crowing hen--Border presages The wraith or waff-St. Mark's Eve-Cauff-riddlingSaining a corpse-Death with the tide-Discovery of the drownedCarrying the dead with the sun. THROUGHOUT the Borders, and in the six northern counties of England, peculiar rites and customs are bound up with every stage of human life. To begin at the beginning the nursery has there a folk lore of its own. And, first, the future character and fortunes of the infant may be divined from the day of the week on which it is born. For, as the old rhyme runs Monday's child is fair of face, B |