BOGGARTS AND BADGERS.
[To rns Enrroa OP THE " Specrseoe."] Sia,—In your review of Professor Ekwall's book you refer to Boggart Hole Clough and ghosts. I am sorry to have to upset this little bit of myth, but in Lancashire, some parte at any rate, "boggartd" are badgers; and the name of the dough is a perfectly natural one. I remember well, as a child, being taken to see a recently captured " boggart " and the effect of the green gleam of its eyes from the back of a dark shed.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ERNEST HOLCOMBE HEWLETT.
Vole Way, Mansfield.
[Our reviewer writes: " Mr. Hewlett should consult the Oxford English Dictionary, which shows that boggart ' has meant 'a ghost' from the sixteenth century at least, as it does in South Lancashire to-day." At the same time, we mean no disconsideration to the honourable and courageous Company of Badgers. Floreat in ceternum.—ED. Spectator.]
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