Shropshire Folk-Lore. Edited by Charlotte Sophia Berne, from the Collections
of Georgina F. Jackson. Part II.—Miss Berne con- tinues this curious collection of the oddities of human thought with what would seem an unfailing supply of materials. These, indeed, have overflowed their bounds, so that a third part will be necessary. There is a singular fascinatiOn about reading of this kind. Perhaps one might say that it was a wholesome alterative to the prevailing thought of the day. However that may be, the most severely rational person will, we are sure, go on turning over page after page of -these strange fancies and beliefs. " Shropehire folk-lore" the editor calls them; and, indeed, locates each superstition in some part of the county (a part of her work which she _does very carefully), but many of them are found in other places. A Shropshire chapman or market-woman will spit for luck upon the first coin which he or she receives in the day ; but many anglers will remember how It Thames fisherman will sometimes spit for the same reason en the first fish that he or his customer • may catch. Mast of us, too, have fished long and short "strangers" out of our tea-Cups. Does this fancy date from before the compare- tivelyrecent times of tea-drinking ? If *so, what was its form ? Some of the superstitions are clearly ancient ; that, for instance, of its being unlucky-to meet a woman on 'beginning a journey mast date, as Miss Burne, observes, from a time before chivalry, when woman was regarded and treated with • unceremonious directness as the weaker vessel. [As we write, we see in Nature the notice of a similar super. stition among the fishermen of Staithes, in Yorkshire, where a woman has to tarn her back on a fisherman if she sees him coming _on his way to the boat.] But a magpie is a worse-omen than a woman. This, again, is a very widespread superstition. Many people who are not by any means ignorant propitiate -it by taking off the hat or dropping a curtsey. If we knew more about the bird-lore of the ancients, this- part-of the- subject might-. be illustrated in a very interesting way. Ravens are, of course, notoriously unlucky-; but in the weird story which Miss Borne gives-they appear as the discoverers' of crime. One Elke, who murdered a child for hire, was warned against his-deed by two ramene; when he had-committed and_hid himself, "the -said ravens did fly and cryed about the place,und discried hintowlvand 430 [he] was. found in a cock of hay by their meartesY
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