INDEX.
381
notion that breaking crockery would follow the taking of its nest; its song bodes ill to sick people; raps at the windows of the dying; sings on altar at Hurstpierpoint before a death, 124; “weeping” near a house a death warning (Suffolk), 60
Robin Goodfellow: Ben Jonson quoted on, 271–2
Robin Redbreast’s cushion, the bedeguar of the dog-rose: a charm for whooping cough, 144
Rooks: leaving or frequenting places ominous, 122
Rowan-tree, see Mountain-ash
Rubbing down a crying boy, 41
Runswick Bay, Hobhole, a cavern in, 264
Rushes or seggs strewed on doorsteps on Ascension Day (Yorkshire), 86
Sacred elements in the Eucharist cure diseases of the body, 146
Sacrificing cocks for cure of epilepsy, 147; cattle for cure of diseases in man and animals, 148–9
Sage: eating leaves fasting for nine mornings, a charm for ague, 150
Saining a corpse, see Death
St. Agnes’ Eve or Fast, 89; Keats quoted; the rites require abstinence from eating, drinking, and speaking, and making a “dumb cake,” 90; eating egg and salt, &c. to secure dreams; invocation to the Saint, 91; fast broken by a kiss, 92
St. Andrew: the patron of lacemakers; festival in Buckinghamshire, 97; “T’andry cakes;” his day called Andermas in Scotland; kept by repasts of sheeps’ heads, 98; “hair-snatching” practised in Germany on the eve, 103
St. Boswell’s, funeral seen by farmer’s wife near, 44
St. Bede’s Well, near Jarrow, weakly children dipped in, and offerings made of bent pins, 231
St. Chrysostom on early Christian superstitions, 4
St. Clement’s Day: begging for drink in North; for apples in Staffordshire; apples distributed in Ripon Minster, 97
St. Eligius on popular superstitions, 5
St. George and the Dragon, 304
St. Helen’s Well: a wishing-well, where scraps of cloth are offered, 230
St. John’s wort, witches’ love; it hinders them; a fairy horse will carry off persons treading on it after sunset (Isle of Man), 227
St. Leonard: drove nightingales from St. Leonard’s forest in Sussex; slew a dragon after many furious combats; lilies spring where the earth was sprinkled with the Saint’s blood, 300; see Worms
St. Macarius on appearance of spirits up to third day after death, 333
St. Malruba hodie Mourie or Maree; sacrifices and libations formerly made on his feast; often called God Mourie, 148
St. Marcoul: a French saint noted for his cures of King’s evil; painted chamber at Westminster formerly bore his name, 305
St. Mark’s Eve: watchers in church porch see forms of those doomed to die; an old woman at Scarborough saw herself; a sexton who thereby counted the
