Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/385

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high disfavour with both L. B. and her lather for having brought the disease upon the family.

For a sore throat, take a stocking which has been worn, the dirtier the better, and tie it inside-out about the neck, making sure that the sole is next to the sore place. (L. B. takes this quite seriously. When one of us, having an attack of tonsilitis, used a golf-stocking to fasten on an improvised cold compress, she was distressed to find that the stocking was clean.) ^

Children. — If a child cuts its teeth very early, the next one will be born before long.^

To aid children in teething, a hole should be made in a five- cent piece (the smallest Canadian silver coin, about the size of an English threepence), and this fastened about the neck with a string by one of the godparents. The teeth will then come easily.

A child's nails should not be cut before it is a year old, as it will either be bad or have a poor memory.^

A baby who cries a great deal will grow up handsome.

To smack it in the traditional fashion promotes its growth.

Dreams and Omens. — To dream of finding money is unlucky ; to dream of losing it means that someone will find some.

To dream that one's own or anyone else's hair is verminous portends good luck.

It is unlucky to fasten up a dress crookedly.

To bump your elbow means that a friend is coming.

A long thread on the dress promises a new lover («« nouveau cavalier).

If a girl splashes herself in washing clothes, dishes, etc., she will marry a drunkard.^

•* This use of a dirty stocking for sore throat is common in Yorkshire. Cf. also Mrs. M. C. Kalfour, County Folk-Lore, vol. iv. (Northumberland), p. 47. [Ed.]

  • Cf. W. Henderson, iViJ/iTj- on the Folk- Lore of the Northern Counties etc.,

p. 19.

  • The usual penalty in England is that the child will grow up a thief. Cf. ,

for example, W. Henderson, op. cit., p. 16.

•"A wet apron [in washing] means a drunken husband," is said in York- shire, and a similar belief is general, e.,^. C. J. Billson, County Folk-Lore^ vol. i. (Leicestershire and Rutland), p. 66. [Ed.]

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