Collectanea. 401
as the vehicles of sprites or disembodied personalities, I quoted (p. 204) the Servian and Transylvanian beliefs that the soul of a sleeping witch left her as a fly or a butterfly. A recent publi- cation of the Folk-Lore Society contains an excellent Scottish example of this belief. A witch lying under sentence of death was allowed to go to sleep, when "immediately she vanished in the shape of a droning beetle, and that insect is known by the name of the De'il's Horse to this day." ^
As a parallel to the Oxford custom of carrying an insect in procession, I cited from Grimm the Danish practice (p. 202) with the cock-chafer. I owe to my friend. Dr. H. Krebs, a reminder that in parts of Germany the cock-chafer is a sacrosanct person- age, and takes the place of our "lady-bird." Children pick up the cock-chafer and thus address it :
" Cock-chaferling, I ask thee how long shall I live ? One year, two years... ?^
[etc., until the insect flies away].
The following lines are practically identical with those com- monly addressed in this country to the "lady-bird " :
" cock-chafer, fly, your father is at the war, your mother is in gunpowderland, and gunpowderland is burnt."-'
On page 202 of my paper I suggested that Anthony Wood's epithet, "Sir Cranion," implied that the Oxford "fly" was a " crane-fly" or "daddy-long-legs." Mr. H. A. Evans* has kindly given me references which show not only that my guess was
ij. E. Simpkins: Printed Folk- Lore of Fife (1914), pp. 65-66.
2 "Maikaferchen, ich frage dich,
wie lange soil ich leben ? ein Jahr, zwei Jahr . . . ? "
(E. L. Rochholz, Liede>fbd(i2>T2), p. 49.)
- " Maikiifer, flieg,
der Vater ist in Krieg,
die Mutter ist im Pulverland,
und Pulverland ist abgebrannt."
(Rochholz, I.e.)
- See Mr. Evans' English Mascjues, p. 40.
2 C
