12 S. X. MAY 6, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 353
after life that she was always puzzled as to how a man could be a branch, and her ideas of "spurious" were more than a little hazy. L. M. Anstey.
Carlings (12 S. x. 287).—I take the following from 'Northumberland Words' (Heslop), p. 134:—
Choice grey peas, of the preceding autumn, steeped in springe water for twelve or fifteen hours, till they are soaked or mascerated ; then laid on a sieve in the open air, that they may be externally dry. Thus swelled and enlarged to a considerable size, and on the verge of vegetating, they are put in an iron pot, or otherwise, on a slow fire, and kept stirring. They will then parch, crack, and, as we pro- vincially call it, bristle : when they begin to burst they are ready to eat. (Gentleman's Magazine, 1788, from a Northumberland corre- spondent. ) Another method adopted is to fry the carlings with fat, and season highly with pepper and salt. The second Sunday before Easter is observed as Carling Sunday. A tradition associates this custom with a com- memoration of the disciples plucking the ears of corn on the Sabbath Day. Another associates it with a famine in Newcastle, which was relieved by the arrival of a ship in the Tyne loaded with a cargo of grey peas. The remembrance of their deliverance was henceforth proclaimed by the people in observing a feast of carlings on the second Sunday before Easter. The use of carlings on this day is, however, not confined to the Tyneside people. The large peas of a brownish-yellow spotted colour, called " brandlings," are quite different from the ordinary grey pea, and are much fancied and in request for carlings. As to Carling Sunday (the fifth Sunday in Lent), Mackenzie (' History of Northum- berland,' 1825, vol. i., p. 216), has : On this day our labouring people assemble at their accustomed alehouses, to spend their carling-groats. The landlord provides the carl- ings. G. R. BARBEL ORGANS IN CHURCHES ( 12 S. x. 209, 254, 316). I remember these organs being in use in the middle of the nineteenth century at Burton-on-Stather, Theddlethorpe All Saints, and Manthorpe, all in Lincolnshire. At Manthorpe the performer had been taught that the great point in playing on a barrel organ was to maintain a perfectly uniform pace, so he -applied this principle to the Te Deum without any regard to the lengths of the different verses, the singers getting in the words as they best could, altogether omitting many in the longer verses. The player could not be told of his error, as that would ' l break his heart." I have heard that at Tickhill in Yorkshire the vicar once called to the gallery to ask why they did not go on with the Psalm, and the clerk called back, " T'andle's brok." At West Halton, Lines., an aged parishioner being told that they were going to have an organ in the church, and that the rector's daughter would play on it, said, " Why, I'm, sure Miss D. '11 never be able to hug it," having no idea of any organ that was not carried about. J. T. F. Winterton, Lines. ROPE OF SAND (12 S. x. 309). Setting the task of making ropes of, or performing other impossible feats with, sand is a common incident in folk-stories. In a Lancashire story, the schoolmaster at Cockerham raised the Devil, who gave him the privilege of setting him three tasks, which if he accomplished the schoolmaster was to become his prey. The first task was to count the dewdrops on certain hedges, and the second was to count the stalks in a certain field of grain. These were soon performed. For the third he was directed to Make a rope of yon sand That would bear washing in Cocker And would not lose a strand. The Devil speedily made the rope, but it would not stand washing, and so he was foiled. At Hothersall Hall, near Ribchester, a demon is supposed to be " laid " under a laurel-tree until he can spin a rope from the sands of the Ribble, which runs near the house. At Clitheroe the boys of the Grammar School are said one day, in the absence of the master, to have raised the Devil, whose appearance w^as accompanied by a terrible storm, which led the master to believe that his scholars had been up to some mischief. He therefore hurried from his house to the school, where he found the Devil seated in the middle of the school- room with the frightened boys standing round unable to lay him. Various tasks were set him, which he performed with ease, till at last he was ordered " to knit knots out of a strike of sand," which proved beyond his power, and he retired defeated, disappearing the way he came up, viz., through the hearthstone. The cracked hearthstone was referred to by old Clitberoe folk as vouching for the truth of the story.
