The following items were told to me by my servant, D. J., whose native village is Maidensgrove:—
Love letters should not be destroyed, but the love letters of the man and the woman should be used to boil the kettle the first morning after marriage. The couple will then live happily ever after.
A bumble bee buzzing about a room is a sure sign that strangers are coming.[1]
D. J.'s sister, when a child, was told that, if she placed a little frog on her tongue and let it jump down her throat it "would be good for her." She did so, and the frog jumped down her throat. D. J. does not know whether "it did her good."[2]
Worcestershire.
How the Hedgehog ran the Devil to Death.—The following variant of a well-known folk-tale was obtained from the Rev. T. H. Philpott, of Hedge End, Botley, who learned it from his mother in Worcestershire:—
"A hedgehog made a wager with the Devil to run him a race, the hedgehog to have the choice of time and place. He chose to run up and down a ditch at night. When the time came the hedgehog rolled himself up at one end of the ditch, and got a friend to roll himself up at the other; then he started the Devil off. At the other end of the ditch, the friend said to the Devil,—"Now we go off again." Each hedgehog kept repeating this formula at his own end of the ditch, while the Devil ran up and down between them, until they ran him to death. This story would be introduced by the remark, "Now we go off again, as the Hedgehog said to the Devil.""
