Miscellanea. 489
I must ; a woman twold I to spread a bit o' bread and butter and cover un wi' donkey's hairs and throw un in the road, and what- ever did pick un up and eat un would take the cough from the child."
H. CoLLEY March.
A Cr.owN OF Thorns.
" A kind of globe of thorns " is sketched and described in the Antiquary, Feb., 1 898. This globe, woven of black-thorn branches, is made in Herefordshire at New-Year's-tide, and is used in the ancient rites still observed in celebration of the season.
Some years since I was told by a person familiar with the Midlands, that in Leicestershire he had heard of farm-lads twist- ing the supple twigs of a hawthorn-hedge into a crown, without severing them from the parent bush. In the year following the formation of the crown, the twigs of which it was composed put out thorns, and when they had become stiff and strong, the whole thing was cut out of the hedge and carried away. My informant did not mention any particular time for removing it, nor did he say what was done with it afterwards.
M. Peacock.
Australian Religion.
The reader need not be alarmed : the following notes are not a continuation of the discussion between Mr. Hartland and myself. We are both agreed in holding that "Mrs. Langloh Parker suffi- ciently corroborates Mr. Manning to make a case for further inquiry" {Folk-Lore, vol. x. No. i, p. 55). The inquiry would deal with the question, What is the evidence for an indige?ious Aus- tralian belief in an " over-god " (I borrow the term from Miss Kingsley), who made things, or the majority of things, who still exists, and who is, or was lately held to be, still concerned with the morals of the tribes ? And what is the evidence for the belief
