keep the place from breaking into an open wound, I cannot now feel sure. Essex people say, " If you draw may into the house, you draw the head of the house out"; and this last spring (1909), when I was staying near Saffron Walden, I gave an old woman in the almshouse a piece of pink may that I was wearing, and her rather sudden death the following week I found was attributed to this.
Lancashire.
At Coniston it is believed that no light should be taken outside the house from Christmas Eve to the New Year, and that, for the same period, the ash-pit under the kitchen fire must not be emptied lest a death should follow speedily.
Coniston.
At Manchester on New Year's Eve a gold coin is thrown into the house for luck before the "firstfoot" enters.
Surrey.
L. B. (aged about 25) says that at Hascombe it is thought unlucky to throw away the greenery of Christmas decorations; it should be burnt, but there is no particular day for burning it.
She says also that it is unlucky to have "palm" in the house before Palm Sunday.
Woking.
Somerset.
If you strike any glass vessel and stop it ringing, a sailor is saved from drowning.
Slough.
- ↑ A member of the West Riding Teachers' Anthropological Society (supra, p. 103).
- ↑ Cf. vol. XX., pp. 488-90.
