Let us now leave these vague stories and speculations, and come to the firmer ground of fact. Staffordshire, until the development of manufactures in modern times, was a very thinly-peopled county, and a great part of it was forest-land.[1] It is interesting to find how much folklore about trees and plants is still to be met with there. Needwood Forest, on the eastern border of the county, was only disafforested and enclosed within the present century; and the inhabitants even now have not learnt to keep their gates shut. I believe that careful investigation would show that it represents the area of an early tribal settlement; but for the present it must suffice to say that tree and plant superstitions specially prevail here. It is considered to be very unlucky to burn any green thing. I don't think this is general throughout the county; but two hundred years ago a more definite form of the belief prevailed. In 1636 Charles I., "taking notice of an opinion entertained in Staffordshire that the burning of fern doth bring down rain," caused his chamberlain to write to the sheriff and desire that it might be forbidden during the King's journey through the county. Burning elder is specially dreaded in Needwood. "If you do, you will bring the Old Lad on the top of the chimney," a Cheadle woman told me. An old man at Burton-on-Trent who had burnt some was always believed to have "seen something" in consequence. Some people at Newborough (one of the forest villages) put some on the fire, and a boy who was present cried with fright because "the Devil would be dowm the chimney in a minute." I have been used to hear on the other side of the county that the holly and ivy used to decorate the house at Christmas must not be thrown away, but carefully burnt at Candlemas. In Needwood I have not discovered how it is disposed of; but it must never be burnt, and some of it must be kept till next year to save the house from lightning. Mistletoe is everywhere kept
- ↑ Common local surnames derived from forest surroundings and occupations are Wood, Plant, Beech, Ash, Hollis, Oakley, Parker, Archer, Bowyer, Fletcher.
