Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/70

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62
QUERIES.

About Axbridge they call the youngest of a litter of pigs a treseltrype.

Jno. A. Yateman.

Old Rhymes and Sayings. The Macclesfield Courier of Oct. 14th, 1882, relates an amusing police-court case at Hyde. A woman named Catherine Ann Whitehead was charged with stealing a purse at Staley on the 28th September. In the midst of her examination the prisoner commenced to hum a tune and keep time with her feet. A Constable: Will you be quiet? Prisoner: Oh; you are somebody's son, and somebody is your mother.

Will you come to the wedding —
"Will you come, will you come?
Will you come to the wedding,
Will you come?
Bring your own tea and sugar.
And your own bread and butter.
And we'll all "go" a penny to the rum.

The magistrates here held a consultation, during which the prisoner was allowed to do pretty well as she pleased. After upbraiding the public for laughing at her, and making a little speech to the reporters, she sang:—

The man in the moon one morning did say,
"How many oak trees are there in the sea?"
I answered and said, "When I'm understood,
As many red herrings as there are in the wood."

I say, if you keep on the clean side of the road your boots don't get dirty, but if you go into the mud you can't brush it off. Come with me, and I'll take you where the moon shines in the day and the sun shines in the night, where the donkeys bark and the dogs all bray, and the dumb men speak and the blind men fight.

Are these the ravings of a maniac merely, or do they contain remnants of a folk-lore knowledge?

Who is the author of Holland-tide, or Munster Popular Tales. London, 1827?




NOTICES AND NEWS.

The first meeting of the session of the Colchester Natural History Society was opened on October 5 last by Mr. Laver with an interesting paper on "Folk-Lore in its Relation to Mammals." The