This mode of divination seems to be the lekanomanteia, or divination by water, described by Psellus. See Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la Divination dans l'Antiquité, i. p. 185. The poorer people sleep on the floor, where in summer they are liable to be attacked by vipers; to guard themselves against .these creatures the people sleep with garlic in their pockets. Garlic is not commonly eaten in this part of Spain.
Breakfasting at the Plough Tail, etc. — Mr. J. G. Frazer, of Trinity College, Cambridge, sends the following letters for insertion in the Journal: —
"Dear Sir, — I had not forgotten the Folklore, but I was waiting for information as to two dates. I like to be as exact as possible; and when I find when my grand-uncle died, who, I believe, was the last in the district, if not the last in Scotland, who observed that custom of breakfasting at the plough-tail on the first day that the plough was yoked in spring, and when the woman died who welcomed her visitors in the name of Freya, I shall write, with details.
"Meanwhile I shall quote the rhyme about the yellowhammer used by children in Aberdeenshire:
- "Yallow, yallow, yarhn',
- Drinks a drap o' deevil's-bleed,
- Ilka Monday mornin'."
In Aird's Old Bachelor in the Old Scottish Village, chap, xi., the following version is given as used by children in the west of Scotland :
- "Half a paddock, half a toad,
- Half a yellow yorling.
- Cries for a drap o' the deil's bluid,
- Every Monday morning."
- "Half a paddock, half a toad,
"Supply the word rather after toad, and you have the usual number of halves to a whole.
