woman wearing an exquisitely carved specimen, which is the only one I ever saw made of coral. On another occasion I saw a woman who wore two mano cornutas made of metal (gold-plated brass, possibly) in the form of stick-pins. They looked like two-pronged forks.

A horn, by virtue of its shape as well as by virtue of its substance, is regarded as an excellent preservative against the evil eye, and I have seen several worn as charms by Italian women in Toronto. They were made of coral or of some composition resembling it in color.1 I once saw a charm, curved like a cow's horn, on the breast of a baby. It was made of silver or some other white metal. Another kind of charm was seen on a child in 1911. It consisted of a metal key (possibly gold-plated brass) attached to about half a dozen metal horns which were about one and three-fourths inches long and spirally grooved like a shell or cornucopia, only they were straight. Pieces, or perhaps a bow, of narrow blue ribbon, were attached to them.

A JEWISH CUSTOM.

One day in 1904 a Jewish woman called at the house where I was boarding in Toronto, and asked for some water, which she poured over her hands. On being pressed for an explanation, she said it was customary to do so before returning home after seeing a corpse.2

1 I have two such amulets in my collection. These were bought in a Syrian store. One of these is a closed hand made of pearl, capped at the wrist-end with metal (perhaps silver), with four metal-capped coral or composition horns suspended from it by a wire loop. Around the wrist is a metal bracelet with a blue-bead setting. The other charm consists of a small brass ring from which hang four similar horns, but without metal caps. I was told that they came from Italy and were for good luck.

2 Compare Numbers, xix, 11; Potter's Antiquities of the Greeks (New York, 1825), p. 539; and Adams's Roman Antiquities (London, 1825), pp. 448–449.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, OTTAWA, Can.

FOLK-LORE COLLECTED IN THE COUNTIES OF OXFORD AND WATERLOO, ONTARIO.

THE following data have been obtained at random in these two counties, most of them being personal recollections.

The names of Washington, Plattsville, Woodstock, and East Oxford township, attached to some of the facts to indicate their provenience, are names of places and localities in Oxford County; and those of Baden, Galt, Roseville, and New Dundee are in Waterloo County.

LORE ABOUT NATURAL PHENOMENA.

1. In Devonshire it is believed that the ninth wave is always the strongest.1 (Washington; S. Horrel, a native of Devonshire.)

1 It might be of general interest to note here that this belief probably explains Tennyson's lines,

"Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
... slowly rose and plunged,"

in his Idylls of the King ("The Coming of Arthur," XV, ll. 379–381); and Holmes's,

"Where waves on waves in long succession pour,

Till the ninth billow melts along the shore,"

in A Metrical Essay, I, xii, 11. 15-16; and also in the Finnish Kalevala (Kirby Trans.), Runo V, 1. 96. See also Danilevski's novel The Ninth Wave, in which the original Latin quotation is given.

PLANT AND ANIMAL LORE.

2. Wherever you find a patch of field horse-tail (Equisetum sp.), you will strike water at no great depth, even if the spot is on a high hill. (Washington.)

3. It is generally believed that the hair-worm is a metamorphosed horse-hair.1

4. It is said that the skunk's effluvium will blind a man if it gets into his eyes.2

5. In the country near Washington I have often seen dead crows exposed on the sides of barns or hanging from clothes-lines. This was done to scare away other crows.3

WEATHER-LORE.

6. When one's hat keeps on blowing off, it is a sign of rain. (Samuel Horrel; Washington.)

7. When cattle congregate in the fields, it is also a sign of rain. (Same informant.)

8. When many toads are seen, it is a sign of rain. (Washington.) 9. It is a sign of rain when you dream of a dead person. (Washington.)

10. The number of stars within the ring around the moon indicates how many days will elapse before it rains. (Washington.)

II. A flock of wild geese seen in the spring is a sign of approaching rough weather. (Washington.)

FOLK-LORE ABOUT THE HUMAN BODY.

12. If your right hand itches, you will shake hands with some person; if it is the left hand, you will receive money. (Baden, 1898.) 13. Three moles in a row on one's neck indicate that one is destined to be hanged. (Mrs. R. W. B., Woodstock, Jan. 1, 1908.)

CHILD-LORE.

14. A child weaned in any sign below Libra will never have colic. Above this sign it will always have more or less pain. (English; Washington.)

15. Cut a child's nails before it is a year old, and it will be a thief. They should be bitten off by the mother. (Washington.) '

16. The late Mrs. E. Bourchier, a woman of Irish descent, living in

1 Compare p. 9; believed also by E. B., Ottawa, Ont.

2 Compare JAFL 7 (1894): 139.

* Compare Notes and Queries, 10 S., X (1908): 149. Also in Brant County. (F. W. W.)

• Compare p. 91, Nos. 114, 115; and p. 13, No. 140.

Washington, claimed that years ago her employer's child was seen feeding a snake; the snake was killed, and the child soon afterwards died.

17. WART-CURES.

around the wart.

FOLK-MEDICINE.

Take a hair from a horse's mane and wind it

18. Pick up as many pebbles as you have warts and wrap them in a piece of paper, then place the parcel where some one is sure to find it. It is believed that in this manner the warts will be transferred to the finder. (Washington; by a lad from Guelph.)

19. Get some one to count the warts, and then forget about them. They will disappear. (Washington.) 1

1

20. Look at the new moon, and while so doing pick up anything that lies in the road, no matter what it is; rub it on the wart, then throw it away, and do not look back at it. (Washington.)

21. Tie knots in a string, the string. (Washington.) 2

a knot for every wart,

and then bury

22. Boys used to let a grasshopper deposit some of its "tobacco" on the wart. (New Dundee.)

23. GOITRE-CURES. The cure by stroking or rubbing the goitre with a dead man's hand was tried quite recently in East Oxford township, the woman who had it coming from some distance to where the corpse lay. (Mrs. R. W. B., Woodstock, Jan. 1, 1908.) 3

3

24. The same woman also once allowed a live snake to be wound around her neck.

25. CURE FOR RHEUMATISM. A resident of Brantford, in 1911, gave to the author, to add to his collection of charms and amulets, a dried and hardened potato which he had carried on him for a year as a cure for rheumatism. A fresh potato, he explained, had to be put in one's pocket at the end of every year.

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE.

26. If you are married in black, you will be in mourning before the year is out. (Baden, 1898.)

27. An engaged couple should not present each other with either a handkerchief or a knife, as that will cut the engagement. (Baden, 1898.)

28. Married couples seldom escaped the charivari (pronounced shivaree). The din was kept up until the groom appeared and gave the

1 Also in Brant County. (F. W. W.)

2 Compare p. 23, No. 295.

* Compare W. J. Hoffman, "Folk-Medicine of the Pennsylvania Germans" (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society [Philadelphia, 1889], 26: 338).

boys some money. One of the instruments that added greatly to the noise was what is called a "horse-fiddle." It was made by fastening a large cog-wheel with a crank to a board, and attaching a thin piece of hickory or other strong wood as a clapper to one end of the board, the free end resting like a "dog" on the cogs of the wheel 1 (Fig. 62).

1

FIG. 6.

29. A toad is to be placed in a cardboard box in which small holes are made, and buried in an ant-hill. After the bones are picked clean, a certain bone must be found, and the possession of this will cause the object of your affections to reciprocate your love. The information about this charm must be imparted by a girl to a boy, and vice versâ; for, if given by a girl to a member of her own sex, the charm will lack potency. (Washington, 1900.)

30. A puerile amusement or method of finding out the respective attachments of two persons consisted in writing their names, one below the other, on a piece of paper or a slate, and in crossing out the corresponding letters in each name: thus,

William Baket
Maty Jackson

Then the word "love" was said to the first letter left uncrossed in the first name, "friendship" to the next letter, "marriage" to the next, "hate" to the following one; and so on, beginning over with "love," until the end. The result for the first name here is marriage; i.e., William Baker is destined to marry Mary Jackson, but Mary Jackson is found to have only friendship for William Baker. (New Dundee.)

DAYS AND SEASONS.

31. IST OF APRIL. One of the "fool" errands was to send some one to the harness-maker for five cents' worth of strap-oil, which of 1 In Illinois the "horse-fiddle" was "a large box covered with resin, across which a rough pole was rasped."-HELEN M. WHEELER, Illinois Folk-Lore" (The Folk-Lorist [Chicago, Ill., 1892], 1 : 64).

2 This and other drawings have been prepared by O. E. Prud'homme, Geological Survey, Ottawa.

⚫ Compare Addy, Household Tales and Traditional Remains, p. 79.

The formula used in Ottawa is "Friendship, love, indifference, hate; kiss, court, marry!" (E. B.); in Illinois it is "Friendship, love, indifference, hate" (Wheeler, op. cit., p. 63); and in Berkshire, England, it is "Friendship, courtship, marriage" (E. M. Wright, I. c., p. 258).