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Page 8
ROBERT RAWLINSON.
_Snakes_ (Vol. ii., p. 164.).--Several years ago, in returning from an
excursion from Clevedon, in Somerset, to Cadbury Camp, I saw a viper on
the down, which I pointed out to the old woman in charge of the donkeys,
who assailed it with a stout stick, and nearly killed it. I expressed
surprise at her leaving it with some remains of life; but she said that,
whatever she did to it, it would "live till sun-down, and as soon as the
sun was set it would die." The same superstition prevails in Cornwall,
and also in Devon.
H.G.T.
_Pixies or Piskies._--At Chudleigh Rocks I was told, a few weeks ago, by
the old man who acts as guide to the caves, of a recent instance of a
man's being pixy-led. In going home, full of strong drink, across the
hill above the cavern called the "Pixies' Hole," on a moonlit night, he
heard sweet {511} music, and was led into the whirling dance by the
"good folk," who kept on spinning him without mercy, till he fell down
"in a swoon."
On "coming to himself," he got up and found his way home, where he "took
to his bed, and never left it again, but died a little while after," the
victim (I suppose) of _delirium tremens_, or some such disorder, the
incipient symptoms of which his haunted fancy turned into the sweet
music in the night wind and the fairy revel on the heath. In the tale I
have above given he persisted (said the old man), when the medical
attendant who was called in inquired of him the symptoms of his illness.
This occurrence happened, I understood, very recently, and was told to
me in perfect good faith.
I have just been told of a man who several years ago lost his way on
Whitchurch Down, near Tavistock. The farther he went the farther he had
to go; but happily calling to mind the antidote "in such case made and
provided," he turned his coat inside out, after which he had no
difficulty in finding his way. "He was supposed," adds my informant, "to
be pisky-led."
About ten miles from Launceston, on the Bodmin road (or at least in that
direction) is a large piece of water called Dosmere (pronounced Dosmery)
Pool. A tradition of the neighbourhood says that on the shores of this
lonely mere the ghosts of bad men are ever employed in binding the sand
"in bundles with _beams_ of the same" (a local word meaning _bands_, in
Devonshire called _beans;_ as _hay-beans_, and in this neighbourhood
hay-_beams_, for hay-bands). These ghosts, or some of them, were driven
out (they say "_horsewhipped_ out," at any rate exorcised in some sort)
"by the parson" from Launceston.
H.G.T.
Launceston.
_Straw Necklaces_ (Vol. i., p. 104).--Perhaps these straw necklaces were
anciently worn to preserve their possessors against _witchcraft_; for,
till the thirteenth century, straw was spread on the floors to defend a
house from the same evil agencies. Cf. _Le Grand d'Aussi Vie des Anciens
Francs_, tom. iii. pp. 132. 134; "NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. i.,
pp. 245. 294.
JANUS DOUSA.
_Breaking Judas' Bones._--On Good Friday eve the children at Boppart, on
the Rhine, in Germany, have the custom of making a most horrid noise
with _rattles_. They call it _breaking the bones of Judas_. Cf.
"NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. i., p. 357.
JANUS DOUSA.
LOCAL RHYMES AND PROVERBS OF DEVONSHIRE.
"River of Dart, oh river of Dart,
Every year thou claim'st a heart."
It is said that a year never passes without the drowning of one person,
at least, in the Dart. The river has but few fords, and, like all
mountain streams, it is liable to sudden risings, when the water comes
down with great strength and violence. Compare Chambers' _Popular
Rhymes_, p. 8., "Tweed said to Till," &c. See also Olaus Wormius,
_Monumenta Danica_, p. 17.
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