Introductory 13
gypsies claim, but some say they tell things they themselves had no idea were so, or would be so, until afterward.
One might fancy, from the number of sayings and superstitions that can be readily picked up, that there was as yet no real folk-lore decadence. But you will find when you talk with people that they are very sure to speak of a father or a grandfather or grandmother, or some other relative, now passed away, whom you “ought to have seen—they had no end of signs, and they knew lots of old rhymes and songs, and believed in witches. They would be just the ones you’re lookin’ after.” Signs are certainly not believed in as unquestioningly as they were once, nor are they in so common use. At the same time we lose them gradually, and the survivors will make up a large bulk in common use for a great while to come. Loss is most apparent when we get outside the short jingles and sayings of a sentence or two in length. There is now such a mass of reading, stories and songs, that people gather hastily and forget quickly. In more barren times many tales were handed down by word of mouth, and were remembered and repeated a life-
