Collectanea. 423
Solomon, viii. 6, 7.1 This has been done up to quite a recent date.
When her husband was dying. Mrs. Hayward told me, she heard three distinct knocks at the bed's head ; and once when a relation of hers had died she had seen her " shade," which is a word for ghost, or spirit. She was making the bed, and some- thing which she thought was the cat came into the room. She went to chase it away, and then she saw that it was the shade of a woman. It went downstairs and disappeared. At that moment the relation had died.
This story led me to ask for other signs of death. The following were given. A sower in sowing missing a " land " of wheat. An apple-tree in bloom out of season. " If a corpse lies over Sunday there's sure to be another before the month's out."
Mrs. Hayward was the authority for the following legends and sayings :
A dark Michaelmas and a light Christmas.
A wet Good Friday and Easter Day, a lot of good grass, and a little good hay.
Wash on Ash Wednesday, and you wash someone out of the family.
Blessed is the woman who bakes on Good Friday, and frve Fridays afterwards, but cursed is the woman who washes on Good Friday and five Fridays afterwards. The reason given for this is : When our Lord was going to be crucified He went to a woman's house to ask for succour. She was w-ashing, and threw soap-suds at' Him ; then He went to another woman's house, she was baking, and gave Him a cake. He cursed in the one case, and blessed in the other. -
Set a bucket of yeast on Good Friday and you will see a cross " athert " it, just as upon hot-cross-buns. A loaf baked upon Good Friday will never go " ropey " O' mouldy, and when it is grated up, it is good for the whooping cough.
Not far from Mrs. Hayward's cottage there is a beautiful spot,
' " Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm : for love is strong as death ; jealousy is cruel as the grave : the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it : if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned."
- Cf. supra, p. 175, and Henderson, p. 82.
