Collectanea. 339
her which never left him during his whole Hfe. He took her home and lived with her a long and lucky life, having many children, who all had a little scar, or what seemed like one, in their upper lips, to the left.'
But my informant said that if when the lad came up the second time he could have completed his oath with the name of the Almighty, she would have become eog (a salmon) again. ^
As to magical rites, I found some five years ago that there were such connected with Arthur's Stone (Gower), though denied by my informant. But she " did hear that gels went and walked round it to see their sweethearts — a long time ago — and if they didn't see him they took off their shawls and went on their hands and knees — nobody is so fulish now." This from a young girl at Port Eynon.
Again, at St. Nicholas, near Cardiff, a man told me that his mother took him to " Castle Corrig " (a cromlech near St. Nicholas, perhaps the biggest existing in Britain), when he ' had a decline ' as a boy, and she spat upon the stone, rubbed her finger in the spittle and tubbed him on the forehead and chest. I met a man at Pentrevoelas, North Wales, when I was searching for a crossed stone between that and Festiniog. He told me where it was, and said when he was a boy his mother took him to it, and rubbing her finger on the cross made that sign on his forehead. I feel convinced there is a good deal of this sort of thing, but I can- not get it out, or else it exists among a residuum which feels such a gap to exist between student and peasant that freedom of speech becomes impossible. But I have felt the sort of thing to underlie many ordinary stories, from certain turns of expression.
Mrs. S. (mother of Mrs. T.), who is preparing a work relating to the county of Glamorgan, has a good Llancarfan story of catching the ghost of a lady. The 'lady' used to appear and pinch a farm-lad at night. So he determined to catch her, and got the skin of a white-bellied horse, cutting it into thongs, of which he made a bag, and for the draw-strings of the bag he cut long thongs from hoof to hoof over the shoulders. This was good
[The above story is also given in a pamphlet by Mr. T. H. Thomas, entitled Some Folklore of South Wales. William Lewis, printer, 22 Duke Street, Cardiff. N.u., but issued 1904. — E. S. H.]
