84 Collectanea.
It was said that he would run straight up the walls of houses, and over the roofs, like a cat.
There were many stories of the Devil, (familiarly spoken of as 'Old Nick,' or 'Old Scrat'), appearing to people. A man was going from Northleigh to Barnard Gate, and the Devil came to him in the shape of a fiery serpent, and surrounded him so that he could not pass for some time. When at length he was able to escape, he went back to Northleigh and brought several friends to the place where the serpent had been, but it had disappeared.
A friend of mine told an old labourer at Helton that he did not believe in a personal devil, and the old man said, — "Not believe in the Devil? Why, I've sin' 'im ! "' And he considered there was no more to be said.
If for any reason you should wish to call up the Devil, you must say the Lord's Prayer backwards. If a girl looks a long time in the looking-glass admiring herself, the Devil will come behind her and look over her shoulder. Any particularly profane or wicked person was said to have sold his soul to the devil.
Of course there were many tales of ghosts, and of spirits
- walking.' There was said to be a ghost that "walked" in a
lonely road near Northleigh, which carried its head under its arm ; another was said to open the gates for people going across the fields from Church Handborough to Eynsham. I was always told that, if you should see a spirit, you should say to it solemnly, — "Spirit, what troublest thou?", and follow wherever it led you.
There was a pond on the Witney Road not far from Hand- borough, in which we were told, when children, that the spirit of a woman had been laid. She was called " Old Mother Culpepper," and there is a tablet to her memory in Handborough church. The ceremony of ' laying the spirit ' was performed by twelve clergy- men, and the spirit was enjoined not to return until the pond ran dry; we were told that, if ever this particular pond, should run dry^ the spirit would "come again." There was a spirit "laid" in a barrel of beer at Stanton Harcourt, and the barrel had always to be kept full to prevent the spirit from returning.
I have many times heard the lads "give the rough music" to a neighbour who was suspected of certain offences, such as beating his wife, or being too familiar with his neighbour's wife. They
