Legend of the Mill-pond.—The legend of the mill-pond, published by Miss Craddock in "Notes and Queries" in your December number, was the writer's earliest slate exercise in a country school nearly fifty years ago, and was taught him by an older pupil. The legend is supposed to be related as each part is being drawn. The climax is supposed to be reached when the tail is being formed, but tranquillity is again restored as we accompany the man on his homeward journey. The house represents the head of the bird; the man, the eye; the back yard, the hill; the pond, the body; the inlet and outlet to the pond, the legs and feet; the feathers on the body are supposed to be a flock of ducks resting on the pond. The man seizes his gun and runs toward the pond; the upper line of the neck is now rapidly drawn from the house to the pond; the ducks, being frightened, hurry-skurry away in an opposite direction, forming the tail; and the man, disgusted at his ill-luck, wearily returns home over the route forming the under line of the neck.
A. B.
How to keep off Witches (as related by a negro.)—"Georgie, did a witch ever get after you?"
"Nor'm, but my mother, she knew a woman that was mightily bothered by a witch. Ev'y night, soon as de woman went to bed and tun over on her back, dat witch would come and jump on her and ride her hard, so she could n' move. So one night she fix for dat witch. She put pins in de seat of a chair, and when de witch come, she sot right down on de pins. Witches have to sot down befo' dey can git out de skin; dey can't ride you long as dey is in dey skin. Well, de witch sot down on de pins, and she stuck fas', She couldn' git out of her skin, and she could n' git up out er de chair, and she beg de woman to let her go, and she promise, ef she did, she would n' come back no more. Den de woman let her go. Nor'm, I ain't never seen no witch, but I got a horseshoe up over my do'. Dey say de witch got to travel all over de road dat horseshoe been 'fo' she can git in de house, and time she git back 't would be day. Some folks puts a sifter over de do', and de witch got to count all de holes in dat sifter, and a witch can't count but five; and when she gits to the five, she jumps through dat hole and is gone. Some folks can see witches better than others. A'n' Abby's son Allan, he went with me one night last fall to sit up with a girl that died, and all along the road he'd stop and say he saw somethin', and then he would walk around and say somethin' was in his path, he could n' pass. Sometimes it was a dog, and sometimes it was a man with his head off, but I ain’t seen nothin', and I ain't gwine wid him no mo'."
Mary Willis Minor.
Baltimore, Md.
Tales of the Blue Mountains in Pennsylvania.—Under this title, Mr. D. C. Henning, of Pottsville, Pa., has published in the "Miners' Journal" of Pottsville a number of traditional and historical narratives relating to the region of the Blue Mountains, a series which has attracted much
