Our nursery legends and popular superstitions are fast becoming matters of history, except in the more remote and secluded portions of the country. The age of the steam engine, and the electric battery, and the many other practical adaptations of the triumphs of physical science, is apparently not the one in which such "waifs and strays" from the mythical lore of the dim and distant Past are very likely to be much sought after or honoured. But now that the light of modern investigation, and espe

On several occasions, when discussing obscure questions of early topography or ancient nomenclature, although readily acknowledging the value of all facts in connection with genuine etymological science, I have recommended great caution in the use of this powerful but somewhat capricious archæological ally. I yet retain a strong impression that this caution is still a necessary condition of truly scientific historical or antiquarian research. Consequently, several of the presumed etymologies in

I have said that some remains of the fire worship of Bel or Beil, until very recently, might be found in Lancashire and the North of England, as well as at present in Scotland and Ireland. Indeed, I am inclined to think certain English customs of the peasantry, at the present day, may, with perfect truthfulness, be referred to this source, although the original objects of the ceremonies may have been, either wholly or in part, obliterated by time, or obscured by the action of more recent rites a

If there by any possibility existed a doubt that the religion of the Messiah was one of love and not of gloom , the sunny side of the argument would be amply vindicated by the fact that, from the earliest Christian times, the anniversary of the advent of the Saviour was always celebrated with becoming social enjoyment. "Merrie Christmas," indeed, in spite of hail and rain, and sleet, and snow, the blustering of old Boreas, and the frigid embrace of "Jack Frost," has passed into a proverb. The ma

Many scarcely yet obsolete ceremonies and superstitions peculiar to the spring time of the year may likewise be traced to the ancient fire or sun worship, and other Aryan sources. That the sun rose on Easter-day, and danced with delight in honour of the resurrection of Christ, is evidently an ancient superstition engrafted on an orthodox Christian tenet. This sun-dancing belief is thus rebuked in the "Athenian Oracle":— "Why does the sun at his rising play more on Easter-day than Whitsunday? The

The May-day festivities and superstitious ceremonies belong to the same antique or pagan class as those previously described. The Irish antiquary, O'Brien, says that the practice of lighting fires in honour of the god Bel, on May-day, gave the Irish name "Mina-Bealtine" to the flowery month. Brand says: "In honour of May-day, the Goths and Southern Swedes had a mock battle between summer and winter, which ceremony is retained in the Isle of Man, where the Danes and Norwegians had been for a long

The county of Lancaster especially has been famous for its witches—or infamous, rather, if the reader prefer the latter epithet. Certainly, the hanging of the poor old women from Pendle side, for their supposed sorcery, is neither a legislative nor a judicial feat to feel very proud of, especially in these days of "spirit-rapping mediums" and dark séance performers, who supply writing done by invisible hands, and cause heads to be thumped by malignant imps in the shape of discordant fiddles, tru

In my youthful imagination, some forty odd years ago, "boggarts," ghosts, or spirits of one kind or another, in Lancashire, appeared, to use Falstaff's phrase, to be "as plentiful as blackberries." "Boggart," by some writers is regarded as the Lancashire cognomen for "Puck" or "Robin Goodfellow." Certainly there are, or were, many boggarts whose mischievous propensities and rude practical jokings remind us very forcibly of the eccentric and erratic goblin page to the fairy king, so admirably del

Most peoples have, in some form or other, preserved the traditionary superstition that fern-seed was miraculously endowed with the power of rendering its possessor invisible. The great hero of our boyish days, the redoubtable "Jack, the Giant-killer," had his "coat of darkness," which conferred upon its proprietor this marvellous peculiarity. In the classical mythology, the helmet given to Hades or Pluto likewise possessed the power of rendering the wearer invisible. In the Teutonic, the "invisi

" Amongst the most prominent of the demon superstitions prevalent in Lancashire," says Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, "we may first instance that of the Spectre Huntsman, which occupies so conspicuous a place in the folk-lore of Germany and the north. This superstition is still extant in the gorge of Cliviger, where he is believed to hunt a milk white doe round the Eagle's Crag, in the vale of Todmorden, on All Hallows Eve. His hounds are said to fly yelping through the air on many other occasions, and, u

Amongst the traditionary beings which linger yet in the legends of nearly every race or tribe, few are more universal than those relating to giants or men of colossal size and superhuman power. Geoffrey of Monmouth gravely informs us that, before the arrival of his legendary Trojan, Brutus, Britain was "called Albion, and was inhabited by none but a few giants." According to the same authority, Ireland was originally peopled by a similar race of monsters. He asserts that the magician Merlin tran

There may still be traced in Europe, and even in England, some remains of the Eastern belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls. The superstitious reverence for the robin, the wren, and other birds of the Aryan lightning class, points to the belief that the bodies of birds and animals were supposed to be sometimes tenanted by the souls of men, and even by the gods themselves; or at least, that the latter did frequently assume their forms for some special purpose or other. Several

Amongst the various lightning birds of the Aryan mythology, some were regarded as portentous of evil; others, as the robin, the stork, and the woodpecker, on the contrary, were regarded with favour, and especially protected. The red breast of the robin, the red legs of the stork, and the red mutch of the woodpecker, were believed to result from their lightning origin. In Germany the robin is held in as much regard as it is in England. The Anglo-Saxon name, Hrodhbeorht , or Hrodhbriht , signifies

Faith in the power of the "wish" or "divining rod" is by no means extinct in the North of England. In modern times it is chiefly believed to be potent in the detection of metallic veins, hidden treasure, or subterranean springs of water. Our ancestors, however, held that this mystic instrument was endowed with the faculty of bringing "luck" or good fortune to its possessor, and of causing his slightest wish or desire to receive fulfilment. I have a faint recollection of a story relative to the u

Perhaps no ancient superstition has had a more enduring existence than what Mr. Hunt terms "well-worship." This may have arisen, to some extent, from the fact that water, under certain conditions, possesses undoubted "medical virtues." The necessity of personal cleanliness to ensure ordinary comfort, and the value of aqueous agency in its achievement, would doubtless exercise some influence, even in remote times. Add to this the horrors of a "water famine," the intense suffering resulting from p

In the preceding chapters the chief object I have had in view has been to show that many superstitions and legends yet, or recently, familiar to the people of our northern counties, were, like their congeners in other portions of Europe, descendants from one common parentage. I have dealt almost entirely with that species of folk-lore which I think has been originally communicated orally from one generation to another, and not so much with that which may be termed the literary fictions of Europe