FOLK LORE SOCIETY

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 December 1928, Page 3

FOLK LORE SOCIETY

CHARMS AND MASCOTS. Wise-looking men and women members of the English Folk Lore Society, sat in a dimly-lit room in London and talked calmly of hobgoblins and worse. They were surrounded by all manner of charms and amulets used by the superstitious, in all parts of the world, says the London “Daily Mail.” There were charms against witches, such as coloured glass balls filled with threads that a witch must count if she would cross the threshold of a home. The efficacy of these charms lay in the fact that there were far too many threads for any witch to count within the brief space of the witching hours, and so at the crowing of the cock she would slink away, baffled and beaten, and gnashing her few remaining yellow teeth in her rage. There wore charms against the Evil Eye—against nightmare, disease and death, and even against such homely things as toothache and cramp. There were innumerable charms which had been worn by soldiers and sailors of almost, all the countries engaged in the Great War. One British soldier had pinned his faith to a. little dried potato, and it was this—so he believed—that brought him safely through. Many other soldiers, it seemed, wore, or treasured in their pockets,

charms such as tiny golliwogs, black cats, coins and small ornaments made of metal from enemy shells and bullets. Pieces of goat's hair, African beans, little china hands —these things and a. hundred others were among' the strange relics of the Avar. Ono of the discussions concerned the marriage and divorce rites known to have been practised among British gipsies. An authority on this subject, Mr T. AV. Thompson, mentioned various queer wedding ceremonies, including tlie “blood covenant.” In one form of this a sort of wedding cake was made of flour mixed with blood taken from the wrists of the bride and bridegroom, both of whom ate a piece. As late as 1850, a. Boswell and a Lovell had taken each other for better or worse in this way. Until fairly recently the Welsh, gipsies married over the “flowering broom.” A branch of it was placed on the ground, and bride and bridegroom jumped over it. In a divorce rite once commonly practised among the gipsies in Scotland a. horse was sacrificed, and over its carcase man and wife vowed never more to meet. The horse was first let loose, Mr Thompson explained, in a tent occupied by the wife in the case. After a. time it was allowed to eScape, and if it was caught again without any trouble, it was considered that the woman’s guilt was not considerable. If, however, it became vicious and resisted capture this was taken as a sign of very great guilt in the woman. Some limes —a century and more ago—both horse and woman were sacrificed. Mr Thompson told of a. gipsy who not 'Very long ago divorced his wife by causing blood to flow between him and her. This he did by chopping off the fourth finger of his loft hand. Then Im salted the finger and carried it about with him in a handkerchief. Later, when he married again, he gave the finger to his new wife!