Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 | Page 7

554., translated by Golding: London, 1574.
"As for peace, I am at a point."--Leycester Correspondence, Camd.
Soc., p. 261.

W. R. ARROWSMITH.
(To be continued.)
* * * * *
FOLK LORE.
Weather Rules.--The interesting article on "The Shepherd of Banbury's
Weather Rules" (Vol. vii., p. 373.) has reminded me of two sayings I
heard in Worcestershire a few months back, and upon which my
informant placed the greatest reliance. The first is, "If the moon
changes on a Sunday, there will be a flood before the month is out." My
authority asserted that through a number of years he has never known
this fail. The month in which the change on a Sunday has occurred has
been fine until the last day, when the flood came. The other saying is,
"Look at the weathercock on St. Thomas's day at twelve o'clock, and
see which way the wind is, and there it will stick for the next quarter,"
that is, three months. Can any of your readers confirm the above, and
add any similar "weather rules?"
J. A., JUN.
Birmingham.
Drills presaging Death (Vol. vii., p. 353.).--Your correspondent asks if
the superstition he here alludes to in Norfolk is believed in other parts. I
can give him a case in point in Berkshire:--Some twenty years ago an
old gentleman died there, a near relative of my own; and on going
down to his place, I was told by a farm overseer of his, that he was
certain some of his lordship's family would die that season, as, in the
last sowing, he had missed putting the seed in one row, which he
showed me! "Who could disbelieve it now?" quoth the old man. I was
then taken to the bee-hives, and at the door of every one this man
knocked with his knuckles, and informed the occupants that they must
now work for a new master, as their old one was gone to heaven. This,
I believe, has been queried in your invaluable paper some time since. I
only send it by the way. I know the same superstition is still extant in

Cheshire, North Wales, and in some parts of Scotland.
T. W. N.
Malta.
A friend supplies me with the information that before drills were
invented, the labourers {523} considered it unlucky to miss a "bout" in
corn or seed sowing, will sometimes happened when "broadcast" was
the only method. The ill-luck did not relate alone to a death in the
family of the farmer or his dependents, but to losses of cattle or
accidents. It is singular, however, that the superstition should have
transferred itself to the drill; but it will be satisfactory to E. G. R. to
learn that the process of tradition and superstition-manufacturing is not
going on in the nineteenth century.
E. S. TAYLOR.
Superstition in Devonshire; Valentine's Day (Vol. v., pp. 55.
148.).--This, according to Forby, vol. ii. p. 403., once formed in
Norfolk a part of the superstitious practices on St. Mark's Eve, not St.
Valentine's, as mentioned by J. S. A., when the sheeted ghosts of those
who should die that year (Mrs. Crowe would call them, I suppose,
Doppelgängers) march in grisly array to the parish church.
The rhyme varies from J. S. A.'s:--
"Hempseed I sow: Hempseed grow; He that is my true love Come after
me, and mow."
and the Norfolk spectre is seen with a scythe, instead of a rake like his
Devonshire compeer.
E. S. TAYLOR.
* * * * *
A NOTE ON GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.

If I may argue from the silence of the latest edition of Gulliver's
Travels, with Notes, with which I am acquainted, viz. that by W. C.
Taylor, LL.D., Trinity College, Dublin, the Preface to which is dated
May 1st, 1840, I may say that all the commentators on Swift--all, at
least, down to that late date--have omitted to refer to a work containing
incidents closely resembling some of those recorded in the "Voyage to
Lilliput."
The work to which I allude is a little dramatical composition, the
Bambocciata, or puppet-show, by Martelli, entitled The Sneezing of
Hercules. Goldoni, in his Memoirs, has given us the following account
of the manner in which he brought it out on the stage:
"Count Lantieri was very well satisfied with my father, for he was
greatly recovered, and almost completely cured: his kindness was also
extended to me, and to procure amusement for me he caused a
puppet-show, which was almost abandoned, and which was very rich in
figures and decorations, to be refitted.
"I profited by this, and amused the company by giving them a piece of
a great man, expressly composed for wooden comedians. This was the
Sneezing of Hercules, by Peter James Martelli, a Bolognese.
. . . . . . . . .