The Folk-lore of Rome

tries, than an actual local tradition; and certainly by cross-questioning I failed to awaken in the memory of the oldest inhabitants' with whom I have had the opportunity of conversing any tradition of anything of the sort having actually taken place.

What do you know about burning witches in mezzo alla Piazza? I thought such things were never done in Rome?' I observed one day to one who ended a story thus. Who said the story took place in Rome?' was the ready reply. I received the same reply to the same observation from another, with the addition of 'There was something about a king and a queen in the story and in other stories I have told you, and we never had a king or a queen of Rome-the one may belong to the same country as the other. Who knows what sort of a country such stories come from!' A third answered, 'No; I don't believe witches were ever burnt by law in Rome; I have always heard say that our laws were less fierce than those of some other countries; but I can quite fancy that if the people found a witch doing such things as I have told you, they would burn her all by themselves, law or no law.'

Of course I have no pretension that my researches have been exhaustive, nor have I been, properly speaking, searching for superstitions, but in a good deal of intercourse with the uneducated, I have certainly come across less of superstitious beliefs in Rome than collectors of Folklore seem to have met in other countries. The saying exists, Giorno di Venere, Giorno di Marte, Non si sposa, E non si parte.'

1 'Don't marry or set out on a journey on a Friday or Tuesday;' and under the two heads brought under the rime, any other undertaking is equally proscribed: some servants, for instance, dislike going to a new situation on those days.

But I have seldom heard the lines quoted without the addition of, But I don't believe in such things;" and a reference to the column of marriage announcements in the Times' will show that the prejudice against marrying in the month of May is, to say the least, quite as strong among our own most highly-educated classes.

It is not altogether uncommon at the Parochial Mass, to hear along with banns of marriage and other announcements, a warning pronounced against such and such a person whom private counsel has failed to deter from dabbling in black arts; 'but from the observations which I have had the opportunity of making such persons find their dupes chiefly among the dissolute and non-believing. I know a very consistently religious woman, and also singularly intelligent, who appeared to have a salutary contempt for certain practices in which her husband, a worthless fellow, who had long ago abandoned her and his religion together, indulged. He actually believes,' she told me one day, 'that if you go out and stand on a cross road-not merely where two roads happen to cross each other, but where they actually make a perfect cross-and if at the stroke of mezzogiorno in punto, you call the Devil he is bound to come to you.'

'He always kept a bag of particular herbs,' I heard from her another time, hung up over the door, all shred into the finest bits. As he was very angry if I touched them, I one day said, "Why do you want that bundle of herbs kept just there?" and then he told me that it was because no witch could pass under them without first having to count all the minute bits, and that though it was true she might do so by her arts without taking them down and handling them, it was yet so difficult when

they were shred into such an infinite number that it was the best preservative possible against evil influences.'

Another class of infrequent occurrence in the Roman stories is that in which animals are prominent actors, other than those in which they are transformed men. The tátos, the enchanted horse which excites so great enthusiasm in the Hungarian, and whose counterpart does great wonders also in the Gaelic tales, seems to be absolutely unknown,' as I think is also the class not uncommon in the Gaelic (e.g. 'Tales of the West Highlands,' i. 275 et seq.), also in the Russian Folklore, p. 338, of birds made to pronounce articulate words analogous in sound to their own cries. Such traditions would naturally find a hold rather among countrypeople than townspeople.

Fairies and witches are frequent enough, but the limits between the respective domains assigned to them are not so marked as with us. Roman fairies, it will be seen, are by no means necessarily 'fairy-like.' At the same time fairies, such as those described by Mr. Campbell, "West Highland Tales,' p. ci., are altogether unknown.

In the story of Filagranata,' infra, pp. 6 et seq., he is divested in a marked manner of the individuality and importance attaching to his part in the corresponding versions of other countries.

2 The Rev. Alfred White told me, however, an English story of the sort, picked up from a countryman in Berkshire. The Magpie was one day building her nest so neatly, and whispering to herself after her wont as she laid each straw in its place, This upon that, this upon that,' when the Woodpigeon came by. Now the Woodpigeon was young and flighty, and had never learnt how to build a nest; but when she saw how beautifully neat that of the Magpie looked, she thought she would like to learn the art. The busy Magpie willingly accepted the office of teaching her, and began a new one on purpose. Long before she was half through, however, the flighty Woodpigeon sang out, 'That'll doooo!' The Magpie was offended at the interruption, and flew away in dudgeon, and that's why the Woodpigeon always builds such ramshackle nests. Told well; the This upon that!' and the 'That'll do!' takes just the sound of the cry of each of the birds named.