In Brittany, mingled with the legends of saints are its still more ancient superstitions. There is scarcely a rock, a fountain, a wood, or a cave, to which some tale of wonder is not attached. From

thence omens and auguries are drawn regarding the ordinary occurre: ces of life. Every operation of nature is attributed by the Bretons to miraculous interposition: they believe that the air, the earth, and

the waters are peopled with supernatural agents of all sorts and descriptions.

Likewise there are fountains, into which if a child's shirt or shift be thrown and it sinks, the child will die within the year; if it should swim, it is then put wet on the child, and is a charm against all kinds of diseases. The waters of some fountains are poured upon the ground by those who have friends at sea, to procure a favourable wind for them during four-and-twenty hours.

Another mode of procuring a favourable wind is to sweep up the dust from a church immediately after mass, and blow it towards the side on which the friends are expected to return. The croak of the raven and the song of the thrush are answers to any questions put to them; they tell how many years any one is to live, when he is to be married, and how many children he is to have. Any noise which cannot be immediately accounted for foretells some misfortune, and the howling of a dog is as sure forerunner of death in a family of Brittany as in Eng. land. The noise of the sea, or the whistling of the wind heard in the night, is the lamentation of the spirit of some one who has been drowned, complaining for want of burial.

A dæmon or spirit of some kind, called the Teusarpouliet, often presents himself to the people under the form of a cow, a dog, a cat, or some other domestic animal; nay, he will sometimes in his assumed form do all the work of the house.

pleasure of frightening any body who may chance to meet him.

Another nocturnal wanderer is a spectre in white carrying a lantern; he appears at first like a mere child, but as you look till he becomes of a gigantic stature, and at him he increases in size every moment, then disappears. Like the other he seems frighten people. One of the servants in to have no object in his walks except to the house where Miss Plumptre resided very gravely gave her an account of a rencontre which she once had with this gentleman. She had been out on an errand, and returning home over the Place du Peuple she saw a light coming towards her, which thought at first was somebody with a lantern; but as it came near she perceived the white figure, and it began to increase in size, so then she knew what it was, and she put her hands before her face, and ran screaming home. Her master, she said, laughed at her for a fool, and said it was her own fancy, because he had never happened to see the spectre; nay, she did not know whether he would believe in it if he did see it; but nobody should persuade her out of her senses; she saw it as plain as ever she saw any thing in her life, and she had never ventured since to go out by herself after dark without a lantern, for the spectre never presents himself before people who carry a light.

The Cariguel Ancou, or "Chariot of death," is a terrible apparition covered with a white sheet, and driven by skeletons; and the noise of the wheels is always heard in the street passing the door of a house where a person is dying.

The Buguel-nos is a beneficent spirit of a gigantic stature, who wears a long white cloak, and is only to be seen between midnight and two in the morning. He defends the people against the devil by wrapping his cloak round them; and while they are thus protected they hear the infernal chariot whirl by, with a frightful noise, the charioteer making hideous the air for a long time after, by the cries and howlings: it may be traced in stream of light which it leaves behind it.

There are a set of ghostly washerwomen called ar cannerez nos, or "nocturnal

In other parts of the country they tie a small piece of black stuff to the bee-hives, in case of a death in the family, and a piece of red in the case of a marriage; without which the bees would never thrive. On the death of any one, they draw from the smoke of the fire an augury whether his soul be gone to the regions of the blessed or the condemned: if the smoke be light and mount rapidly, he is gone to heaven; if it be thick and mount slowly, he is doomed to the regions below. If the left eye of a dead person

do not close, his nearest relation is to die very soon.

The Brétons have the legend of St Guenolé, whose sister had an eye plucked out by a goose; the saint took the eye out of the goose's entrails, and restored it to its place without its appearing in any way different from what it was before.

They tell you likewise of St. Vincent Ferrier, who, while he was celebrating mass at Vannes, perceived that he had lost his gloves and parapluie; and recollecting that he had left them at Rome went thither to seek them, and returned and finished his mass, without one of his congregation having perceived his absence.

who ate up a poor man's ass. St. Malo They have also a narrative of a wolf ordered the wolf to perform the functions of the ass, which he continued to do ever after; and though sometimes shut up in the stable with the sheep, never offered to touch them, but contentedly fed on thistles, and such other provender as his predecessor used to have.

A peasant boy in the district of Lesneven was never able to pronounce any other words than O itroun guerhes Mari, perpetually repeating, and he passed "O lady Virgin Mary." This he was among the country people for an idiot. As he grew up he would live no longer with his parents in their cottage, but slept in the hollow of a tree, and ran about the woods making his usual cry; in the coldest weather he plunged into the water up to his neck, still uttering his ing any injury. After he died, a lily usual words, and came up without receivsprang from the spot where he was in

terred. "A miracle!" was the immediate cry, and a church was built over the grave, dedicated to Notre Dame de Follgoat," Our lady of the madman of the woods," where notable miracles were afterwards performed.

Certain ruins near the coast, a little to the south of Brest, are reputed to be those of a palace which belonged to the Courils, a sort of pigmies, who deal in sorceries, are very malicious, and are great dancers. They are often seen by moonlight skipping about consecrated stones or any ancient druidical monument; they seize

people by the hand, who cannot help following them in all their movements; and when the spirits have made them dance as long as they please, they trip up their heels, leave them sprawling on the ground, and go laughing away.

There are in more than one place near the western coast stones set up in the same manner as those at Stonehenge. A species of genii, called Gaurics, are supposed to dance among them; and the stones are called, in general, Chior-gaur, or "The giants' dance." In one of the places where some of these stones are to be seen, the people of the neighbourhood, if asked what they mean, say that it was a procession to a wedding which was all in a moment changed into stone for some crime, but they do not know what. In another place they are reputed to be the funeral procession of a miser, who received this punishment because in his lifetime he had never given any thing to the poor.

These are only a few out of the innumerable superstitions which prevail throughout Bretagne, but they are sufficient to give a perfect idea of the power which imagination has over the minds of these people.*

On this day in the year 1743 died, "in earnest," the wife of one Kirkeen, who was twice at Dublin ready to be buried; but came to life to her loving husband's great disappointment, who fearing the like accident immediately put her into a coffin, had it nailed up, and buried her the next day.

As wrapp'd in death-like sleep Xantippe lay, 'I'was thought her soul had gently stole away; Th' officious husband, with a pious care, Made no delay her funeral pile to rear:

Miss Plumptre.

July 16.

SILENCE OF THE BIRDS.

Dr. Forster observes, there is one circumstance that will always render the country in July and August less pleasing than in the other summer and spring months, namely, that the birds do not sing. Aves mutae might be regularly entered into the calendar for these two months.

Silence girt the woods; no warbling tongue
Talked now unto the echo of the groves.
Only the curled streams soft chidings kept;
And little gales that from the greene leafe
swept

Dry summer's dust, in fearefull whisperings

stirred,

punishment is not very common, we subjoin, as a matter of curiosity to some of our readers, the

Form of Penance.

"Whereas, I, good people, forgetting my duty to Almighty God, have committed the detestable sin of incest, by contracting marriage, or rather the show or effigy of marriage, with Mary Ann Taylor, the sister of my late wife, and thereby have justly provoked the heavy wrath of God against me, to the great danger of my own soul, and the evil example of others; I do earnestly repent, and am heartily sorry for the same, desiring Almighty God, for the merits of Jesus Christ, to forgive me both this and all other offences, and also hereafter so to assist me with his Holy Spirit, that I never fall into the like offence again; and for that end and purpose I desire you all here present to pray with me, and for me, saying, Our father,' ,""&c.-Westmoreland

Chronicle.

NINEPENNY MARL.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir,-There is an ancient game, played by the "shepherds of Salisbury Plain," and "village rustics" in that part of the country, called "Ninepenny Marl." Not having read any account of it in print, I hasten to describe it on your historical and curious pages. Decyphering and drawing lines on the sand and ground are of great antiquity; and where education has failed to instruct, nature has supplied amusement. The scheme, which affords the game of "Ninepenny Marl," is cut in the clay, viz. :

:

or it might be drawn upon the crown of a hat with chalk. In cottages and public hou-es, it is marked on the side of a pair of bellows, or upon a table, and, in short, any plain surface. "Marl" is played, like cards, by two persons; each person has nine bits of pipe, or stick, so as to distinguish it from those of the opponent. Each puts the pipe or stick upon one of the points or corners of the line, alternately, till they are all filled. There is much caution required in this, or your opponent will avail himself of your error, by placing his man on the very point which it is necessary you should occupy; the chief object being to make a perfect line of three, either way, and also to prevent the other player doing so. Every man that is taken is put into the square till no further move can be made. But if the vanquished be reduced to only three, he can hop and skip into any vacant place, that he may, if possible, even at the last, form a line, which is sometimes done by very wary manœuvres. However simple

Ninepenny Marl" may appear, much skill is required, particularly in the choice of the first places, so as to form the lines as perfectly and quickly as possible. This the above imperfectly described way is game, like cards, has its variations. But that to which I was accustomed when a boy. I have no doubt, Mr. Editor, many of your country readers are not wholly ignorant of the innocent occupation which

Ninepenny Marl" has afforded in the retirement of leisure; and with 'rong recollections of its attractions, I am, Sir,