Part 13

* * * * *

Sleep with your head to the North--you will have sickness; to the South--long life; to the East--health and riches; to the West--fame.

APRIL

Ancient Cornish name: Miz-ebrall primrose month.

* * * * *

Jewel for the month: Sapphire. Frees from enchantment.

* * * * *

If it thunders on All Fool's day It brings good crops of grain and hay.

* * * * *

The first thunder of the year awakes All the frogs and all the snakes.

* * * * *

MS. 250 YEARS OLD.

The first Monday in April Cain was born, and Abel was slain. The second Monday in August Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. The thirty-first of December Judas was born, who betrayed Christ. These are dangerous days to begin any business, fall sick, or undertake any journey.

* * * * *

A wet Good Friday and Easter day Brings plenty of grass, but little good hay.

Leicester.

* * * * *

Parsley sown on Good Friday bears a heavier crop than that sown on any other day.

Parsley seed goes nine times to the Devil before coming up. It only comes up partially because the Devil takes his tithe of it.

Old country sayings.

Oh! faint, delicious, spring-tide violet, Thin odour, like a key. Turns noiselessly in memory's wards to let A thought of sorrow free.

W. Story.

* * * * *

What affections the violet wakes! What loved little islands, twice seen in their lakes, Can the wild water-lily restore! What landscapes I read in the primroses looks, And what pictures of pebbled and minnowy brooks, In the vetches that tangled their shore.

Campbell.

* * * * *

Descend sweet April from yon watery bow, And, liberal, strew the ground with budding flowers, With leafless crocus, leaf-veiled violet, Auricula with powdered cup, primrose That loves to lurk below the hawthorn shade.

Graham.