(See Sir H. Halford's _Essays and Orations read and delivered
at the Royal College of Physicians_, Lond. 1831, pp. 93. et seq.)
J. Sansom.
_Bay Leaves at Funerals._--In some parts of Wales it is customary for
funerals to be preceded by a female carrying bays, the leaves of which
she sprinkles at intervals in the road which the corpse will traverse.
Query, Is this custom practised elsewhere; and what is the meaning and
origin of the use of the bay?
N.P.
_Shoes (old) thrown for luck._--Brand, in his _Popular Antiquities_,
observes, that it is accounted {197} lucky by the vulgar to throw an old
shoe after a person when they wish him to succeed in what he is going
about. This custom is very prevalent in Norfolk whenever servants are
going in search of new places; and especially when they are going to be
married, a shoe is thrown after them as they proceed to church.
C.P.R.M.
Some years ago, when the vessels engaged in the Greenland whale-fishery
left Whitby, in Yorkshire, I observed the wives and friends of the
sailors to throw old shoes at the ships as they passed the pier-head.
Query, What is the origin of this practice?
[Hebrew: T.A.]
_Roasting Mice for Hooping-cough_ is also very common in Norfolk; but I
am sorry to say that a more cruel superstitious practice is sometimes
inflicted on the little animal; for it is not many years since I
accidentally entered the kitchen in time to save a poor little mouse
from being hung up by the tail and roasted alive, as the means of
expelling the others of its race from the house.
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