NOTES ON ESSEX DIALECT AND FOLK-LORE.
77
" Good fortune will follow you if you pick up a horse shoe." At
Ilford I saw a horse shoe nailed to the door of a cow-house, and on
asking a lad the reason, he replied, "Why, to keep the wild horse
away, to be sure." This seems to be a new explanation of the
custom.
It is considered ominous of evil to spill salt, or to lay your knife
and fork across each other. These are two very wide-spread beliefs,
not by any means confined to our county. The first of them has
been handed down to us from the Romans. Gay, who attributes
them to his old market woman, was from the north of Devonshire."
" The salt was spilled, to me it fell,
Then to contribute to my loss,
My knife and fork was laid across."
—The Fable of The Farmer's Wife."
The signs of coming death are numerous, such as breaking a
looking-glass—if a corpse should not stiffen—the thrice repeated crow-
ings of a carrion crow—having green brooms in the house during May
—the barking of a dog at dead of night—the tapping of a beetle, known
as the Death Watch—the bringing of a solitary primrose into the
house ; and many others.
The origin of Monday being looked upon as the "Shoemakers'
Holiday" is interesting. The story is this : While Cromwell's army
lay encamped in Essex one of his most zealous partizans, whose
name was Monday, hanged himself. Cromwell offered a reward for
the best lines on his death. A shoemaker sent in the following
lines :—
" Blessed be the Sabbath day,
And cursed be worldly pelf,
Tuesday will begin the week
Since Monday's hanged himself."
Cromwell was so well pleased, that he not only gave the reward, but
also ordered that shoemakers henceforth should observe Mondays
as holidays.
A mode of punishment for robbing churches, though not entirely
confined to our county, may be found connected with it. It is that
of flaying the offender, and fixing his skin to the door of the parish
church. This penalty for sacrilege appears to have had the sanction
of the law in Anglo-Saxon times, when money was often paid by the
offender to save his skin, called "hide gold," a ransom for one's