friend in the island wrote that the man who had the curious stone was "hard up," and had asked whether the gentleman from London would still be willing to buy it, so that only after two years did the stone change hands. Fig. 13 shows a water-worn flint with natural perforation, from Antrim, used to tie to the horns of cows to prevent the fairies from stealing the milk. A similar specimen from Suffolk was regarded as a luck amulet, while a third specimen, from Somersetshire, was hung at the entrance to a garden to protect the fruit from witches (Fig. 10). Flint arrowheads of Neolithic age, used in Antrim to cure cows of "grup," were also exhibited. The arrow-heads were boiled in water, which was given to the cows to drink, the wizard who performed the charm repeating an incantation, while he himself drank some whisky as a most important part of the function! A perforated crinoid stem from Hayling Island, worn by a woman as a protective amulet, was also shown.

The string charms exhibited comprised a necklace recently worn in London successfully to stop nose-bleeding, and consisting of nine strands of red purse silk tied in eight knots, and then round the neck by a ninth knot, by persons of the opposite sex; and a charm, alleged to have prevented the return of severe oldstanding lumbago, consisting of two interlaced skeins of white silk to be tied round the waist. The use of white, instead of red, silk in a charm seemed very unusual. In English as well as in foreign amulets red is important, and red flannel is always looked on as superior to white flannel for chest protectors, probably from the same preference. A London shop girl recently said to a sympathising customer that she could never have endured the long hours of standing if she had not worn red stockings. When the white silk charm for lumbago was mentioned to an Essex lady, 86 years old, she at once remarked that she knew the charm, but it ought to be red silk. The lady who wore the charm learnt its use from another lady who, like herself, had lived for many years away from this country, so that the white colour may be the result of forgetfulness.

The vegetable charms shown comprised a potato carried for rheumatism, given by an old lady who possessed two, and was at

seed of a West Indian plant, Entada scandens, sometimes washed up by the Gulf Stream on the western shores of Ireland and Scotland, and as a 'Virgin Mary bean' thought to assist women at the time of childbirth; a glass locket enclosing white heather;1 and a series of very curious rush crosses, somewhat resembling the svastika, from Antrim. The latter are locally known as "St. Bridget's crosses," and are hung as amulets near the sleeping beds, probably as a charm against witches in the form of nightmares.

Other miscellaneous British amulets shown were a hawk's foot brooch, the silver cover of an ancient amulet case, and two lucky doubly bent sixpences, and a lucky doubly bent shilling.

G. Ornaments which were once amulets. Brass horse charms, of which some are shown in Figs. 14, 15, and 16, and which seem now to be passing out of use, appear, like certain British phallic charms, to be traceable to Roman times, the lunar type (Fig. 17) having persisted, practically unchanged, ever since. These were essentially evil-eye charms for the protection of the horse. (See The Reliquary, April and October, 1906.) Fig. 18 shows a shell necklace from Southport. When at the last British Association Meeting there, Mr. Lovett noticed in several fancy dealers' shops bundles of shell necklaces of identical pattern. When he came presently to another shop of the same kind in which there was an old woman, he went in and asked, "What are these necklaces?" "Three pence." "I mean, what are they for?" "For visitors." “I will buy some. But why are they all made exactly the same way?" "Because they are made by the fishermen." "Why do they make them in that particular way?" "Because they have always been made in that way. I made them that way when I was a girl, and my mother used to make them that way." "But you can't have made them for visitors when you were a girl. There were no visitors. What did you make them for then?" "Oh, just for fun." "No, you didn't make them for fun,-you made them for luck." "Who told you that? They said so, but that was silly." Another old woman then came into the

White heather (from the Surrey hills?) has been sold by gutter merchants along Cheapside, London, this autumn from little trays bearing

shop, and was presently asked by the shopkeeper to show the 'spider shell' in her pocket. This proved to be a pelican's foot shell, which she would not part with. It had been carried by her husband for thirty years, and was now carried by herself 'for luck.' Mr. Lovett would be glad to know of any other shell necklaces of special design made by fisher folk.

H. Amulets in disguise, or objects practically serving as amulets though not professedly so, were illustrated by a rheumatism ring with advertisements quoting Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, the Countess of Dudley, W. S. Gilbert, J. L. Toole, etc., as believers, and tracing the descent of rheumatism rings from the story of the Westminster Abbey ring of Edward the Confessor. An unopened "seal" of Joanna Southcott, ensuring salvation to one of her followers over 90 years ago, was exhibited as a specimen of the "amulets" distributed by several religious fanatics.

A. R. WRIGHT.
E. LOVETT.

In the discussion which followed the exhihition, Mr. Tabor said he wished to bear testimony to the great amount of energy and research Messrs. Lovett and Wright had displayed in collecting the articles exhibited, and the beliefs in connection therewith, but he was bound to say he was not altogether in accordance with them as to the popular beliefs in the efficacy of some of the mascots exhibited; he thought that vogue rather than superstition was accountable for the use of many of these amulets by people who knew full well that there was no inherent talismanic virtue in them. At a recent Whist Drive, where many of the guests were people of notoriety in the world of letters, he noticed several of the unlucky players get up and turn their chairs (not always in the same direction), and, from the way in which this was done, he came to the conclusion that they did not anticipate any good to result, but merely did it pour rire. Mr. Tabor admitted that there might be one person in a thousand who would fix some well-known old charm to their motor cars in full belief that it would help them

of the firms who advertised mascots bought them for fun and to be like their neighbours. A motor car is a costly article, and not generally owned by an illiterate person, and the speaker could not bring himself to believe that the welleducated man or woman really believed in the efficacy of charms of this sort; the lady who wears a lucky pig on a bangle surely does so for no other reason than that of fashion, although she may be illustrating the last link in the survival of an old belief. It is different with physical curative charms; in this case a process of faith-healing may have proved the efficacy of a fixed belief in the power of a certain amulet, and the consequent effect of mind upon body is often undoubtedly attributed to talismanic charms, but where the results attained, or desired, are objective and not subjective, he could not agree with the readers of the paper as to the prevalence of a popular belief. Mr. Tabor thought the preference for red over white flannel for chest protectors was due to the fact that red is both physically and artistically a warmer colour, and conserves the heat of the body, and that possibly the belief in the superior efficacy of red over white when worn as a charm in the form of a skein may have arisen from comparison of results obtained with the two colours when used for clothing; these results in less enlightened days may have been attributed to magic influence. The London shop-girl did not appear even parenthetically to hint that there was magic in the colour of her red stockings; she probably only meant that they kept her legs and feet warm, although they were exposed to the draughts of a shop-counter.

In conclusion, Mr. Tabor animadverted rather severely on Mr. Lovett's method of collecting information by asking leading questions; he said no judge would allow evidence to be obtained in this manner; the old lady with the necklaces herself combated the theory the joint authors of the paper were trying to prove (viz., a present popular belief in amulets), when she remarked: "They said so, but that was silly." Mr. Lovett's own witness would not fall into the ideas to which his questions were leading a clear case of Balaam and Balak. Mr. Tabor hoped

the temptation to please a prospective client or a present benefactor might often be too great for the narrator.

Mr. Gomme pointed out that the two collections exhibited dovetailed into one another, and that the genuine folklore character of the modern mascot was confirmed by its resemblance in idea and nature to the ancient amulet.

Mr. Calderon suggested that the tendency to revert to amulets was probably due in great part to literary promulgation. The attention given to such objects by the halfpenny press led to their diffusion amongst readers.

1

Mr. Hildburgh drew attention to a penny weekly, The Mystic, and the advertisements therein of "The Mystic Millinery, Luck Millinery and Astrological Fashions Co., Ltd.," and explained that the "Japanese mascots" shown were figures of puppies given by relatives to a baby boy as symbols of health and vigour, after its first visit to a temple.

The President said that from his experience the modern belief in amulets as aids to luck was genuine and widely spread.

FOLK-TALES OF THE ABORigines of NeW SOUTH WAles. (Continued from p. 227.)

IV. ORIGIN OF THE BAR IN THE MURRUMBIDGEE RIVER AT BALRANALD. (Wathi-wathi Tribe.)

About two miles below the town of Balranald, there is a low rocky bar across the bed of the Murrumbidgee river, which is only visible in dry weather whem the stream is low. The aboriginal name of this bar is Bangonjee-butthu. Its formation is accounted for by the following native legend. A large tribe of blacks were camped on the edge of a sandhill in the locality, and one hot summer afternoon a number of little boys went into the river for a bathe, and all of them got drowned. The

1The same weekly also advertises £400 per annum for "Scholarships for children founded on their Horoscopes," for which "A number of well-known and skilled astrologers will be engaged to cast the horoscopes according to the