Perhaps the season of the year may
satisfactorily explain all these observances. Several superstitious
customs are mentioned regarding bees, some of which are not practised in
the north; yet it is fully believed that the death of the stock of hives
too often foretells the flitting of the bee-master. Wet cold years,
unfavourable to the insects, are also equally so to the farmer upon thin
clays, which border the moors, where bees are mostly kept. Has the use
of the mountain ash, 'rowan tree' [Pyrus aucuparia, _Gaertner_,] as a
charm against witchcraft, ever been accounted for? The belief in its
efficacy must be very old if we are to credit some of Shakspeare's
commentators, who give this word as the true reading in Macbeth, instead
of 'Aroint thee, witch!'
"It often happens that the careless observer has, for the first time,
his attention called forcibly to some appearance of nature by accidental
circumstances: if at all superstitious, he immediately prognosticates
the most disastrous consequences from that which a little observation
would have convinced him was but a phenomenon a little more conspicuous
than usual.
Pages:
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406