times clammy exhalations scattered in the air in small parts, which, in the night, by the resistance of the cold, are kindled, by cleaving to horse's ears and men's heades and shoulders, riding or walking; and that they cleave to hair or garments, it is by the same reason the dew cleaves to them, they being dry and attractive, and so more proper to receive them. Another kind of these flames are when the bodies of men and beasts are chafed and heated, they send forth a fat clammy sweat, which in like manner kindles, as is seen by sparkles of fire that fly about when a black horse is very hard curryed in the dark, or as the blue fire on the shells of oysters, caused by the nitrous salt. Livy also tells us of one Marius, a knight of Rome who, as he was making an oration to his soldiers in Spain with such vehemency as heated him, his head appeared to them all in a flame, though himself was not aware of it." Account of Storms, 1704, p. 79.

Hagmena.-The word "Hagmena " is by some supposed of an antiquity prior to the introduction of the Christian Faith. On the Norman Hoquinanno

Douce observes:

"This comes nearer

to our word, which was probably imported with the Normans. It was also by the French called Haguillennes and Haguimento, and I have likewise found it corrupted into Haguiren leux," (and he refers to Carpentier, Menage, and other authorities). He says also: "I

am further informed that the words used

upon this occasion are Hagmena, Hagmena, gives us cakes and cheese, and let us go away.' Cheese and oaten-cakes, which are called farls, are distributed on this occasion among the cryers." Subjoined is all that appears to have survived of the Yorkshire Hagmena Song:

"To-night it is the New Year's night, to-morrow is the day,

And we are come for our right and for
our ray,

As we used to do in old King Henry's
Day:

Sing fellows, sing, hag-man, ha!

If you go to the bacon-flick cut me a good bit;

Cut, cut and low, beware of your maw. Cut, cut, and round, beware of your thumb,

That me and my merry men may have

some:

Sing, fellows, sing, hag-man, ha! If you go to the black ark, bring me ten mark;

Ten mark ten pound, throw it down upon the ground,

That me and my merry men may have

some;

Sing, fellows, sing, hag-man, ha!"

For the following lines, which the common people repeat upon this occasion, on New Year's Day, in some parts of France, I am indebted to M. Olivier:

"Aguilaneuf de céans

On le voit a sa fenêtre,
Avec son petit bonnet blanc,
Il dit qu'il sera le Maître,
Mettera le Pot au feu;
Donnez nous, ma bonne dame,
Donnez nous Aguilaneuf.”

A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine"
for July, 1790, tells us: "In Scotland, till
very lately (if not in the present time),
there was a custom of distributing sweet
cakes and a particular kind of sugared
bread, for several days before and after
the New Year; and on the last night of
the old year (peculiarly called Hagmenai),
the visitors and company made a point of
not separating till after the clock struck
twelve, when they rose, and, mutually
kissing, wished each other a happy
New Year. Children and others, for
several nights, went about from house
to house as guisarts, that is, disguised, or
in masquerade dresses, singing:
"Rise up, good wife, and be no swier
To deal your bread as long's your here,
The time will come when you'll be dead,
And neither want nor meal nor bread.'
"Some of those masquerades had a fiddle,
and, when admitted into a house, enter-
tained the company with a dramatic dia-
logue, partly extempore."

We read in the "Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed" that "it is ordinary among some plebians in the South of Scotland, to go about from door to door upon New Year's Eve, crying Hagmena, a corrupted word from the Greek for holy month. John Dixon, holding forth against this custom once, in a sermon at Kelso, says: Sirs, do you know what Hagmane signifies? It is, the Devil be in the house! that's the meaning of its Hebrew original.'' Page 102. Comp. Tappy

Tousie.

The

Hair (i.) Customs.-The Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery, in her Day-Book, 1676, notes the visits of one Richard Goodgeon to Brougham Castle to cut her ladyship's hair. custom of wearing the hair down the back loose, and a coif between the crown and the head, seems to have been preserved for a long time, and to have been in vogue on the Continent. The Princess Catherine of Aragon is described as wearing her hair so arranged in the contemporary narrative of her journey to England, previously to her espousal to Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII., and her ladies-in-waiting appear to have followed the same

fashion. Antiq. Repert., 1807, ii., p. 278. At the coronation of Elizabeth of York, in November, 1487, the Queen is described as wearing her fair yellow hair plain behind her back, with a caul of pipes over it, somewhat, perhaps, in the later Roman style, as we see it on coins. Compare Marriage, infrâ. This habit was not confined, however, to women, for the younger portraits of Henry VII. on his coins represent him with long unkempt hair, somewhat like that worn by Lorenzo dé Medici in the paintings or prints of him, by members of the Della Rovera, Visconti, Este, and other families on coins of nearly the same period, and by Louis XII. of France on his Franco-Italian money, as well as in fact the fashion followed in the 15th and 16th centuries by all male personages of rank on the Continent. On the title of an edition of Donatus the Grammarian, printed by Wynkyn de Worde about 1496, are four figures with their hair similarly left to fall over the neck and shoulders, and numerous illustrations of the fashion occur in Fairholt and Planché. The mode may be taken to have been borrowed from Italy.

Hair (ii.) Superstitions.-There is a vulgar notion that men's hair will sometimes turn grey upon a sudden and violent fright, to which Shakespear alludes in a speech of Falstaff to Prince Henry: "Thy father's beard is turned white with the news." Grey remarks:

This whimsical opinion was humorously bantered by a wag in a coffee-house; who, upon hearing a young gentleman giving the same reason for the change of his hair from black to grey, observed that there was no great matter in it, and told the company that he had a friend, who wore a coal-black wig, which was turned grey by a fright in an instant." Of late years the large sums offered by the trade for hair of a particular hue and length have overcome in many instances the old repugnance to part with this ornament, not only on the ground of pride or vanity, but on that of superstitious fear; for it was anciently a current vulgar belief, that if any portion of hair was left about, the birds would steal it to build their nests with, a fatal consequence to the owner, especially if the bird was a pie. Going still farther back, we arrive at the barbarous idea, of which Scott has availed himself in the "Pirate," that hair thrown into the sea had the power of kindling a storm, or (as Scott has it) of appeasing the waters. The hair from a calf's tail, inserted in the cow's ear, is supposed, or was formerly, to be efficacious in making the mother forget the loss of its young one; and the hair of a dog, which has bitten you, is held to be an

antidote against any evil consequences, if given by the owner to the person bitten. But compare Hazlitt's Proverbs, 1882, p. 19.

Halcyon or Kingfisher. See, as to the superstition about this bird, Nares, Glossary, 1859, in v., Halcyon.

Hallow Eve at Oxford. See Christmas Prince.

Hallow E'en.-In North Wales, according to Pennant, there was a custom upon all Saints' Eve of making a great fire called Coel Coeth, when every family about an hour in the night makes a great bonfire in the most conspicuous place near the house, and when the fire is almost extinguished, every one throws a white stone into the ashes, having first marked it; then having said their prayers_turning round the fire, they go to bed. In the morning, as soon as they are up, they come to search out the stones, and if any one of them is found wanting they have a notion that the person who threw it in, will die before he sees another All Saints' Eve. They have a custom also of distributing Soul Cakes on All Souls' Day, at the receiving of which poor people pray to God to bless the next crop of wheat. But many of these customs, even in Pennant's time, had fallen into disuse. In Owen's account of the Bards we read: "The autumnal fire is still kindled in North Wales, being on the eve of the first day of November, and is attended by many ceremonies; such as running through the fire and smoke, each casting a stone into the fire, and all running off at the conclusion to escape from the black short-tailed sow: then supping upon parsneps, nuts, and apples: catching at an apple suspended by a string with the mouth alone, and the same by an apple in a tub of water: each throwing a nut into the fire; and those that burn bright, betoken prosperity to the owners through the following year, but those that burn black and crackle, denote misfortune. On the following morning the stones are searched for in the fire, and if any be missing, they betide ill to those who threw them in." Owen has prefaced these curious particulars by the following observations: Amongst the first aberrations may be traced that of the knowledge of the great Huon, or the Supreme Being, which was obscured by the hieroglyphics or emblems of his different attributes, so that the grovelling minds of the multitude often sought not beyond those representations for the objects of worship and adoration. This opened an inlet for numerous errors more minute; and many superstitions became attached to their periodical solemnities, and more particularly to their rejoicing fires, on the appearance of vegetation in

man that checked his seruant for talke of ryngyng." "A Gentilman, brought vp at London in an In of court, was maryed, and kepte an house in the countrey and as he sate at supper with his neyghbours aboute hym, vpon an alhalow daie at night, amonge other communication, he talked of the solemne ringyng of the belles (as was the vsage than)." The feast of Allhallows is said to drive the Finns almest out of their wits.

Hallowmass in Scotland.— Martin, speaking of the Isle of Lewis, says that it was long before the minister there could persuade the people to relinquish a ridiculous custom they had of going by night on Hallow-tide to the Church of St. Mulvay, whence one of their number went into the sea up to his waist, with a cup of ale brewed for the occasion with malt contributed by the inhabitants (each family giving a peck), and pouring the liquid into the water, addressed a propitiatory allocution to a sea-god called Shony, who was supposed to have an influence over the crops. They then returned to church, observed a moment's dead silence, then extinguished at a given signal the candle on the altar, and proceeded to the fields, where the rest of the night was spent in revelry.

Hand, The. It is probable that if an exhaustive research into the subject were undertaken, the folk-lore of the Hand would occupy a considerable space, and develop many curious particulars.

The practice of holding up the right hand as a mark of submission or assent is extremely ancient and very widely spread. A small silver coin of Udalric, Duke of Bohemia (1012-37), bears on one side an open hand, which might have stood as a symbol of the Deity, or as a signification of allegiance to his suzerain; and the same type occurs in pennies of Edward the Elder, (901-57) and Ethelred II. of England, who began to reign in 979. In a coin of the former the third and fourth fingers are closed in token of the bestowal of the Latin benediction. Barrington says that it was anciently the custom for a person swearing fealty "to hold his hands joined together between those of his lord; the reason for which seems to have been that some Lord had been assassinated under pretence of paying homage; but, while the tenant's hands continued in this attitude, it was impossible for him to make such an attempt." Observations on the Statutes, 1775, p. 206. In the Squire of Low Degree, where the King of Hungary takes the hero out of prison, and makes him swear to keep his counsel, it is said:

"The squyer there helde vp his hande, His byddyng neuer he should withstande."

before 1536, and reproducing far earlier In the old story of Adam Bel, printed notions, we find the hand introduced where the outlaws come into the presence of the king:

"And when they came before our kyng, As it was the lawe of the lande, They kneled down without lettynge, And eche held vp his hande.” Cetewayo held up his hand to our Queen, but he stood erect.

It may be suggested that the custom of elevating the right hand-the hand which usually held the weapon-may have been designed, on the same principle as that indicated by Barrington, at the outset as a guarantee of good faith and an assurance of security. In some Popish countries, and in our Canadian possessions, which include the old Colony of New France, the usage of holding up the right hand in making oath is supplemented by the obligation of doing so before a crucifix, which is suspended in the Court for that purpose. Where there is a search for weapons, the person concerned usually raises both his arms. Bingham has a quotation from St. Austin on superstitious observations, among which, he says, "You are told in a fit of convulsion or shortness of breath, to hold your left thumb with your right hand." Cited by Bourne, Antiq. Vulg., c. 18. There is a superstition that the forefinger of the right hand is venomous, and is therefore not fit to touch any wound or sore. That a yellow death-mould may never appear upon your hand, or any part of your body," occurs among the omens introduced in Holiday's "Marriage of the Arts," 1618. It is still usual in parts of the country to tap the back of the hand or the forearm thrice to avert a bad omen (absit omen! )when a person has been speaking of his or her good health or good fortune. This I saw done at Bowdon, near Manchester, in 1870, by the late Mrs. Alexander Ireland. Gaule ridicules the popular belief that "a great thick hand little slender one a person weak but timdenotes one not only strong but stout: a orous: a long hand and long fingers beartifice, but liberally ingenious; but those token a man not only apt for mechanical short, on the contrary, note a foole and fit for nothing: an hard brawny hand signes dull and rude; a soft hand, witty but effeminate; an hairy hand, luxurious; longe joynts signe generous, yet if they be thick withal, not so ingenious; the often clapping and folding of the hands note covetous; and their much moving in speech,