[746] Hunt, Romances and Drolls of the West of England, 1st series, p. 237, quoted by W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders (London, 1879), p. 149.  Compare J.G.  Dalyell, The Darker Superstitions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), p. 184:  “Here also maybe found a solution of that recent expedient so ignorantly practised in the neighbouring kingdom, where one having lost many of his herd by witchcraft, as he concluded, burnt a living calf to break the spell and preserve the remainder.”

[747] Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), p. 23.

[748] W. Henderson, op. cit. pp. 148 sq.

[749] Rev. Walter Gregor, Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland (London, 1881), p. 186.

[750] R. N. Worth, History of Devonshire, Second Edition (London, 1886), p. 339.  The diabolical nature of the toad probably explains why people in Herefordshire think that if you wear a toad’s heart concealed about your person you can steal to your heart’s content without being found out.  A suspected thief was overheard boasting, “They never catches me:  and they never ooll neither.  I allus wears a toad’s heart round my neck, I does.”  See Mrs. Ella M. Leather, in Folk-lore, xxiv. (1913) p. 238.

[751] Above, p. 301.

[752] Robert Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England, Third Edition (London, 1881), p. 320.  The writer does not say where this took place; probably it was in Cornwall or Devonshire.

[753] Rev. Walter Gregor, Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland (London, 1881), p. 184.

[754] County Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, No. 2, Suffolk, collected and edited by the Lady Eveline Camilla Gurdon (London, 1893), pp. 190 sq., quoting Some Materials for the History of Wherstead by F. Barham Zincke (Ipswich, 1887), p. 168.

[755] County Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, No. 2, Suffolk, p. 191, referring to Murray’s Handbook for Essex, Suffolk, etc., p. 109.

[756] (Sir) John Rhys, “Manx Folklore and Superstitions,” Folk-lore, ii. (1891) pp. 300-302; repeated in his Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx (Oxford, 1901), i. 306 sq. Sir John Rhys does not doubt that the old woman saw, as she said, a live sheep being burnt on old May-day; but he doubts whether it was done as a sacrifice.  He adds:  “I have failed to find anybody else in Andreas or Bride, or indeed in the whole island, who will now confess to having ever heard of the sheep sacrifice on old May-day.”  However, the evidence I have adduced of a custom of burnt sacrifice among English rustics tends to confirm the old woman’s statement, that the burning of the live sheep which she witnessed was not an act of wanton cruelty but a sacrifice per formed for the public good.