placards of a similar character, and the city crier, by means of a loud
bell and an equally sonorous voice, proclaims the particular advantages
in the Valentine department of rival emporiums. All these preparations
increase as the avator of St. Valentine approaches. At length the saint
and his eve arrives--passes--and the custom, apparently expanding with
age, is placed in abeyance until the next year. I am inclined to believe
that this mode of keeping St. Valentine is confined to this city and the
county of Norfolk.

As regards priority of occurrence this year, I should have first
mentioned, that on Shrove Tuesday a custom commences of eating a small
bun called cocque'els--cook-eels--coquilles--(the name being spelt
indifferently) which is continued through the season of Lent. Forby, in
his _Vocabulary of East Anglia_, calls this production "a sort of cross
bun," but no cross is placed upon it, though its composition is not
dissimilar. My inquiries, and, I may add, my reading, have not led me to
the origin of either of the customs now detailed (with the exception of
a few unsatisfactory words given by Forby on cook-eels), and I should be
glad to find these brief notices leading by your means to more extended
information on both subjects, not only as regards this part of the
country, but others also.

JOHN WODDERSPOON.

Norwich.

_Old Charms._--I think that, if you are anxious to accumulate as much as
you can of the Folk Lore of England, no set of men are more likely to
help you than the clergy, particularly the younger part, viz., curates,
to whom the stories they hear among their flock have the gloss of