difficulty in finding his way. "He was supposed," adds my informant, "to
be pisky-led."

About ten miles from Launceston, on the Bodmin road (or at least in that
direction) is a large piece of water called Dosmere (pronounced Dosmery)
Pool. A tradition of the neighbourhood says that on the shores of this
lonely mere the ghosts of bad men are ever employed in binding the sand
"in bundles with _beams_ of the same" (a local word meaning _bands_, in
Devonshire called _beans;_ as _hay-beans_, and in this neighbourhood
hay-_beams_, for hay-bands). These ghosts, or some of them, were driven
out (they say "_horsewhipped_ out," at any rate exorcised in some sort)
"by the parson" from Launceston.

H.G.T.

Launceston.


_Straw Necklaces_ (Vol. i., p. 104).--Perhaps these straw necklaces were
anciently worn to preserve their possessors against _witchcraft_; for,
till the thirteenth century, straw was spread on the floors to defend a
house from the same evil agencies. Cf. _Le Grand d'Aussi Vie des Anciens
Francs_, tom. iii. pp. 132. 134; "NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. i.,
pp. 245. 294.

JANUS DOUSA.


_Breaking Judas' Bones._--On Good Friday eve the children at Boppart, on
the Rhine, in Germany, have the custom of making a most horrid noise