rider. And the young man's foot being unfortunately caught in the stirrup,
he was dragged along till he was torn limb from limb, while the horse still
continued galloping on madly to the water, leaving some fragment of the
unhappy lad after him on the road, till they reached the margin of the lake,
when the horse shook off the last limb of the dead youth from him, and
plunging into the waves disappeared from sight.
The people reverently gathered up the remains of the dead, and erected
a monument of stones over the lad in a field by the edge of the lake; and
every one that passes by still lays a stone and says a prayer that the spirit of
the dead may rest in peace.
The phantom horses were never seen again, but the lake has an evil
reputation even to this day amongst the people; and no one would venture
a boat on it after sundown at Whitsuntide, or during the time of the
ripening of the corn, or when the harvest is ready for the sickle, for strange
sounds are heard at night, like the wild galloping of a horse across the
meadow, along with the cries as of a man in his death agony.
November Eve
ALL the spells worked on November Eve are performed in the name of
the devil, who is then forced to reveal the future fate of the questioner. The
most usual spell is to wash a garment in a running brook, then hang it on a
thorn bush, and wait to see the apparition of the lover, who will come to
turn at. But the tricks played on this night by young persons on each other
have often most disastrous consequences. One young girl fell dead with
fright when an apparition really came and turned the garment she had hung
on the bush. And a lady narrates that on the 1st of November her servant
rushed into the room and fainted on the floor. On recovering, she said that
she had played a trick that night in the name of the devil before the looking-
glass; but what she had seen she dared not speak of, though the
remembrance of it would never leave her brain, and she knew the shock
would kill her. They tried to laugh her out of her fears, but the next night
she was found quite dead, with her features horribly contorted, lying on the
floor before the looking-glass, which was shivered to pieces.
* * *Another spell is the building of the house. Twelve couples are taken,
each being made of two holly twigs tied together with a hempen thread:
these are all named amid stuck round in a circle in the clay. A live coal is
then placed in the centre, and whichever couple catches fire first will
assuredly be married. Then the future husband is invoked in the name of
the Evil One to appear and quench the flame.