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ing tradition of Osmotherly, in Yorkshire, was related to me as being current in that county. Can you inform me if it is authentic? Some years ago there lived in a secluded part of Yorkshire a lady who had an only son named Os or Oscar. Strolling one day with her child they met a party of gipsies, who were anxious to tell her the child's fortune. After being much importuned she assented to their request. To the mother's astonishment and grief they prognosticated that the child would be drowned. In order to avert so dreadful a calamity, the infatuated mother purchased some land and built a house on the summit of a high hill, where she lived with her son a long time in peace and seclusion. Happening one fine summer's day in the course of a perambulation to have fatigued themselves, they sat down on the grass to rest and soon fell asleep. While enjoying this repose, a spring rose up from the ground, which caused such an inundation as to overwhelm them, and side by side they found a watery grave. After this had occurred, the people residing in the neighbourhood named it Os-by-his-mother-lay, which has since been corrupted into Osmotherly. R. W. CARTER. _Custom on St. Thomas's Day_ (_Dec. 21_).--At Harvington, in Worcestershire, it is the custom on St. Thomas's Day for persons (chiefly children) to go round the village begging for apples, and singing the following rhymes: "Wissal, wassail through the town, If you've got any apples, throw them down. Up with the stocking, and down with the shoe, If you've got no apples, money will do. The jug is white, and the ale is brown, This is the best house in the town." CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A. _Custom on Innocents' Day_ (_Dec. 28_).--At Norton (near Evesham) it is the custom on Dec. 28 to ring, first a muffled peal for the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and then an unmuffled peal of joy for the deliverance of the Infant Christ. CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A. _Marriage Custom at Knutsford, Cheshire._--A singular but pleasing custom exists among the inhabitants of Knutsford in Cheshire. On the occasion of a wedding, when the bride has set out for the church, a relative invariably spreads on the pavement, which is composed of pebbles, before her house, a quantity of silver sand, there called "greet," in the form of wreaths of flowers, and writes, with the same material, wishes for her happiness. This, of course, is soon discovered by others, and immediately, especially i
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