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