have is evidently only an abridgment or summary made by
some Greek, studious of Carthaginian affairs, long subsequent to the
time of Hanno; and judging from a passage in Pliny (I. ii. c. 67.), it
appears that the ancients were acquainted with other extracts from the
original, yet, though its authenticity has been doubted by Strabo and
others, there seems to be little reason to question that it is a correct
_outline_ of the voyage. That the Carthaginians were oppressors of the
people they subjugated may be probable; yet we must not, on such slender
grounds as this narration affords, presume that they would wantonly kill
and flay _human beings_ to possess themselves of their skins!

S.W. Singer
April 10. 1850.

* * * * *

FOLK LORE.

_Cook-eels._--Forby derives this from _coquille_, in allusion to their
being fashioned like an escallop, in which sense he is borne out by
Cotgrave, who has "_Pain coquille_, a fashion of an hard-crusted loafe,
somewhat like our stillyard bunne." I have always taken the word to be
"coquerells," from {413} the vending of such buns at the barbarous sport
of "throwing at the cock" on Shrove Tuesday. The cock is still commonly
called a cockerell in E. Anglia. Perhaps Mr. Wodderspoon will say
whether the buns of the present day are fashioned in any particular
manner, or whether any "the oldest inhabitant" has any recollection of
their being differently fashioned or at all impressed. What, too, are
the "_stillyard buns_" of Cotgrave? Are they tea-cakes? The apartment in
which tea was formerly made was called the _still_-room.

Buriensis.

_Divination by the Bible and Key._--This superstition is very prevalent
amongst the peasantry of this and adjoining parishes. When any article
is suspected to have been stolen, a Bible is procured, and opened at the
1st chap. of Ruth: the stock of a street-door key is then laid on the
16th verse of the above chapter, and the key is secured in this position
by a string, bound tightly round the book. The person who works the
charm then places his two middle fingers under the handle of the key,
and this keeps the Bible suspended. He then repeats in succession the
names of the parties suspected of the theft; repeating at each name a
portion of the verse on which the key is placed, commencing, "Whither
thou goest, I will go," &c. When the name of the guilty is pronounced,
the key turns off the fingers, the Bible falls to the grou