to be of
the same derivation as "noxious" and "noisome;" but there is no process
known to the English language by which it could be manufactured without
making a plural noun of it. In short, the two words are identical;
"news" retaining its primitive, and "noise" adopting a consequential
meaning.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

* * * * *

FOLK LORE.

_Charm for the Toothache._--A reverend friend, very conversant in the
popular customs and superstitions of Ireland, and who has seen the charm
mentioned in pp. 293, 349, and 397, given by a Roman Catholic priest in
the north-west of Ireland, has kindly furnished me with the genuine
version, and the form in which it was written, which are as follows:--

"As Peter sat on a marble stone,
The Lord came to him all alone;
'Peter, what makes thee sit there?'
'My Lord, I am troubled with the toothache.'
'Peter arise, and go home;
And you, and whosoever for my sake
Shall keep these words in memory,
Shall never be troubled with the toothache.'"

T.J.

_Charms._--_The Evil Eye._--Going one day into a cottage in the village
of Catterick, in Yorkshire, I observed hung up behind the door a
ponderous necklace of "lucky stones," i.e. stones with a hole through
them. On hinting an inquiry as to their use, I found the good lady of
the house disposed to shuffle off any explanation; but by a little
importunity I discovered that they had the credit of being able to
preserve the house and its inhabitants from the baneful influence of the
"evil eye." "Why, Nanny," said I, "you surely don't believe in witches
now-a-days?" "No! I don't say 'at I do; but certainly i' former times
there _was_ wizzards an' buzzards, and them sort o' things." "Well,"
said I, laughing, "but you surely don't think there are any now?" "No! I
don't say at ther' are; but I _do_ believe in a _yevil_ eye." After a
little time I extracted from poor Nanny more particulars on the subject,
as viz.:--how that there was a woman in the village whom she strongly
suspected of being able to look with an evil eye; how, further, a
neighbour's daughter, against whom the old lady in question had a grudge
owing to some love affair, had suddenly fallen into a sort of pining
sickness, of which the doctors could make nothing at all; and how the
poor thing fell away without any accountable cause, and finally died,
nobody knew why; but how it was her (Nanny's) strong belief that she had
pined a