“ Young children are often reminded that they ought not to walk backwards in a room, or on a road;—if they do, death will soon deprive them of their mothers. Many persons consider it sinful to give a child the same Christian name as another who is dead: one female remarked to the writer that "id wor gooin ageean God Omeety as hed ta'en't'other away." A child with two crowns, or two circular tufts of hair, will live in two kings' reigns. Very few nurses will convey a child down-stairs the first time it is removed from the room ”

“ When an infant smiles in its sleep our nurses say that the angels are whispering to it; but when it starts up in terror, then some demon is tormenting it. Precocious children are seldom long-lived;—they are often reminded that they "are too fause [wise] to live." If children are weighed before they are a year old; or if their finger nails are cut, instead of being bitten off, during the same period, bad health and misfortune will follow. When children cut their teeth early, their mothers are supposed to be prolific ”

“ Our peasantry also hold that unbaptized children neither go to heaven nor to hell; but wander in an intermediate state, and become either fairies or pixies. Baptism is said to drive the devil out of children ”