Evil spirits were once said to lurk in
lettuce-beds, and a certain species was regarded with ill favour by
mothers, a circumstance which, Mr. Folkard rightly suggests,[6] may
account for a Surrey saying, "O'er much lettuce in the garden will stop
a young wife's bearing." Among similar legends of the kind it is said
that, in Swabia, fern-seed brought by the devil between eleven and
twelve o'clock on Christmas night enables the bearer to do as much work
as twenty or thirty ordinary men. According to a popular piece of
superstition current in our southern counties, the devil is generally
supposed to put his cloven foot upon the blackberries on Michaelmas Day,
and hence after this date it is considered unlucky to gather them during
the remainder of the year. An interesting instance of this superstition
is given by Mrs. Latham in her "West Sussex Superstitions," which
happened to a farmer's wife residing in the neighbourhood of Arundel. It
appears that she was in the habit of making a large quantity of
blackberry jam, and finding that less fruit had been brought to her than
she required, she said to the charwoman, "I wish you would send some of
your children to gather me three or four pints more." "Ma'am," exclaimed
the woman in astonishment, "don't you know this is the 11th October?"
"Yes," she replied.
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