Some may be inclined to ask, “Is there any folk-lore left?” Certainly during the present age the rapid diffusion of knowledge has happily driven forth much antique superstition; but there is a temptation to exaggerate the extent of the effects which have thus been produced. In Lancashire, where we might have expected to find that the noise of the steam-engine had frightened away both the fairies and the queen of the May, and the spread of knowledge to have destroyed all faith in spells and charms, interesting articles of folk-lore have been recorded as either still surviving, or as having only recently become obsolete. Many observances are connected with particular seasons of the year. Thus on New Year’s Day there is a firm belief that if a light-haired person “let in” the New Year, a twelve month of ill-luck will be the result, and that, on the contrary, dark persons will bring with them a year of good fortune. So Pan-cake Tuesday, Simnel Sunday, Easter, May Day, Christmas, etc., have each their special customs still observed in Lancashire, though in many cases so shorn of their ancient glories as to be little more than relics of former greatness. The habit of attaching a symbolic importance, even to the most trifling occurrences, is strikingly illustrated in the following quotations from Harland and Wilkinson:—“Most grandmothers will explain, ‘God bless you!’ when they hear a child sneeze, and they sum up the philosophy of the subject with the following lines, which used to delight the writer in the days of his childhood:— ‘Sneeze on a Monday, you sneeze for danger; Sneeze on a Tuesday, you kiss a stranger; Sneeze on a Wednesday, you sneeze for a letter; Sneeze on a Thursday, for something better; Sneeze on a Friday, you sneeze for sorrow; Sneeze on a Saturday, your sweetheart to-morrow; Sneeze on a Sunday, your safety seek, The Devil will have you the whole of the week.’” This is certainly a comprehensive epitome of the entire philosophy of sneezing. The finger-nails of a baby should be bitten shorter. If they are cut, the child will become “sharp fingered”—_i.e._, thievish. As a specimen of the folk-tale, we may take that of the “Three Tasks.” The inhabitants of Cockerham, having made up their minds that the devil had been showing an unreasonable partiality to their village, gave the schoolmaster the not very pleasant task of expelling the Prince of Darkness from their midst. The man of letters, having raised the foul fiend, appointed him three tasks; if he failed to accomplish them he was never to appear again at Cockerham, but if he succeeded in their performance, the pedagogue became his prey. The two first tasks were soon done, but the third, the fatal, mystic third— “Now make me, dear sir, a rope of yon sand, Which will bear washing in Cocker, and not lose a strand”—