then the straws will become fairies and dance to the cawing of a crow who will come and sit on the ledge of the window. And so witches were wont to make a man of straw, as did Mother Gookin, in Hawthorne's tale, and unto these they gave life, whence the saying of a man of straw and straw bail, albeit this latter is deemed by some to be related to the breaking of straws and of dependence, as told in the tale of Charles the Simple. Straw-lore is extensive and curious. As in elder-stalks, small fairies make their homes in its tubes. To strew chopped straw before the house of a bride was such an insult to her character, in Germany, and so common that laws were passed against it. I possess a work printed about 1650, entitled "De Injuriis quæ haud raro Novis Nuptis inferri solent. I. Per sparsionem dissectorum culmorum frugum. Germ. Dusch das Werckerling Streuen," &c. An immense amount of learned quotation and reference by its author indicates that this custom which was influenced by superstition, was very extensively written on in its time. It was allied to the binding of knots and other magic ceremonies to prevent the consummation of marriages. There is a very curious principle involved in curing certain disorders or afflictions by means of spells or verses. A certain word is repeated many times in a mysterious manner, so that it strikes the imagination of the sufferer. There is found in the Slavonian countries a woolly caterpillar called Wolos, whose bite, or rather touch, is much dreaded. I have myself, when a boy, been stung by such a creature in the United States. As I remember, it was like the sting of a bee. The following (Malo Russian) spell against it was given me by Prof. Dragomanoff in Geneva. It is supposed that a certain kind of disorder, or cutaneous eruption, is caused by the Wolos:-- "Wolosni--Wolosnicéh! Holy Wolos. Once a man drove over empty roads With empty oxen, To an empty field, To harvest empty corn, And gather it in empty ricks. He gathered the empty sheaves, Laid them in empty wagons, Drove over empty roads, Unto an empty threshing-floor. The empty labourers threshed it, And bore it to the empty mill. The empty baker (woman) Mixed it in an empty trough, And baked it in an empty oven. The empty people ate the empty bread. So may the Wolos swallow this disorder From the empty ---- (here the name of the patient.) What is here understood by "empty" is that the swelling is taken away, subtracted, or emptied, by virtue of the repetition of the word, as if one should say, "Be thou void. Depart! depart! depart! Avoid me!"