_Propitiating the Fairies._--Having some years since, on a Sunday afternoon, had occasion to ride on horseback between two towns in the eastern part of Cornwall, I met a christening party, also on horseback, headed by the nurse with a baby in her arms. Making a halt as I approached her, she stopped me, and producing a _cake_, presented it to me, and insisted on my taking it. Several years after, when in the Isle of Man, I had the opportunity of hearing an elderly person relate several pieces of folk lore respecting the witches and fairies in that island. It had been customary, within his recollection, for a woman, when carrying a child to be christened, to take with her _a piece of bread and cheese_, to give to the first person she met, for the purpose of _saving the child from witchcraft or the fairies_. Another custom was that of the "Queeltah," or salt put under the churn _to keep off bad people_. Stale water was thrown on the plough "to keep it from the _little {618} folks_." A cross was tied in the tail of a cow "to keep her from _bad bodies_." On May morning it was deemed of the greatest importance to avoid going to a neighbour's house for fire; a turf was therefore kept burning all night at home. Flowers growing in a hedge, especially green or yellow ones, were good to keep off the fairies. And finally, the last cake was left "behind the turf-flag for the little people." J. W. THOMAS. Dewsbury. _Cornish Folk Lore: King Arthur in the Form of a Raven._--In Jarvis's translation of _Don Quixote_, book II. chap. v., the following passage occurs: "'Have you not read, sir,' answered Don Quixote, 'the annals and histories of England, wherein are recorded the famous exploits of King Arthur, whom in our Castilian tongue we always call King Artus; of whom there goes an old tradition, and a common one all over that kingdom of Great Britain, that this king did not die, but that by magic art he was turned into a raven; and that, in process of time, he shall reign again, and recover his kingdom and sceptre; for which reason it cannot be proved, that, from that time to this, any Englishman has killed a raven?'"