The current belief in that part of Europe is that "unborn children live in a very beautiful dwelling, for so long as children are no year old and have not yet looked into a mirror, everything that comes before their eyes appears to be gold." Here folk-thought makes the beginnings of human life a real golden age. They are Midases of the eye, not of the touch. _Children's Questions and Parents' Answers._ Another interesting class of "parents' lies" consists in the replies to, or comments upon, the questionings and remarks of children about the ordinary affairs of life. The following examples, selected from Dirksen's studies of East-Frisian Proverbs, will serve to indicate the general nature and extent of these. 1. When a little child says, "I am hungry," the mother sometimes answers, "Eat some salt, and then you will be thirsty, too." 2. When a child, seeing its mother drink tea or coffee, says, "I'm thirsty," the answer may be, "If you're thirsty, go to Jack ter Host; there's a cow in the stall, go sit under it and drink." Some of the variants of this locution are expressed in very coarse language (431. I. 22). 3. If a child asks, when it sees that its parent is going out, "Am I not going, too?" the answer is, "You are going along, where nobody has gone, to Poodle's wedding," or "You are going along on Stay-here's cart." A third locution is, "You are going along to the Kükendell fair" (Kükendell being a part of Meiderich, where a fair has never been held). In Oldenburg the answer is: "You shall go along on Jack-stay-at-home's (Janblievtohûs) cart." Sometimes the child is quieted by being told, "I'll bring you back a little silver nothing (enn silwer Nickske)" (431. I. 33). 4. If, when he is given a slice of bread, he asks for a thinner one, the mother may remark, "Thick pieces make fat bodies" (431. I. 35). 5. When some one says in the hearing of the father or mother of a child that it ought not to have a certain apple, a certain article of clothing, or the like, the answer is, "That is no illegitimate child." The locution is based upon the fact that illegitimate children do not enjoy the same rights and privileges as those born in wedlock (431. I. 42). 6. Of children's toys and playthings it is sometimes said, when they are very fragile, "They will last from twelve o'clock till midday" (431.1.43). 7. When any one praises her child in the presence of the mother, the latter says, "It's a good child when asleep" (431. I. 51). 8. In the winter-time, when the child asks its mother for an apple, the latter may reply, "the apples are piping in the tree," meaning that there are no longer any apples on the tree, but the sparrows are sitting there, crying and lamenting. In Meiderich the locution is "Apples have golden stems," _i.e._ they are rare and dear in winter-time (431. I. 75).