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The present popular and only German name of the mistletoe, the parent of
our English denomination, is _Mistel_, which is evidently only
_Meist-heyl_ (most heal, or healing), the superlative of the above
_Gut-heyl_, and both wonderfully agreeing with the name which Pliny says
it bore in his time, _Omnia sanans_.
William Bell, Ph.D.
* * * * *
FOLK LORE.
_Folk Lore of South Northamptonshire._--No. 2.
_Mice._--A sudden influx of mice into a house, hitherto free from their
ravages, denotes approaching mortality among its inhabitants. A mouse
running over a person is considered to be an infallible sign of death,
as is also the squeaking of one behind the bed of an invalid, or the
appearance or apparition of a white mouse running across the room. To
meet with a shrew-mouse, in going a journey, is reckoned ominous of
evil. The country people have an idea that the harvest-mouse is unable
to cross a path which has been trod by man. Whenever they attempt, they
are immediately, as my informant expressed it, "struck dead." This, they
say, accounts for the numbers which on a summer's evening may be found
lying dead on the verge of the field footpaths, without any external
wound or apparent cause for their demise.
_Snakes._--There is a very prevalent belief that a snake can never die
till the sun is down.
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