The Project Gutenberg EBook of Current Superstitions, by Various

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Title: Current Superstitions
Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk

Author: Various

Commentator: William Wells Newell

Editor: Fanny D. Bergen

Release Date: August 5, 2006 [EBook #18992]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note: A number of typographical errors and inconsistencies
found in the original book have been maintained in this version. A
complete list is found at the end of the text.

CURRENT SUPERSTITIONS

COLLECTED FROM THE ORAL
TRADITION OF ENGLISH
SPEAKING FOLK

EDITED BY
FANNY D. BERGEN

_WITH NOTES, AND AN INTRODUCTION BY_
WILLIAM WELLS NEWELL

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Published for The American Folk Lore Society by
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
LONDON: DAVID NUTT, 270, 271 STRAND
LEIPZIG: OTTO HARRASSOWITZ, QUERSTRASSE, 14
1896

Four hundred and fifty copies printed,
of which this is No. ----

Copyright, 1896,
BY THE AMERICAN FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.

_All rights reserved._

_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._
Electrotyped and Printed by H.O. Houghton and Company.

PREFACE.

In the "Popular Science Monthly" for July, 1886, there was printed a
somewhat miscellaneous assortment of customs and superstitions under the
title: _Animal and Plant Lore of Children_. This article was in the main
composed of reminiscences of my own childhood spent in Northern Ohio,
though two or three friends of New England rearing contributed personal
recollections. Seldom is a line cast which brings ashore such an abundant
catch as did my initial folk-lore paper. A footnote had, by the advice