10 Norfolk Superstitions

Although I was born and raised in Ipswich, my maternal grandmother is a Norwich lass who grew up on Long Row, off Angel Road. My mother spent many happy hours in Norwich and her speech was peppered with Norfolk dialect words, despite her strong Suffolk accent. Perhaps that's why she particularly liked an old book that sat on the bookshelf for as long as I can remember - The Land of the Broads by Ernest R Suffling, published in 1892 (based on the date of the Great Eastern Railway timetable at the back of the book).

Ernest, living in West London, but Norfolk born and from the Broads sets out to guide the Victorian traveller around this little known district. Here, he says, you may still hear pure Saxon words - little did I know that when I used a 'dwile' or was called a daft 'mawther ' as a child that I was speaking pure Saxon too. 

Here is Ernest's description of the "natives" (his quote marks), although I have to say that our branch of Norfolk stock are small and dark - we used to joke we were descended from the Iceni- rather than broad shouldered and  "all bone and muscle."

The "natives" are a fine race, usually with the flaxen or tawny beards, fair skin, straight noses and blue eyes characteristic of the Norse or Danish type. They are noted for their hardihood and endurance...

As you'd expect from a race that lives in the wilds where no motorway has ever penetrated, Norfolk people are "exceedingly superstitious" (my mother certainly was), "even in these days of enlightenment:" Ernest continues, "doubtless much of this is due to ignorance, which the Board schools will probably assist in dissipating." 

He then goes on to list 10 splendid Norfolk superstitions

1. If a crow croaks over a house, someone will die there within twelve months.
2. Nobody ever thinks of buying or selling, or commencing any new undertaking on a Friday.
3. When going to market to sell corn or oxen, if you meet a cross-eyed man or woman you had better return, as your dealings will not prosper.
4. Poppies brought into a house cause the occupants headaches and fainting.
5. Primroses carried into a house bear ill luck with them.
6. If a bow of yew be brought into a house at Christmas, one of the inmates will die ere another Noel comes round.
7. If a red bee flies in at the open window, a male visitor will call; if a white one, a lady will call
8. St Mark's night (April 5th) is considered a favourable time for spells to be cast and for sights (uncanny) to be seen. If one has the courage to go alone to the porch of the village church on St Mark's night, he will see pass before him, at midnight, the shadowy forms of those who are to die before next Easter. Some also say, that those in the village who are to have a serious illness during the same period will be seen.
9. If an unmarried girl, or young woman (mawther) goes into the garden at twelve o'clock on St Mark's night and uses the following spell, her future husband will appear with a scythe in his hand. She must sow some hemp-seed and as she sows must keep repeating these lines:- 

Hemp-seed I sow-

Hemp-seed, come grow! 

He that is my true love, 

Come after me and mow

Then the ghostly lover mows - or would do so if he ever appeared.

  10. Here is another charm: The maiden sits before a mirror in her bedroom, in which must only be            one candle shedding a dim light. At twelve o'clock she says:-

Come lover-come lad,

And make my heart glad;

For my husband I'll have you, 

For good or bad.

Then the future spouse looks over the maiden's shoulder into the glass.

Ernest rather ominously warns that "several fatal jokes have been the outcome of these ghostly incantations" but doesn't elaborate further.

So be warned...