The Sun.
London, England, 1823-09-30 00:00:00

POPULAR ANTIQUITIES.

DEATH WATCH.
WALLIS, in his History of Northumberland,
gives the following account of the insect so
Called, whose ticking has been thought by an-
cient superstition to forebode death in a family :
_" The small. Scarab, called the Death Watch
(Scaralmens ga/earus pulsator), is frequently
among dust, and decayed rotten wood, lonely and
retired. It is one of the smallest of the Vagipe-
nits, of a dark brown, with irregular light brown
spots, the belly plicated, and the wings under the
cases pellucid ; like other beetles, the helmet
turned up, as ,it is supposed, for hearing, the
lupper lip hard and shining. By its regular pul-
liations, like the tickingi of a watch, it sometimes
surprises those that are strangers to its nature and
properties, who fancy its beating portends a fa-
mily change, and the shortening of the thread of
life. Put into a box, it may be heard and seen
in the not of pulsation, with a small proboscis
I,against the side of it, for food more probably
than for hymeneal pleasure, as some have
fancied." The above formal account will not
be. ill-contrasted with the following fanciful and
witty one of Dean Swift, in his invective against
wood. It furnishes us too with a charm to avert
the omen.

• A. Wood Worm
That lies in old wood, like a hare in her form,
With teeth or with claws it will bite, or will scratch,
And chambermaids christen this worm a Death Watch;
Then woe be to those in the house who are sick ;
Because, like a watch, it always cries click ;
For as sure as a sun, they will give up the ghost,
If the maggot cries click, when it. scratches the post,
But a kettle of scalding hot water injected,
Ibfallibly eures.the timber affected :
The omen is broken, the (langsr is over,
The maggot will die, and the sick will recover."
tells 'us Grose teus that " the clicking of a Death-
watch.
is an omen of the death of some one in the
house where it is heard."

DEATIT-OMENS 'PECULIAR TO PAbirtrEs.
Grose tel us, that besides genera! notices of
death, marry- families have particular warnings or
notices, some by the appearanCe of a bird, and
others by the figure of a tall woman; dressed all
in white, who goes shrieking about the house.
This apparition is common in Ireland, where it is
called Banshee, and the shrieking woman.
Mr. Pennant says, that many great families in
Scotland had their Demon or Genius, -who gave
them monitions of future events. Thus the fa.
mily of RothmurChas had the BodaCk an Dun,
or the Ghost of the .Hill ; Kinchardines the
spectre of the bloody hand.. Gartinbeg House
was haunted by the Codach Gartin, and Tullock
Gorrns by Maug MunlaCk. or the girl with the
hairy left hand. The Syn-ad gave frequent
orders that inquiry should. be made into the
truth of this apparition ; and one or two de-
clared that they had seen one that answered the
description.
Mr. Pennant, in describing the customs of the
Highlanders, tells us, that in certain places the
death of people is supposed to be foretold by the
cries and shrieks of Benshi,. or the fairy's wife,
uttered along the very. path where 'the funeral is
to pass; and what in Wales are called Corpse
Candles, are often imagined to apiiear and foretel
mortality. In:the County. of Carmarihen there is
hardly one that dies but some one sees his light
or candle.

There is a similar superstition among the vulgar
in Northumberland. They call it seeing the
Waff of the person whose death it foretels.
King James, in his Demonology, says, " In
a secret murther, if the dead carkass brs at any
time thereafter handled by the Muitherer, it will
gush out blood, as if the blood were crying to
heaven for revenge of the murtherer."