Note 245 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Footnote 245
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(return)
August Schleicher, Volkstümliches aus Sonnenberg (Weimar, 1858), p. 134; B. Souché, Croyances, Présages et Traditions diverses (Niort, 1880), p. 11; A. Meyrac, Traditions, Coutumes Légendes et Contes des Ardennes (Charleville, 1890), p. 171; V. Fossel, Volksmedicin und medicinischer Aberglaube in Steiermark,2 (Graz, 1886), p. 124. A correspondent, who withholds her name, writes to me that in a Suffolk village, where she used to live some twenty or thirty years ago, "every one pickled their own beef, and it was held that if the pickling were performed by a woman during her menstrual period the meat would not keep. If the cook were incapacitated at the time when the pickling was due, another woman was sent for out of the village rather than risk what was considered a certainty." Another correspondent informs me that in some of the dales in the north of Yorkshire a similar belief prevailed down to recent years with regard to the salting of pork. Another correspondent writes to me: "The prohibition that a menstruating woman must not touch meat that is intended for keeping appears to be common all over the country; at least I have met with it as a confirmed and active custom in widely separated parts of England.... It is in regard to the salting of meat for bacon that the prohibition is most usual, because that is the commonest process; but it exists in regard to any meat food that is required to be kept."