Note 55 — 272

30, 31, 32, 50, have curious popular traits. In 30, 32, the dead man (men) within being unable to render aid, the lover calls to yarn spun on Thursday (on Thursday after the evening meal) to open. A watchman tells the yarn to stay where it was hanged; the girl cuts the skein in two with an axe. In 31 there is no corpse in the house; the lover calls on a ball of thread and a broom, ‘ohne Seele’ (with no centre-piece, no handle) to open. In 50 the dead man within cannot help the man without because a broom is standing on its handle; so the man without calls on a skein of yarn, a pot-hook, a ball of thread, to open. For various reasons these appeals prove bootless.