Note 19 — Chapter XII · WÄLSCH-TIROL. VAL SUGANA.—GIUDICARIA.—FOLKLORE.

A collection of the ‘Costumi’ of Tuscany I have, without a title-page, but I think published about 1835, laments the growing disuse in Lunigiana (i.e. the country round the Gulf of Spezia, so called from Luna, an Etruscan city, but ‘not one of the twelve,’ and including Carrara, Lucca, and Pisa) of the practice of recounting popular traditions at the Focarelli there. These seem to be autumn evening gatherings round a fire, but in the open air, often on a threshing-floor; while the able-bodied population is engaged in the preparation of flax, and some are spinning, the boys and girls dance, wrestle, and play games, and the old crones gossip; but now, says the writer, they begin to occupy themselves only with scandalous and idle reports, instead of old-world lore.