Chambers's Book of Days

Robert Chambers, The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar (2 vols, 1862-1864).

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Two volumes, 1862 to 1864. Facsimile reprints are easy to find, and original sets turn up second-hand.

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Sunday 1 November

Printed under this month, but not tied to a day: anecdotes, charms and beliefs the books set down here.

Folklore from the old calendars

A mermaid on the hook Lore and belief Orkney, ShetlandJohn Brand's Description of Orkney and Shetland, published in 1701, told of two fishermen who drew up a mermaid on a hook.
Darrell’s Stile Lore and belief WiltshireAubrey first put about the dark story of Littlecote: a midwife brought blindfold to a great house one night delivered a child, which the master at once thrust into the fire.
Lord Lyttelton’s warning Lore and belief SurreyThomas, second Lord Lyttelton, a notorious rake, told friends that a bird had fluttered at his window and a woman in white had warned him he would die at midnight on the third day.
Spur money No longer kept Herefordshire, London, NorthamptonshireAnyone who walked into a cathedral choir wearing spurs could be made to pay a small fine, called spur money, to the choristers.
The ghost of the Canongate fire Lore and belief MidlothianScott heard as a child an Edinburgh version of the Littlecote tale, in which a clergyman was led blindfold to a house at the head of the Canongate to comfort a young mother, and heard a pistol shot as he left.
Unlucky to save a drowning man Lore and belief EnglandWriting of the great storm of 1703, Chambers noted how late lifesaving came to the English coast.