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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Death-Bed Superstitions

By Myths and Folk-Lore of the Aryan Peoples

From the Folk-Lore Record. Ditchling, Sussex, August 1820

WHILST the woman was dying, I was standing at the foot of the bed, when a woman desired me to remove, saying, “You should never stand at the foot of a bed when a person is dying.” The reason, I ascertained, was because it would stop the spirit in its departure to the unknown world.

Immediately after the woman was dead, I was requested by the persons in attendance to go with them into the garden to awake the bees, saying it was a thing which ought always to be done when a person died after sunset.