His wife
believes that the best butter is made when the tide has just turned
and is beginning to flow, that milk which foams in the churn will go
on foaming till the hour of high water is past, and that water drawn
from the well or milk extracted from the cow while the tide is
rising will boil up in the pot or saucepan and overflow into the
fire. According to some of the ancients, the skins of seals, even
after they had been parted from their bodies, remained in secret
sympathy with the sea, and were observed to ruffle when the tide was
on the ebb. Another ancient belief, attributed to Aristotle, was
that no creature can die except at ebb tide. The belief, if we can
trust Pliny, was confirmed by experience, so far as regards human
beings, on the coast of France. Philostratus also assures us that at
Cadiz dying people never yielded up the ghost while the water was
high. A like fancy still lingers in some parts of Europe. On the
Cantabrian coast they think that persons who die of chronic or acute
disease expire at the moment when the tide begins to recede.
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