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Class Q n Ls 
 
 Book li 
 
 By bequest of 
 
 William Lukens Shoemaker 
 
DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. T. P. THISELTON-DYER, M.A., Oxon., 
 
 Author of ^^ British Popular Customs,^ ^ and ^* English 
 Folk-lore,'* 
 
 Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. 
 
 LONDON, FARIS ^ KEJF YORK, 
 
 [all rights reserved.] 
 

 -V tj, S'TOomaker 
 7 S '06 
 
y 
 
 PEEF ACE 
 
 For the name <^ Folk-lore '^ in its present significa- 
 tion, embracing the Popular Traditions, Proverbial 
 Sayings, Superstitions, and Customs of the people, we 
 are in a great measure indebted to the late editor of 
 N-otes and QiLeries—lslY. W, J. Thoms— who, in an 
 anonymous contribution to the Athenceuin of 22nd 
 August, 1846, very aptly suggested this comprehensive 
 term, which has since been adopted as the recognised 
 title of what has now become an important branch of 
 antiquarian research. 
 
 The study of Folk-lore is year by year receiv- 
 ing greater attention, its object being to collect, 
 classify, and preserve survivals of popular belief, 
 and to trace them as far as possible to their 
 original source. This task is no easy one, as school- 
 boards and railways are fast sweeping away every 
 vestige of the old beliefs and customs which, in days 
 gone by, held such a prominent place in social and 
 domestic life. The Folk-lorist has, also, to deal with 
 remote periods, and to examine the history of tales 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 and traditions which have been handed down from 
 the distant past and have lost much of their mean- 
 ing in the lapse of years. But, as a writer in the 
 Standard has pointed out, Folk-lore students tread 
 on no man's toes. " They take up points of history 
 which the histoi^ian despises, and deal with monuments 
 more intangible but infinitely more ancient than those 
 about which Sir John Lubbock is so solicitous. They 
 prosper and are happy on the crumbs dropped from 
 the tables of the learned, and grow scientifically rich 
 on the refuse which less skilful craftsmen toss aside as 
 useless. The tales with which the nurse wiles her 
 charge asleep provide for the Folk-lore student a 
 succulent banquet — for he knows that there is scarcely 
 a child's story or a vain thought that may not be 
 traced back to the boyhood of the world, and to those 
 primitive races from which so many polished nations 
 have sprung." 
 
 The field of research, too, in which the Folk-lorist 
 is engaged is a most extensive one, supplying materials 
 for investigation of a wide-spread character. Thus 
 he recognises and, as far as he possibly can, explains 
 the smallest item of superstition wherever found, not 
 limiting his inquiries to any one subject. This, there- 
 fore, whilst enhancing the value of Folk-lore as a study, 
 in the same degree increases its interest, since with a 
 perfect impartiality it lays bare superstition as it exists 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 among all classes of society. Whilst condemning, it 
 may be, the uneducated peasant who places credence 
 in the village fortune-teller or " cunning man," we 
 are apt to forget how oftentimes persons belonging to 
 the higher classes are found consulting with equal 
 faith some clairvoyant or spirit-medium. 
 
 Hence, however reluctant the intelligent part of 
 the community may be to own the fact, it must bo 
 admitted that superstition, in one form or another, 
 dwells beneath the surface of most human hearts, 
 although it may frequently display itself in the most 
 disguised or refined form. Among the lower orders, 
 as a wi'iter has observed, " it wears its old fashions, 
 in the higher it changes with the rapidity of modes in 
 fashionable circles." Indeed, it is no matter of sur- 
 prise that superstition prevails among the poor and 
 ignorant, when we find the affluent and enlightened 
 in many cases quite as ready to repose their belief 
 in the most illogical ideas. 
 
 In conclusion, we would only add that the present 
 little volume has been written with a view of showing 
 how this rule applies even to the daily routine of 
 Domestic Life, every department of which, as will bo 
 seen in the following pages, has its own Folk-lore. 
 
 T. F. Thiselton Dyer. 
 
 Brighton, M'Vj, 1881. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BIRTH AND INFANCY. ^ PAQE 
 
 Value of Superstitions — Lucky Days and Hours of Birth — The 
 Caul— The Changeling — The Evil Eye — "Up and not 
 Down" — Rocking the Empty Cradle— Teeth, Nails, and 
 Hands — The Maple and the Ash — Unchristened Children 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Nursery Literature — The Power of Baptism — Confirmation — 
 PojDular Prayers — Weather Rhymes — School Superstitions 
 — Barring out 16 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LOVE AND COURTSHIP. 
 
 Love-tests — Plants used in Love-charms— The Lady-bird — The 
 Snail— St. Valentine's Day — ISIidsummer Eve — Hallowe'en 
 — Omens on Friday 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 Seasons and Days i^ropitious to Marriage — Superstitions con- 
 nected with the Bride — Meeting a Funeral— Robbing the 
 Bride of Pins — Dancing in a Hog's Trough — The Wed- 
 ding-cake — The Ring 36 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 Warnings of Death— The Howling of Dogs— A Cow in the 
 Garden — Death-presaging Birds— Plants — The Will-o'-the- 
 Wisp — The Sympathy between Two Personalities —Pro- 
 phecy — Dying Hardly — The Last Act — Place and Position 
 of the Grave 48 
 
CONTENTS. Vii 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE HUMAN BODY. PAGE 
 
 Superstitions about Deformity, Moles, &c.— Tingling of trie 
 Ear— The Nose— The Eye— The Teeth— The Haii'— The 
 Hand— Dead Man's Hand— The Feet .... 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ARTICLES OF DRESS. 
 
 New Clothes at Easter and AVhitsuntide — ^Wearing of Clothes 
 — The Clothes of the Dead — The Apron, Stockings, 
 Garters, &c.— The Shoe— The Glove— The Pving— Pins . 81 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TABLE SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 Thirteen at Table — Salt-spilling — The Knife — Bread, and other 
 Articles of Food — Wishing Bones — Tea-leaves — Singing 
 before Breakfast— Shaking Hands across the Table . .100 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FURNITURE OMENS. 
 
 Folk-lore of the Looking-glass — Luck of Edenhall — Clock- 
 falling— Chairs— Beds— The Bellows . . , .111 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 Prevalence and Continuity of Superstitions — Sneezing — 
 Stumbling — A "WTiistling Woman — Sweeping — Breaking 
 Crockery — Fires and Candles — Money — Other Super- 
 stitions 120 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 POPULAR DIVINATIONS. 
 
 Bible and Key — Dipping — Sieve and Shears — Crowing of the 
 Cock — Spatulamancia — Palmistry and Onymancy — Look- 
 divination — Astrology — Cards — Casting Lot — Tea-stalks . 134 
 
Vm CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COMMON AILMENTS. TAQB 
 
 Charm-remedies— For Ague — Bleeding of the Nose — Bums — 
 Cramp — Ex^ilepsy — Fits — Gout — Headache, &c, . , 148 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS HOUSEHOLD LORE. , 
 
 Ilorse-shoes — Precautions against AYitclicraf t - The Charmer — 
 Second Sight— Ghosts— Dreams—Nightmare , , , 169 
 
DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BIRTH AND INFANCV. 
 
 Value of Superstitions —Lucky Days and Hours of Birth— The Caul 
 —The Changeling— The Evil Eye— *'Up and not Down"— 
 Rocking the Empty Cradle — Teeth, Nails, and Hands — 
 The Maple and the Ash — Unchristened Children. 
 
 Around every stage of human life a variety of customs 
 and superstitions have woven themselves, most of 
 which, apart from their antiquarian value, as having 
 been bequeathed to us from the far-off past, are in- 
 teresting in so far as they illustrate those old-world 
 notions and quaint beliefs which marked the social 
 and domestic life of our forefathers. Although, there- 
 fore, many of these may appear to us meaningless, yet 
 it must be remembered that they were the natural 
 outcome of that scanty knowledge and those crude 
 conceptions which prevailed in less enlightened times 
 than our own. Probably, if our ancestors were in 
 our midst now, they would be able in a great measure 
 to explain and account for what is often looked upon 
 now-a-days as childish fancy and so much nursery 
 rubbish. In the present chapter it is proposed to 
 give a brief and general survey of the folk-lore 
 
 B 
 
2 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 associated with birth and infancy, without, however, 
 entering critically into its origin or growth, or tracing- 
 its transmigration from one country to another. 
 Commencing, then, with birth, we find that many 
 influences are supposed to affect the future fortune 
 and character of the infant. Thus, in some places 
 great attention is paid to the day of the week on 
 which the child is born, as may be gathered from the 
 following rhyme still current in Cornwall : — 
 
 " Sunday's child is full of grace, 
 Monday's child is full in the face, 
 Tuesday's child is solemn and sad, 
 Wednesday's child is merry and glad, 
 Thursday's child is inclined to thieving, 
 Friday's child is free in giving, 
 Saturday's child works hard for his living " — 
 
 a piece of folk-lore varying, of course, in different 
 localities. By general consent, however, Sunday is 
 regarded as a most lucky day for birth, both in this 
 country and on the Continent ; and according to the 
 '^Universal Fortune-teller" — a book very popular 
 among the lower classes in former years — "great 
 riches, long life, and happiness " are in store for those 
 fortunate beings born on Sunday, while in Sussex 
 they are considered safe against drowning and hang- 
 ing. Importance is also attached to the hour of 
 birth ; and the faculty of seeing much that is hidden 
 from others is said to be granted to children born at 
 the '^ chime hours," i.e.^ the hours of three, six, nine, 
 or twelve — a superstition found in many parts of the 
 Continent. There is, too, an idea prevalent in Germany 
 
BIRTH AND INFANCY. 3 
 
 that when a child is born in leap-yeax' either it or its 
 mother will die within the course of the year — a 
 notion not unknown in our own country. Again, 
 from time immemorial various kinds of divination 
 have been in use for the purpose of discovering the 
 sex of an infant previous to its birth. One of these 
 is by means of a shoulder-of -mutton bone, which, after 
 the whole of the flesh has been stripped clean off, 
 must be hung up the last thing at night over the front 
 door of the house. On the following morning the sex 
 of the first person who enters, exclusive of the members 
 of the household, indicates the sex of the child. 
 
 We will next turn to some of the countless 
 superstitions connected with the new-born child. A 
 highly popular one refers to the caul — a thin mem- 
 brane occasionally found covering the head at birth, 
 and deemed specially lucky, as indicating, among other 
 things, that the child \vill never be drowned. It has 
 been, in consequence, termed the "holy" or "fortu- 
 nate hood," and great care is generally taken that it 
 should not be lost or thrown away, for fear of the 
 death or sickness of the child. This superstitious 
 fancy was very common in the primitive ages of the 
 Church, and St. Chrysostom inveighs against it in 
 several of his homilies. The presence of a caul on 
 board ship was believed to prevent shipwreck, and 
 owners of vessels paid a large price for them. Most 
 readers will, no doubt, recollect how Thomas Hood 
 wrote for his early work, "Whims and Oddities," a 
 capital ballad upon this vulgar error. Speaking of 
 the jolly mariner who confidently put to sea in spite 
 
4 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 of the ink-black sky which *^ told every eye a storm 
 was soon to be," he goes on to say — 
 
 " But still that jolly mariner 
 Took in no reef at all ; 
 For in his pouch confidingly > 
 
 He wore a baby's caul." 
 
 It little availed him, however; for as soon as the 
 storm in ruthless fury burst upon his frail bark, he 
 
 *' Was smothered by the squall. 
 Heaven ne'er heard his cry, nor did 
 The ocean heed his caul !'* 
 
 Advocates also purchased them, that they miglit be 
 endued with eloquence, the price paid having often 
 been from twenty to thirty guineas. They seem to 
 have had other magical properties, as Grose informs us 
 that any one " possessed of a caul may know the state 
 of health of the person who was born with it. If 
 alive and well, it is firm and crisp ; if dead or sick, 
 relaxed and flaccid." In France the luck supposed 
 to belong to a caul is proverbial, and Hre ne coiffe 
 is an expression signifying that a person is extremely 
 fortunate. Apart from the ordinary luck supposed to 
 attach to the "caul," it may preserve the child from a 
 terrible danger to which, according to the old idea, it is 
 ever exposed — namely, that of being secretly carried off 
 and exchanged by some envious witch or fairy for its 
 own ill-favoured offspring. This superstition was once 
 very common in many countries, and was even believed 
 by Martin Luther, if we are to rely on the following 
 extract from his " Table Book :" — " Changelings 
 Satan lays in the place of the genuine children, that 
 
BIRTH AND INFANCY. 5 
 
 people may be tormented with them. He often 
 carries off young maidenS into the water." This most 
 reprehensible of the practices attributed to the fairies 
 is constantly spoken of by our old writers, and is 
 several times mentioned by Shakespeare. In the 
 speech of Puck, in A Midsummer Night's Dream 
 (Act ii., sc. 1), that jovial sprite says of Titania's lovely 
 boy — the cause of quarrel between the King and 
 Queen of Elfland : — 
 
 " She never had so sweet a changeling." 
 
 In the Winter's Tale (Act iv., sc. 4) the Shepherd, 
 on discovering the babe Perdita, tells the Clown, 
 '* It was told me I should be rich by the fairies. 
 This is some changeling." As a preservation against 
 this danger, sundry charms are observed. Thus, in 
 the North of England, a carving-knife is still hung 
 from the head of the cradle, with the point suspended 
 near the child's face. In the Western Isles of Scotland 
 idiots are believed to be the fairies' changelings, and in 
 order to regain the lost child, parents have recourse to 
 the following device : — They place the changeling on 
 the beach, below high-water mark, when the tide is 
 out, and pay no heed to its screams, believing that the 
 fairies, rather than allow their offspring to be drowned 
 by the rising waters, will convey it away and restore 
 the child they had stolen. The sign that this has 
 been done is the cessation of the child's crying. In 
 Ireland, too, the peasants often place the child sup- 
 posed to be a changeling on a hot shovel, or torment 
 it in some other way. A similar practice is resorted 
 
6 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 to in Denmark, where the mother heats the oven, and 
 places the child on the peel, pretending to put it in ; 
 and sometimes she whips it severely with a rod, or 
 throws it into the water. The only real safeguard, 
 however, against this piece of fairy mischief is baj^tism, 
 and hence the rite has generally been performed 
 among the peasantry as soon as possible after birth. 
 
 Another danger to y>^hich the new-born child is 
 said to be exposed, and to counteract which baptism 
 is an infallible charm, is the influence of the ^^evil 
 eye f certain persons being thought to possess the 
 power of inflicting injury by merely looking on those 
 whom they wish to harm. Although this form of 
 superstition has been gradually dying out for many 
 years past, yet it still retains its hold in certain 
 country places. It is interesting to trace this notion 
 as far back as the time of the Romans j and in the 
 late Professor Conington's translation of the ^' Satires 
 of Persius " we find it thus laughably spoken of : — 
 '* Look here ! A grandmother or a superstitious aunt 
 has taken baby from his cradle, and is charming his 
 forehead against mischief by the joint action of her 
 middle finger and her purifying spittle ; for she knows 
 right well how to check the evil eye." Confining our- 
 selves, however, to instances recorded in our own 
 country, we find that, even now-a-days, various charms 
 are practised for counteracting the baneful influence of 
 this cruel species of Avitchcraft. Thus, in Lancashire, 
 some of the chief consist in spitting three times in the 
 child's face, turning a live coal in the fire, exclaiming, 
 "TJie Lord be with us;" whilst in the neighbourhood 
 
BIRTH AND INFANCY. 7 
 
 of Burnley *' drawing blood above the mouth " was 
 once a popular antidote. Self-bored or ^* lucky 
 stones " are often hung by the peasantry behind their 
 cottage doors ; and in the South of England a copy of 
 the apocryphal letter of our Lord to Abgarus, King of 
 Edessa, may occasionally be seen pasted on the walls. 
 In many places, when a child pines or wastes away, 
 the cause is often attributed to the " evil eye," and one 
 remedy in use against this disaster is the following : — 
 Before sunrise it is brought to a blacksmith of the 
 seventh generation, and laid on tlie anvil. The smith 
 then raises his hammer as if he were about to strike 
 the hot iron, but brings it gently down on the child's 
 body. This is done three times, after which the child 
 is considered certain to amend. This superstition 
 survives in Cornwall ; and the late Mr. Hawker, of 
 Morwenstow, a noted authority on such topics, tells us 
 that two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Tamar side 
 firmly believe in the power of the evil eye. In 
 Scotland this piece of folk-lore has prevailed exten- 
 sively from time immemorial, and one of the charms 
 to avert it is the "gold and silver water." A sovereign 
 and a shilling are put into water, which is sprinkled 
 over the patient in the name of the Trinity. Again, 
 in the Highlands of Scotland, ash-sap is given to new- 
 born children, because, in common with the rowan, 
 that tree is supposed to possess tlie property of resist- 
 ing the attacks of witches, fairies, and other imps of 
 darkness. The Irish think that not only their children 
 but their cattle are "eye-bitten" when they fall 
 suddenly sick. 
 
O DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Among other important items of folk-lore asso- 
 ciated with birth may be mentioned the popular belief 
 that a child should go up in the world before it goes 
 doAvn On leaving its mother's room for the first 
 time, it is considered absolutely necessary that it 
 should be carried iq^f-stairs before it goes down-stairs, 
 otherwise it will always keep low in the world, and 
 never rise in after-life either to riches or distinction. 
 When, however, as often happens, the mother's room 
 is on the top storey, the nurse overcomes the obstacle 
 by placing a chair near the door, on which she steps 
 before leaving the room. In Yorkshire it is further 
 stated that a new-born infant should always be placed 
 first in the arms of a maiden before any one else 
 touches it. It has been aptly questioned by Mr. Hen- 
 derson, in his *' Folk-lore of the Northern Counties," 
 whether we may not trace in this practice an out- 
 growth of the mediaeval belief that the Yirgin Mary 
 was present at the birth of St. John the Baptist, 
 and received him first in her arm.s. Some, too, will 
 never permit an infant to sleep upon bones — that 
 is, the lap — a piece of folk-lore founded on some 
 degree of truth ; for it has been pointed out that it is 
 undoubtedly better for a child to support it through- 
 out its whole length, than to allow its head or 
 legs to hang down, as they might probably do if the 
 infant was sleeping on the lap. Again, there is a 
 common idea that a baby and a kitten cannot thrive 
 in the same house ; and should, therefore, as is not 
 unfrequently the case, a cat have kittens at the 
 time of a birth, these are immediately either de- 
 
BIRTH AND INFANCY. 9 
 
 stroyed or given away. Few nurses, also, can be 
 found courageous enough to weigh a young child, 
 from a superstitious conviction that it is unfortu- 
 nate so to do, the child often dying, or, at any rate, 
 not thriving afterwards. Equally unlucky, too, is 
 it considered to rock baby's empty cradle, it being 
 an omen of its death — a belief which also prevails in 
 Scotland. The same notion exists in many parts of 
 the Continent, and the Swedish folk tell us that it 
 should be avoided, as it is apt to make the child noisy 
 and given to crying. It is also deprecated on another 
 ground, that it is ominous of another claimant for that 
 place of rest — a piece of folk-lore which the Sussex 
 peasantry express in the following rhyme : — 
 
 *' If you rock the cradle empty, 
 Then you shall have babies plenty." 
 
 Many consider it a bad sign when the first tooth 
 makes its appearance in the upper jaw, denoting, it 
 is said, that the child will not survive its infancy. 
 Whilst speaking of teeth, it may be noted that they 
 occupy an important place in the folk-lore of infancy. 
 Many readers will no doubt recollect how the Duke 
 of Gloucester, in 3 Henry VI. (Act v., sc. 6), when 
 describing the peculiarities connected with his birth, 
 relates that — 
 
 " The midwife wondered, and the women cried, 
 * Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!' 
 And so I was, which plainly signified 
 That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog." 
 
 In Sussex it is still customary for little children to 
 wear a necklace of beads made from the root of the 
 
10 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 peony, ds this is supposed to act as a charm in assisting 
 the cutting of their teeth. In the same county, too, 
 the peasantry have a great dislike to throwing away 
 the cast teeth of young children, believing that should 
 any be accidentally found and gnawed by an animal, 
 the child's new tooth would exactly correspond with 
 the animal's which had bitten the old one. Once 
 more, in Scotland and the North of England, when 
 the first teeth come out, sundry precautions are taken, 
 to make sure that the fresh ones may be sound and 
 healthy. One of these consists in filling the cavity 
 with salt, after which the tooth must be burnt, while 
 the following formula is repeated : — 
 " Fire ! fire ! burn bone ; 
 God send me my tooth again." 
 
 This practice exists in Sweden, and likewise in Switzer- 
 land, where the tooth is wrapped up in paper, with a 
 little salt, and then thrown into the fire. The teeth, 
 however, are not the only objects of superstition in 
 infancy, similar importance being attached to the nails. 
 In many places, for instance, it is considered impru- 
 dent to cut them till baby is a year old, and then they 
 should be bitten ofi", or else there is a likelihood of its 
 growing up dishonest, or of its being, as the Sussex 
 peasantry say, " light-fingered." Anyhow, special 
 attention is to be paid to the day of the week on 
 which the child's nails are cut, if there be any 
 truth in a well-known proverb — 
 
 *' Better a child had ne'er been bom, 
 Than cut his nails on a Sunday morn." 
 
 The same warning is given in G-ermany, and if it is 
 
BIRTH AKD INFANCY. 11 
 
 disregarded, it is said that tlie child will be liable to 
 stammer as it grows up. A curious Northumberland 
 belief affirms that if the first parings of a child^s nails 
 are carefully buried under an ash-tree, it will turn out 
 in after-life a capital singer. It is also a popular 
 fancy in nursery folk-lore that the child's future career 
 in this world can be easily augured from the little 
 specks on its nails, a species of palmistry still exten- 
 sively credited by even educated persons, and one, too, 
 not confined to infancy. Again, the infant's tiny 
 hands are not free from superstition, and here and 
 there, throughout the country, there is a notion that 
 for the first few months after its birth the right one 
 should remain unwashed, the reason assigned for this 
 strange piece of eccentricity being that it may gather 
 riches. According to another idea, children born 
 open-handed are said to be of a bountiful disposition. 
 In Scotland, too, great attention is paid as to which 
 hand a child uses when taking up for the first time 
 a spoon to eat. If it should happen to be the left, 
 then, alas ! he is doomed to be an unlucky fellow 
 all through his life. Indeed, as far as we can judge 
 from the numerous items of folk-lore still in vogue, it 
 would seem that the early period of infancy, in one 
 way or another, furnishes countless opportunities for 
 ascertaining what kind of life is in store for the child 
 in years to come, almost every trivial action being 
 regarded as indicative of something or other that shall 
 befall it. Although many of these ideas may seem to 
 us in this nineteenth century apparently senseless, yet 
 it must be remembered they are frequently survivals 
 
12 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 of primitive culture, and are interesting as having 
 been handed down to us from the distant past. 
 According to an old superstition, parents desirous of 
 securing long life for their children should pass them 
 through the branches of a maple. A few years ago 
 one of these trees had long been resorted to for this 
 purpose in West Grinstead Park, and as soon as a 
 rumour spread through the parish that it was about to 
 be demolished, quite a consternation prevailed in the 
 neighbourhood. Similar properties are supposed to 
 belong to the ash, weakly infants that do not thrive 
 being drawn through a cleft in its trunk. This charm, 
 as performed in Cornwall, is thus : — A large knife is 
 inserted into the trunk of a young ash, about a foot 
 from the ground, and a vertical opening made for 
 about three feet. Two men then forcibly pidl the 
 parts asunder, and hold them so, whilst the mother 
 j)asses the child through the cleft three times. The 
 ceremony does not end here, as the child has to be 
 washed for three successive mornings in the dew from 
 the leaves of the "charmed ash." This supposed 
 magical property of the ash has an additional interest, 
 when we consider that some thousands of years ago 
 our ancestors regarded it as one of their wonder- 
 working trees, and associated it with some of their 
 oldest traditions. At the present day, too, it is the 
 subject of an extensive folk-lore, to which we shall 
 have occasion to refer in a succeeding chapter. 
 
 Again, if a baby frets and does not appear to 
 thrive, it is supposed by some to be ** longing." Thus, 
 a Sussex nurse one day said to a lady, " Baby is so 
 
BIRTH AND INFANCY. 13 
 
 uncommon fretty, I do believe he must be longing for 
 something." When asked what he could be longing 
 for, she replied, ^^ Something that his mother longed 
 for, but did not get, before he was born, and the best 
 way to satisfy him would be, I think, to try him with 
 a brandied cherry, or some hare's brains." This piece 
 of superstition, however, is not confined to Sussex. 
 Once more, in addition to the popular notion that cats 
 suck the breath of infants and so cause their death — 
 one, indeed, without a particle of truth — there is 
 another in which poor pussy is the victim, an illustra- 
 tion of which we quote from " Rambles in an Old 
 City," by a Norfolk author : — ** Not long since a 
 woman, holding quite a respectable rank among the 
 working classes, avowed herself determined to ^drownd' 
 the cat as soon as ever her baby, which was lying ill, 
 should die. The only explanation she could give for 
 this determination was that the cat jumped upon the 
 nurse's lap as the baby lay there soon after it was 
 born, from which time it ailed, and ever since that 
 time the cat had regularly gone under its bed once a 
 day and coughed twice. These mysterious actions of 
 poor ^ Tabby ' were assigned as the cause of the baby 
 wasting, and its fate was to be sealed as soon as that 
 of the poor infant was decided. That the baby 
 happened to be the twenty-fourth child of his mother, 
 who had succeeded in rearing only four of the two 
 dozen, was a fact that seemed to possess no weight 
 whatever in her estimation." This strange antipathy 
 to our domestic animal no doubt took its origin in the 
 old belief that the cat's is one of the numerous forms 
 
14 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 which witches are fond of assuming, and on this 
 account^ in days gone by, poor pussy was oftentimes 
 subjected to gross ill-treatment at the hands of the 
 ignorant classes. At the present day, in Germany, 
 there is a deep-rooted belief that witches, when bent 
 on doing mischief, take the form of a cat, and many 
 stories are current of their frightening their victims 
 by appearing as " the nightmare ;" or, if dishonestly 
 disposed, of their drinking their neighbour's beer. 
 Returning, however, again to the subject of our 
 present chapter, there is a superstitious fancy in the 
 North of England that it is unlucky to walk over the 
 graves of unchristened children, which is vulgarly 
 called " unchristened ground," the person who does so 
 rendering himself liable to catching the fatal disease 
 of the "grave-scab." This complaint, we are told by 
 Mr. Henderson, *' comes on with a trembling of the 
 limbs and hard breathing, and at last the skin burns 
 as if touched with hot iron," in allusion to which 
 an old ballad tells us — 
 
 ''And it ne'er will be cured by doctor on earth, 
 Tho' every one should tent him, oh ! 
 He shall tremble and die like the elf-shot eye, 
 And return from whence he came, oh ! " 
 
 There is, however, a remedy, though not easy of 
 attainment — " It lies in the wearing a sark, thus 
 prepared : — The lint must be grown in a field which 
 shall be manured from a farmyard heap that has not 
 been disturbed for forty years. It must be spun by 
 Habbitrot, the queen of spinsters; it must be bleached 
 by an honest bleacher^ in an honest nailler's mDl-dam, 
 
BIRTH AND INFANCY. 15 
 
 and sewed by an honest tailor. On donning this 
 mysterious vestment, the sufferer will at once regain 
 his health and strength." Unfortunately the necessary 
 conditions for the successful accomplishment of this 
 charm are so difficult, that he must be a clever man 
 who can fulfil them. In the South of England, on 
 the other hand, we do not find the same dread 
 attaching to the graves of still-born children. Thus 
 on a certain occasion, when one of the Commissioners 
 of Devonport complained that a charge of one shilling 
 and sixpence should have been made upon the parish 
 authorities for the grave and interment of a still-born 
 child, he added that " when he was a young man it 
 was thought lucky to have a still-born child put into 
 an open grave, as it was considered to be a sure pass- 
 port to heaven for the next person buried there." 
 According to another superstitious notion, if a mother 
 frets and pines after her baby when it is dead, it is 
 said that it cannot rest, and will come back to earth 
 again. Various stories are on record of children thus 
 visiting their mothers after death, an instance of 
 which we quote from the " Dialect of Leeds :" — It 
 appears that soon after the birth of the mother's 
 next child, the previous one that had died entered 
 her room with eyes deeply sunken, as if with much 
 weeping, and on approaching the bed, said, ^'Mother, 
 I can't rest if you will go on fretting." She replied, 
 "Well, lad, I wean't fret any more." He then 
 looked upon the bed and said, '* Let's luke at it, 
 mother ! " She turned down the coverlet and let 
 him look a.t her new-born babe. " It '11 die/' he said,' 
 
16 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 and vanished. These, then, are some of the boundless 
 dangers and difficulties that are supposed to beset the 
 beginnings of life ; and, taking into consideration the 
 importance of that momentous crisis, when a fresh 
 actor is introduced upon the world's great stage, it is 
 not surprising that this event has, in most ages and 
 countries, been associated with divers superstitions, 
 and given rise to sundry customs, each of which 
 has helped to invest man's entry into this world with 
 all that grandeur which such a solemn occasion 
 requires. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Nursery Literature — The Power of Baptism — Confirmation — 
 Popular Prayers — Weather Khymes — School Superstitions — 
 Barring out. 
 
 It must not be supposed that childhood has no special 
 folk-lore of its own. It is, in fact, of a most varied 
 kind, many of the old traditionary beliefs and practices 
 associated with the nursery being relics of what the 
 Scandinavian mothers taught their children in days of 
 long ago. The familiar fairy-tales of our own child- 
 hood still form the nursery literature in most homes, 
 and are of unusual interest as embodying not only the 
 myths and legends of the ancient Aryan race, but 
 their conceptions about the world around them. Thus, 
 for instance, the well-known story of '^ Cinderella," 
 [ike many others of the same character, such as '* Jack 
 
CHILDHOOD. 17 
 
 the Giant Killer," or "Beauty and the Beast," are to 
 be found in almost all countries, and although the 
 versions differ in some respects, yet they point to 
 a common origin at a very remote period. Indeed, 
 it is curious that there should still exist among the 
 children of the nineteenth century an undying love for 
 these survivals of Aryan literature, couched in such 
 graceful and simple language that few modern com- 
 positions can be found to equal them. In reading, 
 therefore, about the dwellers in Wonderland, the 
 young mind is unconsciously taking in primitive 
 notions about the workings of nature as seen in the 
 succession of day and night, the changes of the 
 seasons, and so on. In the story of " Cinderella," we 
 have the ancient nature-myth of the sun and the 
 dawn, representing the morning sun in the form of a 
 fairy prince pursuing Cinderella, the dawn, to claim 
 her for his bride, whilst the envious clouds, her 
 sisters, and the moon, her stepmother, strive to keep 
 her in the background. It would, however, take too 
 long and require a book of itself to discuss the history 
 and meaning of these fairy tales which so delight the 
 childish fancy, and exercise such a wholesome in- 
 fluence, inculcating some of the noblest sentiments 
 and loftiest teachings of the founders of our race. 
 Referring then more particularly to the superstitions 
 connected with childhood, we would, first of all, 
 briefly speak of those relating to certain outward 
 circumstances, v/hich are believed to affect more or 
 less the child's welfare in life. 
 
 Thus, it is a deep-rooted belief that a child never 
 
 c 
 
18 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 thrives until after its baptism ; and in cases of ill- 
 ness the clergyman is more often perhaps sent for 
 by the poor from a belief in the physical virtue of 
 the sacred rite itself, rather than from any actual con- 
 viction of its religious importance. Indeed, how 
 much potency is supposed to reside in baptisrd may 
 be gathered from the countless superstitions with 
 which it is associated, the omission of this rite being 
 attended more often than not with fatal results. 
 Hence it is frequently performed as soon as possible 
 after birth, one reason being, as we have already 
 seen, that so long as the child remains unbaptised it 
 is thought to be at the mercy of ill-disposed fairies, 
 and subject to the influence of the evil eye. Accord- 
 ing to another popular fancy, not confined to our 
 own country, should a child have the misfortune to 
 die unchristened, it is doomed either to flit restlessly 
 around its parents' abode, or to wander about in 
 deserted spots, daily repining over its hard and 
 unenviable lot. In Germany, tradition says that 
 such children are transformed into that delusive little 
 meteor known as the will-o'-the-wisp, and so ceaselessly 
 ]iover between heaven and earth. On one occasion, 
 we are told of a Dutch parson who, happening to go 
 home to his village late one evening, fell in with no 
 less than three of these fiery phenomena. Remem- 
 bering them to be the souls of unbaptised children, he 
 solemnly stretched out his hand and pronounced the 
 words of baptism over them. Much, however, to his 
 terrible consternation and surprise, in the twinkling 
 of an eye a thousand or more of these apparitions 
 
CHILDHOOD. 19 
 
 suddenly made their appearance — no doubt all equally 
 anxious to be christened. The good man, runs the 
 story, was so terribly frightened, that forgetting all 
 his good intentions, he took to his heels and ran home 
 as fast as his legs could take him. In Lusatia, where 
 the same superstition prevails, the souls of these 
 unhappy children, which hover about in the form of 
 will-o'-the-wisps, are said to be relieved from their 
 unhappy wanderings so soon as any pious hand throws 
 a handful of consecrated ground after them. 
 
 In Scotland, to make quite sure of baptism being 
 altogether propitious, it was deemed highly important 
 that the person entrusted with the care of the child 
 should be known by common report to be lucky. She 
 was generally provided with a piece of bread and 
 cheese, which she presented to the first person she met 
 as an offering from the infant. If the party readily 
 accepted and partook of the proffered gift, it was un- 
 doubtedly a good omen ; but if refused it was consi- 
 dered tantamount to wishing evil to the child. Hence 
 the future destiny of the little one was often augured 
 from this superstitious ceremony, which, by-the-by, 
 is also practised in the West of England, but the 
 events of its after-life only too often belied the weal 
 and woe predicted for it. Again, it is thought highly 
 necessary that the child should cry at its baptism, or else 
 ill-luck will sooner or later overtake it, the idea being 
 that, when the child screams and kicks, the evil spirit 
 is in the act of quitting it ; its silence, on the other 
 hand, indicating that it is too good for this wicked 
 world. An amusing little episode in illustration of 
 
20 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 this curious superstition is related by Mrs. Latliam, 
 in the ^^ Folk-lore Record :" — "I was lately present 
 at a christening in Sussex, when a lady of the party, 
 who was grandmother of the child, whispered in a 
 voice of anxiety, ' The child never cried ; wh^ did 
 not the nurse rouse it up 1 ' After we had left the 
 church she said to her, * O nurse, why did not you 
 pinch baby 1 ' And when the baby's good behaviour 
 was afterwards commented upon, she observed, with a 
 very serious air, < I wish that he had cried.' " In the 
 same county it is considered unlucky to divulge a 
 child's intended name before its baptism; and the 
 water sprinkled on its forehead at the font must on 
 no account be wiped off. Whilst on the subject of 
 baptism, we would just note that in former years 
 peculiar curative properties were supposed to reside 
 in water that had been used at this rite, and on this 
 account it was employed for various disorders. It 
 was also regarded in Scotland as a preservative 
 against witchcraft ; and eyes bathed in it were ren- 
 dered for life incapable of seeing ghosts. 
 
 It may not be inappropriate to allude here to the 
 superstitions relative to confirmation, following in due 
 time, as this rite does, on baptism. In Norfolk, for 
 instance, it is considered unlucky to be touched by the 
 bishop's left hand ; and in Devonshire, also, where a 
 similar notion prevails, young people look upon his 
 right hand as the lucky one, and should it not be their 
 privilege to receive it, they leave the church much 
 disappointed. In some of the northern counties, we 
 are informed that the unfortunate recipients of the 
 
CHILDHOOD. 21 
 
 left hand are doomed, then and there, to a life of single 
 blessedness. This is not the only species of super- 
 stition belonging to confirmation, for instances are on 
 record of persons who, although confirmed in their early 
 life, have again presented themselves for confirmation 
 in their old age, under a conviction that the bishop's 
 blessing would cure them of some bodily ailment. 
 It is related that, at one of the confirmations of 
 the venerable Bishop Bathurst, an old woman was 
 observed eagerly pressing forward to the church. A 
 by-stander, somewhat amazed at her odd conduct, 
 and struck with her aged appearance, inquired if she 
 was going to be confirmed, and, being answered in 
 the affirmative, expressed his astonishment that she 
 should have procrastinated it to such an advanced 
 time of life. The old woman, however, resented his 
 reproof, replying "that it was not so ; that she had 
 already been bishopped seven times, and intended to 
 be again, it was so good for her rheumatism ! " 
 
 In some cases the prayers taught by the poor to 
 their children are curious. Thus, a popular prayer, 
 formerly in use, and not yet forgotten, is evidently 
 a relic of Roman Catholic times, having been handed 
 down from a period anterior to the Reformation. 
 As the reader will see, the version below contains a 
 distinct appeal to certain saints for their intercession 
 with God on the child's behalf : — 
 
 " Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 Bless the bed I lie upon ; 
 Four corners to my bed, 
 Four angels at its head, 
 
22 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 One to watch, two to pray, 
 
 And one to "bear my soul away ; 
 
 God within and God without, 
 
 Sweet Jesus Christ all round about; 
 
 If I die before I wake, ^ 
 
 I pray to God my soul to take." 
 
 It has been pointed out that it is very singular that 
 tliis prayer should have survived the great change 
 which took place in religious opinion in the sixteenth 
 century, and that it even still remains in use. 
 There tire many variations of it, and the following 
 two distiches obtained from Lancashire are quaint, 
 having been written, it has been thought, by the 
 Puritans, in ridicule : — 
 
 " Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 
 Hold the horse that I leap on. 
 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 
 Take a stick and lay upon." 
 
 A Lincolnshire clergyman, anxious to learn some- 
 thing of the nature of the prayers said by the children 
 of the agricultural poor, visited some of their cottages a 
 few years ago in the evening, and listened to the little 
 ones as they said their prayers. The concluding por- 
 tion, he tells us, was always intercession for relations, 
 but the form it generally took was peculiar. In the 
 first place, it was not, as is the case with the more 
 educated classes, " Pray God bless father and mother/ 
 &c., but " Pray for father, pray for mother, pray for 
 brothers and sisters," and so on. Li certain cases, 
 through carelessness and rapidity, the words had 
 degenerated into "Pray father, pray mother," &c. 
 There can be no doubt that originally the prayer was 
 
CHILDHOOD. 23 
 
 this : — ^* Pray for father ; " then a Pater noster, or an 
 Ave Maria, or both, would be said ; then " Pray for 
 mother," &c. After the Reformation, as time went 
 on, the constant repetition of the Pater and the use 
 of the Ave Maria would gradually die out with the 
 change of religious ideas, and thus the prayer would 
 assume its present form, " Pray for father, pray for 
 mother." 
 
 Keferring, in the second place, to the superstitions 
 of children, we find an immense number of curious 
 rhymes on various subjects used by them throughout 
 the country. While many of these have, no doubt, 
 been taught them by nurserymaids, a great part, as 
 Mr. Chambers has pointed out in his "Popular Ehymes 
 of Scotland," may be thought to have taken their 
 rise in the childish imagination during that familiar 
 acquaintance with natural objects, which it is one of 
 the most precious privileges of the young to enjoy in 
 rural districts. Besides, too, we must not forget that 
 children seem to have a peculiar love for all natural 
 objects, often finding pleasure in looking at some way- 
 side flower, or in watching the movements of some 
 tiny insect, which in after-years do not bring them 
 the same interest. The fact, indeed, that the young 
 mind is a true admirer of nature in all probability 
 accounts for many of those pleasing rhymes which 
 constitute much of the child's folk-lore. 
 
 Some of the charms, for instance, used to influence 
 the weather are curious, and it is worthy of note 
 that these, in many cases, are not confined to child- 
 hood only, but are frequently found in the mouths of 
 
24 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 our peasants. Thus tlie child's appeal to rain for its 
 departure has become a general charm, and is familiar 
 to most readers : — 
 
 " Eain, rain, go to Spain, 
 Fair weather, come again." ^ 
 
 Aubrey considers this rhyme of great antiquity, and 
 says that "it is derived from the Gentiles." Often in 
 summer-time, when a thunder-shower interrupts some 
 out-door game, one may hear a chorus of young voices 
 shouting — 
 
 " Rain, rain, go away, 
 Come another summer's day." 
 
 Or, as other versions have it, " Come again on washing- 
 day." The appearance of a rainbow is generally, too, 
 the signal for various marks of dissatisfaction on the 
 part of the young, who, besides entreating it to vanish 
 as soon as possible, frequently try to charm it away. 
 This they do by placing a couple of straws or twigs 
 cross ways on the ground, and so, to quote their phrase, 
 "cross out the rainbow." Another way is to make a 
 cross of two sticks, and to lay four pebbles on it, one 
 at each end. Again, some of the rhymes relating to 
 snow are highly quaint, the following being repeated 
 when it makes its first appearance : — 
 
 « The men of the East 
 Are picking their geese, 
 And sending their feathers here away, here away." 
 
 When, however, boys wish the snow to go away, they 
 
 sing :— 
 
 " Snow, snow, give over, 
 The cow's in the clover." 
 
CHILDHOOD. 25 
 
 Thunder, in tlie North of England, is called by chil- 
 dren " Kattley-bags," and during a storm the boys are 
 in the habit of singing : — 
 
 *' Rowley, Eowley, Rattley-bags, 
 Take the lasses and leave the lads." 
 
 There is a rhyme which is often repeated by the 
 juvenile folks in the north and midland counties upon 
 seeing the new moon, which, perhaps, may have an 
 indirect allusion to its supposed lucky influence : — 
 
 " I see the moon and the moon sees me, 
 God help the parson that baptised me !" — 
 
 containing, evidently, a congratulation upon their birth. 
 Boys, too, have a curious saying respecting the re- 
 flection of the sun's beams upon a ceiling, which 
 they term ** Jack-a-dandy beating his wife with a stick 
 of silver." If a mischievous boy, with a piece of 
 looking-glass, throws the reflection into the eyes of a 
 neighbour, the latter complains " he's throwing Jack- 
 a-dandy in my eyes." 
 
 Passing on to other charm-rhymes connected with 
 natural objects, there are a very numerous class 
 relating to the animal creation. In evening-time, 
 for instance, when the dew begins to fall, boys are 
 fond of hunting the large black snails, on discovering 
 which they exclaim : — 
 
 " Snail, snail, put out your horn, 
 Or I'll kill your father and mother i' th' morn." 
 
 This charm, however, is not confined to our own 
 country, but under a variety of forms is found on the 
 Continent. In Scotland, too, children prognosticate' 
 
26 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 the coming weather from the movements of this little 
 creature : — 
 
 ** Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn, 
 And tell us if it will be a bonny day the morn." 
 
 School-life, again, has its customs and super- 
 stitions, many of which have been transmitted from 
 generation to generation; and childhood, indeed, 
 would seem quite incomplete without them. Thus, 
 according to an odd notion universally accepted in 
 days gone by, and still received with implicit faith, 
 if the master's cane is carefully nicked at the upper 
 end, and a hair inserted, it v/ill, as soon as used, split 
 immediately to the very tip. In school-games, the 
 usual antipathy to odd numbers is found, and a child 
 is easily persuaded to give away a marble to make the 
 number even. A kind of divination, also, is still 
 frequently employed by boys to settle matters of 
 difficulty, such, for example, as who shall be the 
 leaders in a game, the choice of partners, and other 
 details which are deemed of equal importance. The 
 mode of procedure is this : — A long stick is thrown 
 into the air, and caught by one of the parties. Each 
 one then grasps it hand over hand, and he who 
 succeeds in getting the last hold is the successful 
 party. Mr. Henderson says that an odd expres- 
 sion was formerly connected with the lending a knife 
 among boys for the cutting up of a cake or other 
 dainty, the borrowers being aslied to give it back 
 *' laughing," i.e., with some of the good things it was 
 used to cut. 
 
 Among the many old school customs, we may close 
 
CHILDHOOD. 27 
 
 our present chapter by mentioning a popular one 
 known as '^ barring out," upon which, it may bo 
 remembered, Miss Edgeworth has founded one of her 
 instructive stories. The practice consisted in ^* bar- 
 ring out " the masters from the scene of their educa- 
 tional labours, the agents in this ceremony being the 
 pupils of the school. It was an occasion of no small 
 disorder — 
 
 " Not school-boys at a barring out, 
 Haised ever such incessant rout." 
 
 Addison is reported to have been the leader of a 
 barring out at the Lichfield Grammar School, and to 
 have displayed on the occasion a spirit of disorderly 
 daring very different to that timid modesty which 
 so characterised his after-life. So much, then, for 
 the folk-lore of childhood, a subject indeed full 
 of interest, and possessing a worth far beyond the 
 circle of its own immediate influence, inasmuch as 
 even the simplest nursery jingle or puerile saying 
 has often been found of help in proving the affinity 
 of certain races, and has an ethnological value which 
 the student of comparative philology would be slow to 
 underrate in his task of research. 
 
28 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LOVE AND COURTSHIP. , 
 
 Love-tests— Plants used in Love-charms — The Lady-bird— The 
 Snail— St. Valentine's Day — Midsummer Eve— Hallowe'en- 
 Omens on Friday. 
 
 No event in human life has, from the earliest times, 
 been associated with a more extensive folk-lore than 
 marriage, which is indeed no matter of surprise, 
 considering that this is naturally looked upon as the 
 happiest epoch — the summum honum — of each one's 
 career in this world. Hence, to write a detailed 
 account of tlie charms, omens, and divinations, as 
 well as of the superstitions and customs, connected 
 with marriage, including its early stages of love and 
 courtship, would require a volume for itself, so 
 varied and widespread is this subject of universal 
 interest. 
 
 In the present chapter, however, have been collected 
 together, in as condensed a form as possible, some of 
 the principal items of folk-lore connected with love and 
 courtship, as we find them scattered here and there 
 throughout the country. Commencing, then, with 
 love-divinations, these are of every conceivable kind, 
 the anxious maiden apparently having left no stone 
 unturned in her anxiety to ascertain her lot in the 
 marriage state. Hence in her natural longings to 
 raise tlie veil of futurity, the aspirant to matrimony, 
 if she be at all of a superstitious turn of mind, seldom 
 lets an opportunity pass by without endeavouring to 
 
LOVE AND COURTSHIP. 29 
 
 gain from it some sign or token of the kind of 
 husband that is in store for her. As soon, too, as the 
 appointed one has at last presented himself, she is not 
 content to receive with unreserved faith his profes- 
 sions of love and life-long fidelity; but, in her sly 
 moments, when he is not at hand, she proves the 
 genuineness of his devotion by certain charms which, 
 while they cruelly belie his character, only too often 
 unkindly deceive the love-sick maiden. 
 
 In the first place, we may note that love-tests have 
 been derived from a variety of sources, such as plants, 
 insects, animals, birds, not to mention those countless 
 other omens obtained from familiar objects to which 
 we shall have occasion to allude. At the outset, 
 however, it may not be uninteresting to quote the 
 following account of love-charms in use about one 
 hundred and fifty years ago, and which was written 
 by a young lady to the editor of the Connoisseur : — 
 
 " Arabella was in love with a clever Londoner, 
 and had tried all the approved remedies. She had 
 seen him several times in cofiee grounds with a sword 
 by his side ; he was once at the bottom of a tea-cup 
 in a coach and six, with his two footmen behind it. 
 On the last May morning she went into the fields to 
 hear the cuckoo ; and when she pulled ofi* her left 
 shoe, she found a hair in it the exact colouring of his. 
 The same night she sowed hempseed in the back yard, 
 repeating the words : — 
 
 * Hempseed I sow, hempseed I hoe, 
 
 And he that is my true love, 
 Come after me and mow.' 
 
30 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE, 
 
 After that she took a clean shift and turned it, and hung 
 it on the back of a chair ; and very likely he would have 
 come and turned it, for she heard a step, and being 
 frightened could not help speaking, and that broke 
 the spell. The maid Betty recommended her young 
 mistress to go backwards, without speaking a word, 
 into the garden on Midsummer Eve, and gather a 
 rose, keep it in a clean sheet of paper without looking 
 in it till Christmas Day, it will be as fresh as in June ; 
 and if she sticks this rose in her bosom, he that is to 
 be her husband ^vill come and take it out. Arabella 
 had tried several other strange fancies. Whenever 
 she lies in a strange bed, she alv/ays ties her garters 
 nine times round the bed-post, and knits nine knots in 
 it, saying all the time : — 
 
 * This knot I knit, this knot I tie, 
 To see my love as he goes by, 
 In his apparel and array, 
 As he walks in every day.' 
 
 On the last occasion Mr. Blossom drew the curtains 
 and tucked up the clothes at the bed's feet. She has 
 many times pared an apple whole, and afterwards 
 flung the peel over her head, and on each occasion the 
 peel formed the first letter of his Christian name or 
 surname." 
 
 Referring to the use of plants in love-charms, they 
 are very numerous. One popular one consists in 
 taking the leaves of yarrow, commonly called " nose- 
 bleed," and tickling the inside of the nostrils, repeat- 
 in !]j at the same time these lines : — 
 
LOVE AND COURTSHIP. 31 
 
 " Green 'arrow, green 'arrow, you bear a white blow, 
 If my love love me, my nose will bleed now ; 
 If my love don't love me, it 'ont bleed a drop ; 
 If my love do love me, 'twill bleed every drop." 
 
 Some cut tlie common brake or fern just above the 
 root to ascertain the initial letters of the future wife's 
 or husband's name ; and the dandelion, as a plant 
 of omen, is much in demand. As soon as its seeds 
 are ripe they stand above the head of the plant in 
 a globular form, with a feathery top at the end of 
 each seed, and then are without any difficulty de- 
 tached. When in this condition the flower-stalk 
 must be carefully plucked, so as not to injure the 
 globe of seeds, the charm consisting in blowing off the 
 seeds with the breath. The number of puffs that are 
 required to blow every seed clean off indicates the 
 number of years that must elajDse before the person 
 is married. Again, nuts and apples are very favourite 
 love-tests. The mode of procedure is for a girl to 
 place on the bars of the grate a nut, repeating this 
 incantation : — 
 
 **If he loves me, pop and fly; 
 If he hates me, live and die." 
 
 As may be imagined, great is the dismay if the 
 anxious face of the inquirer gradually perceives the 
 nut, instead of making the hoped-for pop, die and 
 make no sign. Again, passing on to insects, one 
 means of divination is to throw a lady-bird into the 
 air, repeating meanwhile the subjoined couplet : — 
 
 " Fly away east, and fly away west, 
 Show me where lives the one I like best." 
 
32 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Should this little insect chance to fly in the direction 
 of the house where the loved one resides, it is regarded 
 as a highly-favourable omen. The snail, again, was 
 much used in love-divinations, many an eager maiden 
 anxious of ascertaining her lover's name following the 
 example of Hobnelia, who, in order to test the con- 
 stancy of her Lubberkin, did as follows : — 
 
 " Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found, 
 For always snails near sweetest fruit abound. 
 I seized the vermin, home I quickly sped. 
 And on the hearth the milk-white embers spread ; 
 Slow crawled the snail, and, if I right can spell, 
 In the soft ashes marked a curious L. 
 Oh ! may this wondi-ous omen lucky prove. 
 For ' L ' is found in Lubberkin and Love." 
 
 Three magpies are said to prognosticate a wedding ; 
 and in our rural districts the unmarried of either sex 
 calculate the number of years of single blessedness 
 still allotted to them by counting the cuckoo's notes 
 when they first hear it in the spring. 
 
 Some days are considered specially propitious for 
 practising love-divinations. Foremost among these is 
 St. Valentine's Day, a festival which has been con- 
 sidered highly appropriate for such ceremonies, as 
 there is an old tradition that on this day birds 
 choose their mates, a notion which is frequently 
 alluded to by the poets, and particularly by Chaucer, 
 to which reference is made also in A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream : — 
 
 * Good morrow, friends, St. Valentine is past ; 
 Beg-in the wood-birds but to couple now." 
 
LOVE AND COURTSHIP. 33 
 
 Thus, the Devonshire young ladies have a fancy that 
 on St. Valentine's Day they can, if they wish, make 
 certain of their future. If so disposed, they go into 
 the churchyard at midnight, with some hempseed in 
 their hand, which, after they have walked round the 
 church a certain number of times, they scatter on 
 either side as they return homewards, repeating a 
 certain charm. It is supposed that the true lover will 
 be seen taking up the hempseed just sown, attired for 
 the ceremony in a winding-sheet. Another species of 
 love-divination once observed consisted in obtaining 
 five bay leaves, four of which the anxious maiden 
 pinned at the four comers of her pillow, and the fifth 
 in the middle. If she was fortunate enough to dream 
 of her lover, it was a sure sign that he would be 
 married to her in the course of the year. Again, 
 some young people would boil an egg hard, and, after 
 taking out the contents, fill the shell with salt, the 
 charm consisting in eating the shell and salt on 
 going to bed at night without either speaking or drink- 
 ing after it. A further method of divination was 
 practised in the following way : — The lady wrote her 
 lovers' names upon small pieces of paper, and, rolling 
 them up in clay^ put them into a tub of water. The 
 first that rose to the surface was to be not only her 
 Valentine, but, in all probability, her future husband. 
 Another time, which has been equally popular from 
 time immemorial for such superstitious practices, is 
 Midsummer Eve. People gathered on this night the 
 rose, St. John's wort, trefoil, and rue, each of which ' 
 was supposed to have magical properties. They set 
 D 
 
34 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 orpine in clay upon pieces of slate in their houses, 
 under the name of a Midsummer man. As the stalk 
 next morning was found to incline to the right or left, 
 the anxious maiden knew whether her lover> would 
 prove true to her or not. 
 
 Hallowe'en, again, has been supposed to be the 
 time, of all other times, when supernatural influences 
 prevail, and on this account is regarded as a night of 
 sure divination in love matters. All kinds of devices 
 have, therefore, been resorted to at this season, and 
 in the North of England many superstitions still 
 linger on, where this festival is known as " nutcrack- 
 night," from nuts forming a prominent feature 
 in the evening feast. Once more, Christmas Eve 
 is well known to love-sick swains and languishing 
 maidens as an excellent day for obtaining a glimpse 
 into futurity. Numerous are the spells and ceremo- 
 nies by which this is attempted. Thus in some 
 places, at ^* the witching hour of night," the young 
 damsel goes into the garden and plucks twelve sage 
 leaves, under the belief that she will see the shadowy 
 form of her future husband approach her from the 
 opposite end of the ground. In trying this delicate 
 mode of divination great care must be taken not to 
 break or damage the sage-stalk, as should this happen 
 serious consequences might ensue. The following bar- 
 barous charm was also much practised in days gone 
 by : — The heart was taken from a living pigeon, stuck 
 full of pins, and laid on the hearth, and while it was 
 burning, the form of the young person's future partner 
 was believed to become visible to mortal eye. 
 
LOVE AND COURTSHIP. 35 
 
 Friday has been held a good day o£ the week for 
 love omens, and in Norfolk the follov/ing lines are 
 repeated on three Friday nights successively, as on 
 the last one it is believed that the young lady will 
 dream of her future husband : — 
 
 ** To-night, to-night, is Friday night, 
 Lay me down in dirty white, 
 Dream who my hushand is to be ; 
 And lay my children by my side, 
 If I'm to live to be his bride." 
 
 There are numerous other modes of matrimonial 
 divination which still find favour in the eyes of those 
 who prefer the married state to that of virginity. 
 Thus the seeds of butter-dock must be scattered on 
 the ground by a young unmarried girl half an hour 
 before sunrise on a Friday morning in a lonesome 
 place. She must strew the seeds gradually on the 
 grass, saying these words : — 
 
 " I sow, I sow ! 
 
 Then, my own dear. 
 Come here, come here, 
 And mow, and mow." 
 
 After this she will see her future husband mowing 
 with a scythe at a short distance from her. She 
 must, however, display no symptoms of fear, for 
 should she cry out in alarm he will immediately 
 vanish. This method is said to be infallible, but it 
 is regarded as a bold, desperate, and presumptuous 
 undertaking. Some girls, again, make a hole in the 
 road where four ways meet, and apply their ear to it, 
 with the hope of learning of what trade their future 
 
36 DOMESTIC FOLK-LOKE. 
 
 liusband is to be. It is unnecessary, however, to 
 illustrate this part of our subject further, for the 
 preceding pages amply show how varied and extensive 
 are the omens and divinations connected with an 
 event without which life is considered in the eyes of 
 most persons incomplete. Although these may seem 
 trivial and often nonsensical, yet they have often 
 exercised an important influence over that period of 
 anxious suspense which intervenes between courtship 
 and marriage, often tantalising and damping in a cruel 
 manner the hopes of many an ardent lover. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 Seasons and Days propitious to Marriage— Superstitions connected 
 with the Bride— Meeting a Funera.1— Bobbing the Bride of 
 Pins— Dancing in a Hog's Trough — The Wedding-cake— The 
 Ring. 
 
 In selecting the time for the marriage ceremony pre- 
 cautions of every kind have generally been taken to 
 avoid an unlucky month and day for the knot to be 
 tied. Indeed, the old Roman notion that May mar- 
 riages are unlucky survives to this day in England, 
 a striking example, as Mr. Tylor has pointed out in 
 his *^ Primitive Culture,'' of how an idea, the mean- 
 ing of which has perished for ages, may continue 
 to exist simply because it has existed. That May 
 with us is not a month for marrying may easily 
 
MARRIAGE. 37 
 
 1)6 seen any year from the list of weddings in the 
 Times newspaper, the popular belief being summed up 
 in the familiar proverb, "Marry in May and you'll 
 rue the day." Some of the numerous reasons assigned 
 for the ill-luck attaching to this month are the follow- 
 ing : — That women disobeying the rule would be 
 childless ; or if they had children, that the first-bom 
 would be an idiot, or have some physical deformity ; 
 or that the married couple would not live happily 
 together in their new life, but soon become weary of 
 each other's society — superstitions which still retain 
 their hold throughout the country. In spite, however, 
 of this absurd prejudice, it seems that in days gone by 
 May was honoured in feudal England as the month 
 of all months especially congenial to lovers. Most 
 readers are no doubt acquainted with the following 
 stanza in the " Court of Love :" — 
 
 **I had not spoke so sone the words, but she, 
 My soveraine, did thank me heartily, 
 And saide, ' Abide, ye shall dwell still with me 
 Till season come of May, for then truly 
 The King of Love and all his company 
 Shall holde his feste full rially and well,' 
 And there I bode till that the season fell." 
 
 On the other hand, June is a highly popular month 
 for marrying, one reason perhaps being that the earth 
 is then clothed in her summer beauty, and that this is 
 a season of plenty. At any rate, this notion may be 
 traced up to the time of the Komans, and thus when 
 Ovid was anxious about the marriage of his daughter, ' 
 he-^ 
 
38 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 *' Besolved to match, the girl, and tried to find 
 What days unprosp'rous were, what moons were kind ; 
 After June's sacred Ides his fancy strayed, > 
 Good to the man and happy to the maid." 
 
 Among the other seasons admitting or prohibiting 
 matrimony may be mentioned the following, contained 
 in a well-known rhyme : — 
 
 *' Advent marriages doth deny, 
 But Hilary gives thee liberty ; 
 Septuagesima says thee nay, 
 Eight days from Easter says you may ; 
 Rogation bids thee to contain. 
 But Trinity sets thee free again." 
 
 Equal importance has been attached by some to 
 the day of the week on which the marriage is per- 
 formed. Thus Friday, on account of its being re- 
 garded as an inauspicious and evil day for the com- 
 mencement of any kind of enterprise, is generally 
 avoided, few brides being found bold enough to run 
 the risk of incurring bad luck from being married on a 
 day of ill-omen. In days gone by, Sunday appears to 
 have been a popular day for marriages ; although, as 
 Mr. Jeaffreson, in his amusing history of "Brides 
 and Bridals," remarks, " A fashionable wedding, cele- 
 brated on the Lord's Day in London, or any part 
 of England, would now-a-days be denounced by 
 religious people of all Christian parties as an out- 
 rageous exhibition of impiety. But in our feudal 
 times, and long after the Bef ormation, Sunday was, of 
 all days of the week, the favourite one for marriages. 
 Long after the theatres had been closed on Sundays, 
 the day of rest was the chief day for weddings with 
 
MARRIAGE. 39 
 
 Londoners of every social class." The brides of 
 Elizabethan dramas are usually represented as being 
 married on Sunday. Thus in the Tamhig of the 
 Shreiv, Petruchio, after telling his future father-in- 
 law ^Hhat upon Sunday is the wedding-day," and 
 laughing at Katharine's petulant exclamation, "111 
 see thee hanged on Sunday first," says : — 
 
 '* Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu; 
 I will to Venice ; Sunday comes apace : 
 We will have rings, and things, and give array ; 
 And, kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday." 
 
 Among the Scottish people, we are informed by 
 the Registrar-General, there is a peculiar fondness for 
 marrying on the last day of the year. Indeed, there 
 are more marriages in Scotland on that day than in 
 any week of the year, excepting, of course, the week 
 in which that day occurs. Thus, in the year 1861, 
 the returns give the number of marriages in the eight 
 principal towns as averaging about twenty-five a day, 
 exclusive of Sunday, as marrying is one of the things 
 not to be done on this day in Scotland. On the 31st of 
 December, however, in the same towns there were 
 between 400 and 500 marriages. Curious to say, too, 
 in Scotland, Friday seems to be considered a lucky 
 day for weddings ; for Mr. AYatson, the City Chamber- 
 lain of Glasgow, affirms that ^^ it is a well-established 
 fact that nine-tenths of the marriages in Glasgow are 
 celebrated on a Friday ; only a few on Tuesday and 
 Wednesday ; Saturday and Monday are still more 
 rarely adopted, and I have never heard of such a thing 
 in Glasgow as a marriage on Sunday." 
 
40 DOMESnC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Leaving seasons and days considered propitious 
 for marriage, we find, in the next place, a number of 
 superstitions associated with that prominent and all- 
 important personage on such an occasion, the bride. 
 Thus it is above all things necessary that the sun 
 should shine on her — " Blest is the bride that the sun 
 shines on ! " — a notion, indeed, which, it has been 
 suggested, had a practical application in years gone by 
 when marriages were celebrated in the church porch. 
 A wet day, at such a time, was a serious matter, 
 especially as our forefathers had not the many con- 
 trivances of modern times for preservation from rain. 
 Whereas, now-a-days, young ladies when alluding to 
 being married speak of " going to church," formerly 
 they spoke of *^ visiting the church-porch." After 
 prevailing for centuries, this ancient usage was dis- 
 countenanced, if not actually abolished, by the 
 ecclesiastical reformers of Edward YI/s reign, who 
 " ordained that the performance of the binding cere- 
 mony should take place in the body of the church." 
 Eeferring again to the bride, it is deemed absolutely 
 necessary by very many that she should weep on her 
 wedding-day, if it be only a few tears, the omission 
 of such an act being considered ominous of her future 
 happiness. It is, too, the height of ill-luck for either 
 the bride or the bridegroom to meet a funeral on going 
 to or coming from the church, for if it happen to be 
 that of a female, it is an indication that the bride will 
 not live long, and if it should be that of a male, then 
 the bridegroom is doomed to an early death. In the 
 Noi^h of England there is a strong prejudice against 
 
MARRIAGE. 41 
 
 a marriage taking place while there is a grave open in 
 the churchyard. In many parts of the country, also, 
 special care is taken that the bees are informed 
 of a wedding, and as a mark of respect to them 
 their hives are decorated with a favour. In 
 Sussex a bride on her return home from church is 
 often robbed of all the pins about her dress by the 
 single women present, from a belief that whoever 
 possesses one of them will be married in the course 
 of a year. Much excitement and amusement are 
 occasionally caused by the youthful competitors for 
 this supposed charm ; and the bride herself is not 
 unfrequentiy the victim of rather rough treatment. 
 According to another piece of superstition, the bride, 
 in removing her bridal robe and chaplet at the com- 
 pletion of the marriage ceremonies, must take care to 
 throw away every pin worn on this eventful day. Evil 
 fortune, it is affirmed, will sooner or later inevitably 
 overtake the bride who keeps even one pin used in 
 the marriage toilet. Woe also to the bridesmaids if 
 they retain one of them, as their chances of marriage 
 will thereby be materially lessened, and anyhow they 
 must give up all hope of being wedded before the 
 following Whitsuntide. 
 
 Again, in some parts of Yorkshire, to rub shoulders 
 with the bride or bridegroom is considered an augury 
 of a speedy marriage ; and a piece of folk-lore 
 prevalent in the neighbourhood of Hull is to this 
 effect : " Be sure when you go to get married that 
 you don't go in at one door and out at another, or you 
 will always be unlucky." Cuthbert Bede, in ^* Notes 
 
42 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 and Queries," records an instance of a similar super- 
 stition that occurred at a wedding in a Worcestershire 
 village in October, 1877. He says, " The bride and 
 bridegroom at the conclusion of the ceremony left the 
 church by the chancel door, instead of following the 
 usual custom of walking down the church and. through 
 the nave door. One of the oldest inhabitants, in 
 mentioning this to me, said that it 'betokened bad 
 luck,' and that she had never known a like instance 
 but once in her life when the married couple went 
 out of the church through the chancel door, and the 
 bride was a widow before the twelve months was 
 out." 
 
 Alluding briefly to other superstitions associated 
 with marriage, we are told in the North of England 
 that she who receives from the bride a piece of cheese, 
 cut by her before leaving the table, will be the next 
 bride among the company. In Yorkshire, too, when 
 a newly-married couple first enter their house, a hen 
 is brought and made to cackle as a sign of good luck. 
 The old Koman practice, also, of lifting the bride 
 over the threshold of her husband's home, had its 
 counterpart in Scotland within the present century, 
 it being customary to lift the young wife over the 
 doorstep, lest any witchcraft or evil eye should be 
 cast upon and influence her. Indeed, we are informed 
 that the same practice prevailed in the North of 
 England some years ago — an interesting survival of 
 the primitive superstitions of our ancestors. 
 
 Another curious custom which was once practised 
 in different parts of the country was that of the elder 
 
MARRIAGE. 43 
 
 sister dancing in a hog's trough in consequence of the 
 younger sister marrying before her. ^' Upon one 
 occasion," says Mr. Glyde in his ^'Norfolk Garland," 
 '^ a brother went through the ceremony also ; and the 
 dancers performed their part so well that the trough 
 itself was danced to pieces." It was considered the 
 most correct thing to dance in green stockings. It 
 was also customary in former years for elder sisters to 
 dance barefooted at the marriage of a younger one, 
 as otherwise they would inevitably become old maids. 
 Hence Katharine says to her father, in allusion to 
 Bianca : — 
 
 ** She is your treasure, she must have a husband. 
 I must dance barefoot on her wedding-day, 
 And for your love to her lead apes in hell." 
 
 The last line, the meaning of which, however, is 
 somewhat obscure, expresses a common belief as to 
 the ultimate fate of old maids. Malone, on this 
 passage, remarks that in Shakespeare's time 'Ho lead 
 apes " was one of the employments of a bear-ward, 
 who often carried about one of those animals along 
 with his bear. 
 
 Referring in the next place to some of the chief 
 ceremonies associated v/ith marriage, we may note 
 that " the putting up of the banns " is not without 
 its superstitions, for in the North of England it is 
 considered highly unlucky for a young woman to be 
 present at church when this important event takes 
 place, any children she may hereafter have running 
 the terrible risk of being born deaf and dumb. Thus, 
 a Worcestershire girl, some years since, refused to 
 
44 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 attend cliurch and hear the publication of her own 
 banns, lest by doing so she should bring the , curse 
 of dumbness on her offspring. She stated that one 
 of her friends had transgressed this rule '^ by hear- 
 ing herself asked out at church," and in due course 
 had six children, all of whom were deaf and dumb. 
 Again, the wedding-cake, without which no wedding 
 would be considered complete, is evidently a survival 
 of the symbolical corn-ears originally worn by the 
 bride, and which in after ^times were made into cakes 
 and sprinkled upon the bride's head. In course of 
 time these cakes were by degrees converted into one 
 large mass, enriched with almond paste ; and that the 
 ingredients of a wedding-cake in the seventeenth 
 century did not differ materially from one at the 
 present day may be gathered from Herrick, who 
 says :— 
 
 *' This day, my Julia, thou must make, 
 For mistress bride, the wedding-cako ; 
 Knead but the dough, and it will be 
 To paste of almonds turned by thee ; 
 Or kiss it thou but once or twice, 
 And for tho bride-cake there'll be spice. 
 
 Indeed, com in one form or another has always 
 entered into the marriage-ceremony, a practice which, 
 as Sir John Lubbock, in his *^ Origin of Civilisation," 
 has pointed out, may be found among remote savages 
 or semi- civilised people. It would be difficult to 
 enumerate the many superstitions, beliefs, and usages 
 that have at different times clustered round the 
 wedding-cake, some of which are as popular as ever. 
 
MARRIAGE. 45 
 
 In days gone by, either corn ears or fragments of 
 broken biscuit or cake were dropped on the newly- 
 married couple on their return from church, a custom 
 which is still kept up in some country districts. In 
 Scotland and the North of England, for instance, as 
 soon as the bride returns to her new home, one of 
 the oldest inhabitants, who has been stationed on the 
 threshold in readiness, throws a plateful of short- 
 bread over her head, taking care that it falls outside 
 the house. This is immediately scrambled for, as it 
 is considered most fortunate to secure a piece, however 
 small. Thus, just a century ago, Smollett, in his 
 "Expedition of Humphrey Clinker" (1771), described 
 how Mrs. Tabitha Lismahago's wedding-cake was 
 broken over her head, and its fragments distributed 
 among the bystanders, who imagined that to eat one 
 of the hallowed pieces Avould insure the unmarried 
 eater the delight of seeing in a vision the person to be 
 his wife or her husband. Numerous other divina- 
 tions, also, have been practised by means of wedding- 
 cake, one of the most popular being that of passing 
 it through a wedding-ring, and placing it under the 
 pillow to dream upon. In some parts of Lancashire 
 and Cumberland it is customary to put a ring amongst 
 the ingredients of the wedding-cake, and to invite the 
 guests in turn to cut a slice. The person who is 
 fortunate enough to hold the knife when it comes 
 upon the hidden ring is considered to be sure of 
 happiness during the ensuing twelve months. Again, 
 Mr. Henderson mentions an exciting custom j^ractised 
 in the North at the wedding-feast. He says : — '^ The 
 
46 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 bride sticks lier knife into the cheese, and all at table 
 endeavour to seize it. He who succeeds without 
 cutting his fingers in the struggle thereby insures 
 happiness in his married life. The knife is called 
 ^ the best man's prize/ because the * best man ' 
 generally secures it. Should he fail to do sO; he will 
 indeed be unfortunate in his matrimonial views. The 
 knife is, at any rate, a prize for male hands only; 
 the maidens try to possess themselves of a * shaping' 
 of the wedding-dress, for use in certain divinations 
 regarding their future husbands." The custom of 
 throwing the shoe for luck at a bridal couple we shall 
 notice elsewhere, a practice which is perhaps the 
 principal source of merrymaking and fun at most 
 weddings. We must not omit to allude to that indis- 
 pensable little article at a marriage, the wedding-ring, 
 concerning which so much has been written. The 
 Puritans, it may be remembered, tried to abolish it, 
 on account of, as they thought, its superstitious and 
 heathen origin. Thus, Butler, in his " Hudibras," 
 says : — 
 
 *' Others were for abolishing 
 That tool of matrimony, a ring, 
 AVith which the unsanctified bridegroom, 
 Is mairy'd only to a thumb." 
 
 Though, however, the ring of gold is generally looked 
 upon as a necessity in the marriage-ceremony, yet it 
 is not legally so, but there is a very strong prejudice 
 against being married without it, and it would be no 
 easy task to find a couple brave enough to act in 
 opposition to this universal superstition. Thus, by 
 
MARRIAGE. 47 
 
 way of example, Mr. Jeaffreson, in his " Brides and 
 Bridals," tells us that the poor Irishman is so con- 
 vinced that a marriage lacks validity unless it has 
 been solemnised with a golden ring, that, when he 
 is too needy to buy a circlet of the most precious 
 metal, he hires a hoop of gold for use on his wedding- 
 day. Not long since a tradesman, in a market town 
 at Munster, made a considerable addition to his 
 modest income by letting out rings of gold to persons 
 about to marry, who restored the trinkets to their 
 owner after being wedded at church. A case is re- 
 lated, on the other hand, of a party that came to the 
 church and requested to be married with a church 
 key. It was '^ a parish wedding," and the parish 
 authorities, though willing to pay the church fees, 
 because, as the account runs, "they were glad to get 
 rid of the girl," had not felt disposed to provide the 
 wedding-ring. The clerk, however, feeling some hesi- 
 tation as to the substitution of the church key, 
 stepped into a neighbouring house, and there bor- 
 rowed an old curtain ring, with which the marriage 
 was solemnised. Again, most ladies are especially 
 particular in their notions respecting their wedding- 
 ring, objecting under any pretence to take it off from 
 their finger, extending, it would seem, the expression 
 of " till death us do part," even to this pledge and 
 token of matrimony. 
 
 In various parts of the country we find many a 
 curious marriage custom^ of which, however, we can 
 only give one or two instances. Thus, in some parts 
 of Kent, it was formerly customary to strew the 
 
48 DOMESTIC POLK-LORE. 
 
 pathway to the church of the bridal couple, not with 
 flowers, but with emblems of the bridegroom's trade. 
 A carpenter, for instance, walked on shavings, a 
 paperhanger on slips of paper, a blacksmith on pieces 
 of old iron, and so on. In some parts of Durham the 
 bridal party was, in days gone by, generally escorted to 
 church by men armed with guns, which they fired 
 again and again in honour of the festive occasion. 
 In Scotland there was an amusing custom, called 
 " Creeling the bridegroom." A basket or creel was 
 filled with heavy stones and fixed to the bridegroom's 
 shoulder, and with this burden he was obliged to run 
 about until his wife unfastened the creel 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 Warnings of Death— The Howling of Dogs— A Cow in the Grarden 
 — Death-presaging Birds— Plants— The Will-o'-the-Wisp — The 
 Sympathy between Two Personalities — Prophecy — Dying 
 Hardly — The Last Act — Place and Position of the Grave. 
 
 The superstitions associated with the last stage of 
 human life are most numerous ; and that this should 
 be so is not surprising when it is considered how, 
 from the earliest time, a certain dread has been 
 attached to death, not only on account of its awful 
 mysteriousness, but owing to its being the crisis of an 
 entirely new phase of the soul^s existence. 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 49 
 
 Commencing then with popular omens, it may be 
 noted that every incident out of the common course 
 of natural events is looked upon by the superstitious 
 as indicative of approaching death. Hence we find 
 the credulous ever conjuring up in their minds 
 imaginary prognostications of this sad occurrence, 
 which, apart from the needless terror they cause, 
 are based on no foundation of truth. Foremost 
 among these is the howling of a dog at night, a 
 superstition which, while not confined to our own 
 country, appears to have been almost as well known 
 in ancient times as at the present day. As a plea, 
 however, for its prevalence, even among the educated, 
 we might urge that it is not unnatural for the mind, 
 when unstrung and overbalanced by the presence of 
 sickness and impending death, to be over-sensitive, 
 and to take notice of every little sound and sight 
 which may seem to connect themselves with its 
 anxiety. Out of the innumerable instances which 
 are recorded in our own country respecting this 
 popular superstition, may be mentioned one which 
 happened a few years ago at Worthing. It appears 
 that no slight consternation was caused by a New- 
 foundland dog, the property of a clergyman in the 
 neighbourhood, lying down on the steps of a house 
 and howling piteously, refusing to be driven away. 
 As soon as it was known that a young lady, long an 
 invalid, had died there, so much excitement took place . 
 that news of the occurrence reached the owner of the 
 dog, who came to Worthing to inquire into the truth 
 of it. Unfortunately, however, for the lovers of and 
 
50 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 believers in the marvellous, it eventually turned out 
 that the dog had by accident been separated from his 
 master late in the evening, and had been seen running 
 here and there in search of him, and howling at the 
 door of the stable where he put up his horse, and 
 other places which he often visited in Worthing. It 
 happened, moreover, that his master had been in the 
 habit of visiting the particular house where the young 
 lady had died, which at once accounted . for the 
 apparent mystery. In the same way, indeed, other 
 similar instances of this superstition might be easily 
 cleared up, if only properly investigated at the time 
 of the occurrence. The howling of the dog is ascribed 
 by some to its keen sense of the odour of approaching 
 mortal dissolution ; whereas others affirm that this 
 animal can see the spirits which hover round the house 
 of sickness, ready at the moment of death to bear away 
 the soul of the departed one to its distant home. In 
 Aryan mythology the dog is said to see ghosts, and in 
 Germany, at the present day, a dog howling before a 
 house portends either a death or a fire. In Wales, 
 it is thought that horses, too, have the gift of 
 seeing spirits. Carriage-horses, it is said, have 
 been known to display every sign of the utmost 
 terror, although the occupants of the carriage could 
 see no cause for alarm. Such an occurrence is con- 
 sidered highly ominous, and thought to forebode that 
 a funeral will soon pass by that way, bearing to his 
 resting-place some person not dead at the time of the 
 horse's fright. 
 
 Whilst speaking of animals in connection with 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 51 
 
 death, it may be noted that an ox or a cow breaking 
 into a garden is an omen of death. In illustration of 
 this notion a correspondent of Notes and Queries relates 
 the following narrative as written down by himself 
 about the time to which it relates. He says, "Though 
 I laugh at the superstition, the omen was painfully 
 fulfilled in my case. About the middle of March, 
 1843, some cattle were driven close to my house, and 
 the back door being open, three got into our little bit 
 of garden, and trampled it. When our school-drudge 
 came in the afternoon, and asked the cause of the 
 confusion, she expressed great sorrow and apprehen- 
 sion on being told — said that it was a bad sign — that 
 we should hear of three deaths within the next six 
 
 months. Alas ! in April we heard of dear J ^s 
 
 murder; a fortnight after A died; and to-morrow, 
 
 August 10th, I attend the funeral of my excellent 
 son-in-law. I have just heard of the same omen from 
 another quarter. But what is still more remarkable 
 
 is that when I went down to Mr. M 's burial, and 
 
 was mentioning the superstition, they told me that 
 while he was lying ill, a cow got into the front garden 
 and was driven out with great difficulty. It is still a 
 common saying in Scotland, when any one is dan- 
 gerously ill, and not likely to recover, ' The black ox 
 has trampled upon him.' " 
 
 Another common omen of death is the hovering of 
 birds around a house, and their tapping against the 
 window-pane. Amongst the death-presaging birds may 
 be mentioned the raven, the crow, and the swallow. 
 The crowing of the cock, also, at the dead of night is 
 
52 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 regarded as equally ominous. The appearance of a 
 jackdaw is in some parts of the country much 
 dreaded. Thus a correspondent of N'otes and 
 Queries tells us, that a stonemason at Clifton related 
 to him an accident that happened to a workman at 
 the suspension bridge over the Avon, at the time 
 when the river was simply spanned by a single chain, 
 placing much emphasis on the fact that a single jack- 
 daw had been noticed by some of the workmen perched 
 upon the centre of the chain, and had been regarded 
 by them as a precursor of death. We must not omit 
 the evil reputation of the owl and the magpie ; and 
 a well-known superstition current in some parts that 
 to catch a sparrow and keep it confined in a cage is 
 an omen of death. Once more, it is a bad sign when 
 an invalid asks for a dish of pigeons to eat, such an 
 occurrence being considered an omen of his approach- 
 ing death. Some also affirm that if one hears the 
 cuckoo's first note when in bed, illness or death is 
 certain to come upon the hearer or one of his family. 
 If any one be about to die suddenly, or lose a relation, 
 the cuckoo will light upon a piece of touchwood,' or 
 rotten bough, and cuckoo. 
 
 Plants, in the next place, are sometimes regarded as 
 ominous of approaching mortality. When, for example, 
 an apple-tree or pear-tree blooms twice in the year it 
 denotes a death in the family. If, too, green broom 
 be picked when in bloom it is believed that the 
 father or mother will die in the course of the year. 
 Mrs. Latham, in her " West Sussex Superstitions," 
 gives the following touching little anecdote : — "A 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 53 
 
 poor girl, who was lingering in the last stage of con- 
 sumption, but whose countenance had always lighted 
 up with pleasure at the sight of flowers, appeared one 
 morning so exceedingly restless and unhappy after a 
 fresh nosegay of gay spring flowers had been laid 
 upon her bed, that I asked her if the scent of them 
 was disagreeable to her. ' Oh, no !' she exclaimed, 
 ' they are very nice indeed to smell ; but yet I should 
 be very glad if you would throw away that piece of 
 yellow broom ; for they do say that death comes with 
 it if it is brought into the house in blossom during 
 the month of May.' " According to a Yorkshire super- 
 stition, if a child gathers the germander speedwell its 
 mother will die during the year ; and others consider 
 it equally unlucky to bring the first snowdrop of the 
 year into the house. To dream that a tree is uprooted 
 in one's garden is regarded as a death-warning to the 
 owner. Indeed plants may be said to hold an im- 
 portant place in the folk-lore of death, so many 
 curious legends and quaint superstitions having 
 clustered round them both in ancient and modern 
 times. Thus, to quote one further instance, if yew 
 is accidentally brought into the house at Christmas 
 among the evergreens, it is looked upon as a sign that 
 a death will occur in the family before the end of the 
 year. 
 
 Among other omens of death, may be noticed 
 the will-o'-the-wisp, which has on this account been, 
 much dreaded, its undulating movement being care- 
 fully observed, from an anxiety to ascertain in which 
 direction it disappears, as it is supposed to be — - 
 
54 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 " The hateful messenger of heavy things, 
 Of death and dolour telling " 
 
 to the inliabitants of the house nearest that spot. We 
 have heard also of an occasion in which considerable 
 uneasiness v/as created by a pale light moving over the 
 bed of a sick person, and after flickering for some time 
 in diflerent parts of the room to vanish through the 
 window. It happened, however, that the mystery 
 was cleared up soon afterwards, for, on a similar light 
 appearing, it was found to proceed from a luminous 
 insect, which proved to be the male glow-worm. In 
 the same way the " corpse-candles " in Wales, also 
 called the " fetch-lights," or " dead man's candles," are 
 regarded as forerunners of death. Sometimes this 
 unlucky sign appears in the form of a plain yellow 
 candle, in the hand of a ghost, and at other times it 
 looks like "a stately flambeau, stalking along un- 
 supported, burning with ghastly blue flame." It is 
 considered highly dangerous to interfere with this 
 fatal portent, and persons who have attempted to 
 check its course are reported to have been severely 
 afflicted in consequence, many being actually struck 
 down on the spot where they stood as a punishment 
 for their audacity. 
 
 There is a popular idea prevalent in Lancashire 
 that to build or even to rebuild a house is always 
 fatal to one member of the family — generally to the 
 one who may have been the principal promoter of the 
 2)lans for the building or alteration. Again, we are 
 also told how the household clock has been known to 
 depart from its customary precision in order to warn 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 55 
 
 its owner of approaching death by striking thirteen, 
 A clergyman relates that one evening he called on an 
 old friend more than eighty years of age, who had lost 
 her husband about six months before. Whilst sitting 
 with her he heard the clock strike the hour in an 
 adjoining room, and counted it seven. Being surprised 
 that it was no later he involuntarily took out his watch, 
 and found that it was in reality eight o'clock. The 
 old lady noticing this remarked, " Ah ! tlie clock lost 
 a stroke against my poor husband's death, and I have 
 not altered it since." 
 
 According to another very common superstition 
 there seems to be a kind of sympathy and harmony 
 between two personalities, whereby dying persons 
 themselves announce their departure to their friends 
 in certain mysterious ways. Countless instances 
 are on record of such supposed forebodings of death. 
 A curious and interesting example of this species of 
 folk-lore happened not so very long ago, in connection 
 with the lamented death of Mr. George Smith, the 
 eminent Assyriologist. This famous scholar died at 
 Aleppo, on the 19th of August, 1876, at or about the 
 hour of six in the afternoon. On the same day, and 
 at about the same time, a friend and fellow-worker of 
 Mr. Smith's — Dr. Delitzsch — was passing within a 
 stone' s-throw of the house in which Mr. Smith had 
 lived whilst in London, when he suddenly heard his 
 own name uttered aloud in a " most piercing cry/' 
 v\^hich, says The Daily News (Sept. 12tli, 1876) 
 thrilled him to the marrow. The fact impressed him 
 so strongly that he looked at his watch, noted the hour, 
 
56 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 and, although he did not mention the circumstance at 
 the time, recorded it in his note-book. 
 
 Again, as a further illustration, we are tc^d how 
 on board one of Her Majesty's ships lying off Ports- 
 mouth, the officers being one day at mess, a young 
 lieutenant suddenly laid down his knife and fork, 
 pushed away his plate, and turned extremely pale. 
 He then rose from the table, covered his face with his 
 hands, and retired. The president of the mess, supposing 
 him to be ill, sent to make inquiries. At first he was 
 unwilling to reply ; but on being pressed he confessed 
 that he had been seized by a sudden and irresistible 
 impression that a brother he had in India was dead. 
 "He died," said he, "on the 12th August, at six 
 o'clock; lam perfectly convinced of it." ISTo argu- 
 ment could overthrow his conviction, which in due 
 course of time was verified to the letter. Events 
 of this kind, which in the minds of many seem to 
 point to a mysterious sympathy between two indi- 
 viduals, are explained by others as simply the result 
 of " fancy and coincidence. " Anyone, it is argued, 
 may fall into a brown study, and emerge from it with 
 a stare, and the notion that he heard his name spoken. 
 That is the part of fancy, and the simultaneous event 
 is the part of coincidence. Against this theory 
 it will always be argued that these coincidences are 
 too many to be accidental, and this position, as a 
 writer in The Daily News has shown, will generally 
 be met by counter-efforts to weaken the evidence for 
 each individual case, and so to reduce the cumulative 
 evidence to nothing. Taking into consideration 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 57 
 
 however, the countless instances which are on record 
 of this kind, many of them apparently resting on evi- 
 dence beyond impeachment, we must, whilst allotting to 
 them the credence they deserve, honestly admit they 
 are occasionally beyond the limits of human explana- 
 tion. 
 
 From a very early period there has existed a belief 
 in the existence of the power of prophecy at that 
 period which precedes death. It probably took its 
 origin in the assumed fact that the soul becomes 
 divine in the same rate as the connection with the 
 body is loosened. It has been urged in support of 
 this theory that at the hour of death the soul is, as 
 it Avere, on the confines of two worlds, and may possibly 
 at the same moment possess a power which is both 
 pros23ective and retrospective. Shakespeare in his 
 Richard II. (Act ii., sc. 1) makes the dying Gaunt, 
 alluding to his nephew, the young and self-willed king, 
 exclaim : — 
 
 " Methinks I am a prophet new inspired, 
 And thus expiring do foretell of him." 
 
 Again in 1 Henry IV. (Act v., sc. 4), the brave 
 Percy, when in the agonies of death, conveys the same 
 idea in the following words : — 
 
 *' 0, I could prophesy, 
 
 But that the earthy and cold hand of death 
 
 Lies on my tongue." 
 
 Some have sought for the foundation of this' 
 belief in the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis : — " And 
 Jacob called his sons, and said, Gather yourselves 
 together, that I may tell you that which shall befall 
 
58 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 you in the last days. And when Jacob had made an 
 end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet 
 into his bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was 
 gathered unto his people." This notion has not died 
 out, but still prevails in Lancashire and other parts 
 of England. 
 
 Referring to death itself, there is a widespread 
 belief that deaths mostly occur during the ebbing of 
 the tide : a superstition to which Charles Dickens has 
 so touchingly alluded in " David Copperfield.'' While 
 the honest-hearted Mr. Peggotty sat by the bedside 
 of poor Barkis, and watched life's flame gradually 
 growing dimmer, he said to David Copperfield, ^^ People 
 can't die along the coast except when the tide's 
 pretty nigh out. They can't be born unless it's pretty 
 nigh in. IsTot properly born till flood. He's agoing 
 out with the tide — he's agoing out with the tide. 
 It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. 
 If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past 
 the flood, and go out with the next tide." And after 
 many hours' watching, " it being low water, he went 
 out with the tide." 
 
 Persons, too, are said to ^^ die hard," to quote a 
 popular phrase, or, in other words, to have a painful 
 and prolonged death, when there are pigeons' feathers 
 in the bed. Hence, some will not allow dying persons 
 to lie on a feather bed at all, maintaining that it very 
 much increases the pain, and retards the inevitable 
 crisis of their departure. Many, on the other hand, 
 have a superstitious feeling that it is a great misfor- 
 tune, nay, even a judgment, not to die in a bed. 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 59 
 
 Many are tlie anecdotes illustrative of the former 
 superstition, one or two of which we will quote. 
 Thus a Sussex nurse one day told the wife of her 
 clergyman that *^ never did she see any one die so 
 hard as old Master Short ; and at last she thought 
 (though his daughter said there were none) that there 
 must be game-feathers in the bed. She, therefore, 
 tried to pull it from under him, but he was a heavy 
 man and she could not manage it alone, and there was 
 no one with him but herself, and so she got a rope 
 and tied it round him and pulled him by it off the 
 bed, and he went off in a minute quite comfortable, 
 just like a lamb." Again, one day, when an old woman 
 near Yarmouth was speaking of the burning of game- 
 feathers as a precaution in case of death, her neigh- 
 bours said to her, *^ Of course we don't believe that 
 can have anything to do with a hard death," where- 
 upon she replied, '^Then you yourself use such 
 feathers." ^' Oh, no; we always burn them, unless 
 we want them for a chair-cushion." The same notion 
 prevails in Yorkshire with regard to cocks' feathers. 
 According to another popular fancy a person cannot 
 die comfortably under the cross-beam of a house, and 
 we are told of the case of a man of whom it was said 
 at his death, that after many hours' hard dying, being 
 removed from the position under the cross-beam, he 
 departed peaceably. 
 
 Again, the interval between death and burial has 
 generally been associated with various superstitious 
 fears and practices. Thus, as soon as the corpse is 
 laid out there is still a widespread custom of placing 
 
60 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 a plate of salt upon the breast, the reason being 
 no doubt to prevent the body swelling ; although 
 there is a belief that it acts as a charm against 
 any attempt on the part of evil spirits to disturb the 
 body. Pennant tells us that formerly in Scotland, 
 *^ the corpse being stretched on a board and covered 
 with a coarse linen wrapper, the friends laid on the 
 breast of the deceased a wooden platter, containing a 
 small quantity of salt and earth, separate and un- 
 mixed ; the earth an emblem of the corruptible body, 
 the salt as an emblem of the immortal spirit." Mr. 
 I^apier, in his " Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland," 
 points out that we may find another explanation for 
 the plate of salt on the breast in the *^ sin-eaters," 
 persons who, in days gone by, when a person died, 
 were sent for to come and eat the sins of the deceased. 
 On their arrival their first act was to place a plate of 
 salt and one of bread on the breast of the corpse, 
 repeating a series of incantations, after which they 
 devoured the contents of the plates. By this cere- 
 mony the deceased person was supposed to be 
 relieved of such sins as would have kept his spirit 
 hovering about his relations to their discomfort and 
 /annoyance. 
 ^ It is customary, especially among the poor, for 
 those who visit a house while the dead body is lying 
 in it to touch the corpse, thereby showing that they 
 owe the departed one no grudge. This practice, in 
 all probability, originated in the belief that a corpse 
 would bleed at the touch of the murderer, constant 
 allusions to which we find in old authors. 
 
DEATH AND BURlAL. 61 
 
 The practice of watching the dead body until its 
 burial is not yet obsolete, a custom indeed which, 
 among the Irish, is even still occasionally the scene 
 of the most unseemly revelries, those present often- 
 times indulging in excessive drinking and riotous 
 merry-making. In days gone by, however, this prac- 
 tice was attended with every mark of respect to the 
 deceased one, the leading idea being to see that the 
 devil did not carry off the body. 
 
 Lastly, since the formation of cemeteries, many of 
 the quaint old funeral customs which formerly existed 
 in many of our country villages have passed away. 
 Now-a-days, the " last act," as the committal of the 
 body to the grave has been termed, has been shorn of 
 much of its pomp. Thus, in the North of England 
 it was customary, only a few years ago, to carry '* the 
 dead with the sun " to the grave, a practice correspond- 
 ing with the Highland usage of making " the deazil," 
 or walking three times round a person, according to 
 the course of the sun. On one occasion, in the village 
 of Stranton, near West Hartlepool, the vicar was 
 standing at the churchyard gate, awaiting the 
 arrival of the funeral procession, when, much to his 
 surprise, the entire group, who had come within a few 
 yards of him, suddenly turned back and marched 
 round the churchyard wall, thus traversing its west, 
 north, and east boundaries. On inquiring the reason 
 of this extraordinary procedure, one of the mourners 
 quickly replied, *' Why, ye wad no hae them carry the 
 dead again the sun ; the dead maun ay go wi' the 
 sun." This is not unlike a Welsh custom mentioned 
 
62 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 by Pennant, who tells us that when a corpse was con- 
 veyed to the churchyard from any part of the town, 
 great care was always taken that it should be carried 
 the whole distance on the right-hand side of the road. 
 A curious custom, which still survives at Welsh 
 funerals, is termed "the parson's penny." After 
 reading the burial service in the church, the clergy- 
 man stands behind a table while a psalm is being 
 sung. In the meantime each of the mourners places a 
 piece of money on the table for his acceptance. This 
 ceremony is regarded as a token of respect to the 
 deceased, although it was no doubt originally intended 
 to compensate the clergyman for praying for the soul 
 of the departed. In some Welsh parishes a similar 
 custom, called " spade-money," is observed. As soon 
 as the corpse has been committed to its resting-place, 
 the grave-digger presents his spade as a receptacle for 
 donations, these offerings, which often amount to a 
 goodly sum, being regarded as his perquisites. 
 
 From time immemorial there has been a popular 
 prejudice among the inhabitants of rural villages 
 against "burial without the sanctuary." This does not 
 imply in unconsecrated ground, but on the north side 
 of the church, or in a remote corner of the church- 
 yard. The origin of this repugnance is said to have 
 been the notion that the northern part was that which 
 was appropriated to the interment of unbaptised in- 
 fants, excommunicated persons, or such as had laid 
 violent hands upon themselves. Hence it was gene- 
 rally known as "the wrong side of the church." In 
 many parishes, therefore, this spot remained unoc- 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 63 
 
 cupied wliile tlie remaining portion of the church- 
 yard was crowded. White, in his ^^ History of 
 Selborne," alluding to this superstition, says that as 
 most people wished to be buried on the south side of 
 the churchyard, it became such a mass of mortality 
 that no person could be interred ^^ without disturbing 
 or displacing the bones of his ancestors." A clergy- 
 man of a rural parish in Norfolk says : — ^^ If I were 
 on any occasion to urge a parishioner to inter a de- 
 ' ceased relative on the north side of the church, he 
 would answer me with some expression of surprise, 
 if not of offence, at the proposal^ " No, sir, it is not 
 in the sanctuary." 
 
 Great attention has, also, generally been paid to 
 the position of the grave, the popular idea being 
 from east to west, while that from north to south 
 has been considered not only dishonourable, but 
 unlucky. Indeed, the famous antiquary, Thomas 
 Hearne, was so particular on this point that he left 
 orders for his grave to be made straight by a com- 
 pass, due east and west. In Cymheline (Act iv., sc. 2), 
 Guiderius, speaking of the apparently dead body of 
 Imogen disguised in man's apparel, says : — 
 
 " Nay, Cadwal, we must lay Hs head to the east ; 
 My father hath a reason for 't. " 
 
 It is worthy of notice that the burial of the dead 
 among the Greeks was in the line of east and west j 
 and thus it is not to late and isolated fancy, but to 
 the carrying on of ancient and widespread solar ideas, 
 as Mr. Tylor has so clearly shown, that we trace the 
 
64 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 well-known legend that the body of Christ was laid 
 towards the east, and the Christian usage of digging 
 graves east and west. A pretty custom was once 
 observed in many of our country villages at the funeral 
 of a young unmarried girl, or of a bride who died 
 in her honeymoon ; a chaplet of flowers being carried 
 before the corpse by a girl nearest in age, size, and 
 resemblance, and afterwards hung up in the church 
 over the accustomed seat of the deceased. 
 
 Among other customs connected with burial may 
 be mentioned " funeral feasts/' which have prevailed 
 in this and other countries from the earliest times, 
 and are supposed to have been borrowed from the 
 Ccena feralis of the Romans : an oflering, consisting of 
 milk, honey, wine, aloes, and strewed flowers, to the 
 ghost of the deceased. In a variety of forms this 
 custom has prevailed amongst most nations, the idea 
 being that the spirits of the dead feed on the viands 
 set before them. In Christian times, however, these 
 funeral ofierings have passed into commemorative 
 banquets, under which form they still exist amongst 
 us. In the north of England the funeral feast is 
 called " an arval," and the loaves that are sometimes 
 distributed among the poor are termed ^^ arval bread.'' 
 
 The poor seem to have always been fond of inviting 
 a large number of friends to attend a funeral. In- 
 stances are on record of a barrel of beer, two gallons 
 of sack, and four gallons of claret being consumed at 
 a funeral, and the cost of wine has been five times 
 more than the cost of the coffin. In one of the 
 parishes on the borders of Norfolk there is a tradition, 
 
THE HUMAN BODY. 65 
 
 says Mr. Glyde in his " Norfolk Garland," tliat when 
 the warrior Sir Robert Atte Tye was buried, four 
 dozen of wine were drunk, according to his last 
 directions, over his grave, before the coffin was 
 covered with earth. Many curious anecdotes might 
 be given of funerals having been solemnised within 
 the church-porch, and of the scruples entertained by 
 great men as to the practice of interment in churches. 
 A part of the churchyard, too, was occasionally left 
 unconsecrated for the purpose of burying excom- 
 municated persons. Among some of the superstitions 
 associated with burial we may just note that it is 
 considered by some unlucky to meet a funeral ; and 
 that, according to another notion, the ghost of the last 
 person buried keeps watch over the churchyard till 
 another is buried, to whom he delivers his charge. 
 
 CHAPTEH yi. 
 
 THE HUMAN BODY. 
 
 Superstitions about Deformity, Moles, &c.— Tingling of the Ear— 
 The Nose— The Ej^e— The Teeth— The Hair— The Hand- 
 Dead Man's Hand— The Feet. 
 
 In the preceding pages we have given a brief survey 
 of that wide-spread folk-lore with which the life of 
 man has been invested, stage by stage, from the cradle 
 to the grave. In like manner the popular imagina- 
 tion has, in most countries from the earliest times, 
 F 
 
66 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 woven round tlie human body a thick network of 
 superstitions, many of which, while of the nature of 
 omens, are supposed to indicate certain facts, such as 
 the person's character, the events connected with his 
 life, and to give that insight into his future career 
 which eager curiosity would strive to ascertain. Thus, 
 according to an old prejudice, which is not quite 
 extinct, those who are defective or deformed are 
 marked by nature as prone to mischief, in accord- 
 ance with which notion Shakespeare makes Margaret, 
 speaking of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in Kinj 
 Richard III. (Act i., sc. 3), say : — 
 
 " Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rotting hog 
 Thou that was seal'd in thy nativity 
 The slave of nature and the son of hell." 
 
 Moles, too, have generally been thought to denote good 
 or ill-luck from their position on the body. Thus one 
 on the throat is a sign of luck, but one on the left side 
 of the forehead near the hair is just the reverse. Again, 
 a mole on either the chin, ear, or neck is an indication 
 of riches, but one on the breast signifies poverty. 
 Indeed, if we are to believe the " Greenwich Fortune- 
 teller," a popular chap-book in former years, omens to 
 be drawn from moles are almost unlimited. 
 
 Kef erring, however, more especially to the folk-lore 
 associated \vith the different parts of the human body, 
 this, as we have already stated, is very extensive, 
 being in many cases the legacy bequeathed to us by 
 our ancestors. Commencing, then, with the ear, 
 there is a well-known superstition that a tingling of 
 the right one is lucky, denoting that a friend is speak- 
 
THE HUMAN BODY. 67 
 
 ing well of one ; a tingling of the left implying the 
 opposite. This notion differs according to the locality, 
 as in some places it is the tingling of the left ear which 
 denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear 
 the enemy. Shakespeare, in Much Ado about NotJiing 
 (Act iii., sc. 1), makes Beatrice say to Ursula and 
 Hero, who had been talking of her, " What fire 
 is in mine earsi" in allusion, it is generally sup- 
 posed, to this popular fancy, which is old as the 
 time of Pliny, who says, " When our ears tingle some 
 one is talking of us in our absence." Sir Thomas 
 Browne also ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian 
 angels, who touch the right or left ear according as 
 the conversation is favourable or not to the person. 
 The Scotch peasantry have an omen called the ^^death- 
 bell " — a tingling in the ears which is believed to 
 announce some friend's death. Hogg alludes to this 
 superstition in his "Mountain Bard :" — 
 
 *' lady, 'tis dark, an' I heard the death-bell, 
 An' I darena gae yonder for gowd nor fee," 
 
 and gives also an amusing anecdote illustrative of 
 it : — " Our two servant-girls agreed to go on an 
 errand of their own, one night after supper, to a 
 considerable distance, from which I strove to persuade 
 them, but could not prevail ; so, after going to the 
 apartment where I slept, I took a drinking-glass, and' 
 coming close to the back of the door made two or 
 three sweeps round the lip of the glass with my 
 finger, which caused a loud shrill sound, and then 
 overheard the following dialogue : — 
 
68 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 ^^ B. * Ah, mercy ! the dead-bell went through my 
 head just now with such a knell as I never heard/ 
 
 "/. a heard it too.' 
 
 ^^ B. ^Did you indeed? That is remarkable. I 
 never knew of two hearing it at the same time 
 before.' 
 
 " /. * We will not go to Midgehope to-night.' 
 
 " ^. ^ I would not go for all the world ! I shall 
 warrant it is my poor brother Wat. Who knows 
 what these wild Irish may have done to him V " 
 
 The itching of the nose, like that of the ears, is not 
 without its signification, denoting that a stranger will 
 certainly appear before many hours have passed by, in 
 allusion to which Dekker, in his "Honest Whore," 
 says : — *' We shall ha' guests to-day ; my nose itcheth 
 so." In the north of England, however, if the nose 
 itches it is reckoned a sign that the person will 
 either be crossed, vexed, or kissed by a fool; whereas 
 an old writer tells us that " when a man's nose 
 itcheth it is a signe he shall drink wine." Many 
 omens, too, are gathered from bleeding of the nose. 
 Thus Grose says, " One drop of blood from the 
 nose commonly foretells death or a very severe fit of 
 sickness; three drops are still more ominous;" and 
 according to another notion one drop from the left 
 nostril is a sign of good luck, and vice versd. Bleed- 
 ing of the nose seems also to have been regarded as a 
 sign of love, if we may judge from a passage in 
 Boulster's *' Lectures," published early in the seven- 
 teenth century : — " ^ Did my nose ever bleed when I 
 was in your company]' and, poor wretch, just as 
 
THE HUMAN BODY. 69 
 
 she spake this, to show her true heart, her nose 
 fell a-bleeding." Again, that bleeding of the nose 
 was looked upon as ominous in days gone by, we may 
 gather from Launcelot's exclamation in the Merchant 
 of Venice (Act ii., sc. 5), " It was not for nothing 
 that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at 
 six o'clock" — a superstition to which many of our 
 old writers refer. Among further superstitions 
 connected with the nose we may mention one in 
 Cornwall, known as '' the blue vein," an illustration 
 of which occurs in Mr. Hunt's ^' Popular Romances of 
 the West of England," who relates the following little 
 anecdote : — " A fond mother was paying more than 
 ordinary attention to a fine healthy-looking child, a 
 boy about three years old. The poor woman's breast 
 was heaving with emotion, and she struggled to repress 
 her sighs. Upon inquiring if anything was really 
 wrong, she said, * The old lady of the house had just 
 told her that the child could not live long because he 
 had a blue vein across his nose.' " This piece of folk- 
 lore, which caused the anxious mother such distress, 
 is not confined to the West of England, but crops up 
 here and there throughout the country. While speak- 
 ing of the nose, we may just note that it is the subject 
 of various proverbs. Thus ** to put the nose out of 
 joint " means to supplant one in another's favour, and 
 the popular one of '' paying through the nose," im- 
 plying extortion, may, it has been suggested, have 
 originated in a poll-tax levied by Odin, which Avas 
 called in Sweden a nose-tax, and was a penny per nose 
 or poll. Once more, we have the term "nose of 
 
70 DOMESTIC FOLK-LOHE. 
 
 wax " applied to a person who is very accommodating, 
 and one may occasionally hear the phrase " wipe the 
 nose " used in the sense of affront. 
 
 Leaving the nose, however, we find similar odd 
 fancies attached to the eye. In many places we are 
 told that "it's a good thing to have meeting eyebrovrs, 
 as such a person will never know trouble," although, 
 curious to say, on the Continent quite a different 
 significance is attributed to this peculiarity. In Greece, 
 for instance, it is held as an omen that the man is a 
 vampire, and in Denmark and Germany it is said to 
 indicate that he is a werewolf. In China, also, there is 
 a proverb that " people whose eyebrows meet can never 
 expect to attain to the dignity of a minister of state. '^ 
 There can be no doubt that, according to the general 
 idea, meeting eyebrows are not considered lucky : — 
 
 " Trust not the man whose eyebrows meet, 
 For in his heart you'll find deceit." 
 
 Thus, Charles Kingsley, in '' Two Years Ago,'' 
 speaks of this idea in the following passage : — "Tom 
 began carefully scrutinising Mrs. Harvey's face. It 
 had been very handsome. It was still very clever, but 
 the eyebrows clashed together downwards above her 
 nose, and rising higher at the outward corners, 
 indicated, as surely as the restless down-drop eye, a 
 character self-conscious, furtive, capable of great 
 inconsistencies, possibly of great deceit.'' 
 
 Again, the itching of the right eye is considered a 
 lucky omen, an idea that is very old, and may be traced 
 as far back as the time of Theocritus, who says : — 
 
 " My right eye itches now, and I shall see my love," 
 
THE HUMAN BODY. 71 
 
 According to the antiquary Grose, however, who 
 collected together so many of tlie superstitions preva- 
 lent in his day, ^'AYhen the right eye itches, the party 
 affected will shortly cry ; if the left, they will laugh.'' 
 The power of fascination has generally been considered 
 to be a peculiar quality of the eye, a notion by no 
 means obsolete, and numerous charms have been 
 resorted to for counteracting its influence. In our 
 chapter on ^' Birth and Infancy " we have already 
 spoken of the danger to which young children are said 
 to be subject from the malevolent power of some evil 
 eye, and of the pernicious effects resulting from it. 
 Shakespeare gives several references to it, one of which 
 occurs in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Act v., sc. 5), 
 where Pistol says of Falstaff : — • 
 
 " Yile worm,, thou wast o'erlook'd even in tky birth." 
 
 And once more, in Titus Andronicus (Act ii., sc. 1), 
 Aaron speaks of Tamora as 
 
 ^' fetter'd in amorous chains — 
 
 And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes, 
 Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus." 
 
 It was not very long ago that a curious case of this 
 superstition was brought before the guardians of the 
 Shaftesbury Union, in which an applicant for relief 
 stated his inability to work because he had been 
 "overlooked" by his sister-in-law. Although his 
 wife had resorted for help to a wise-woman, yet sh<3 
 was unable to remove the spell under which he lay, 
 and thus the unfortunate man, incapable of labour 
 applied for relief, which he did not obtain. 
 
72 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 In the next place, some of the superstitions 
 connected with the teeth are quaint, and afford oppor- 
 tunities to the credulous for drawing omens of various 
 kinds. Thus, to dream about teeth is held to be a 
 warning that sorrow of some kind is at hand ; and 
 it is even unluckier still to dream of one's teeth falling 
 out. It is also frequently the custom, for the sake of 
 luck, to throw a tooth when extracted into the fire, a 
 practice which, as we have already seen, is frequently 
 most scrupulously kept up in the case of young 
 children, to make sure of the remainder of their teeth 
 coming properly. Furthermore, to have teeth wide 
 apart is a sign of prosperity, and is said to indicate 
 one's future happiness in life. As an instance of this 
 piece of folk-lore we may quote the following, 
 narrated by a correspondent in Notes and Queries : — 
 ** A young lady the other day, in reply to an observa- 
 tion of mine, * What a lucky girl you are ! ^ replied, 
 * So they used to say I should be when at school' 
 'Why]' * Because my teeth were set so far apart ; it 
 was a sure sign I should be lucky and travel.'" 
 Trivial as many of these superstitions may seem, 
 yet they are interesting, inasmuch as they show how 
 minutely the imagination has at different times 
 surrounded the human body with countless items of 
 odd notions, some of which in all probability origin- 
 ated from practical experience, while others have been 
 the result of a thousand circumstances, to ascertain 
 the history of which would be a matter of long and 
 elaborate research. 
 
 Passing on to the hair, there is a popular notion that 
 
THE HUMAN BODY. 73 
 
 sudden fright or violent distress will, to use Sir 
 Walter Scott's words, *^ blanch at once the hair." 
 Thus, in Shakespeare's /. Henry IV. (Act ii., sc. 4), 
 FalstafF, in his speech to Prince Henry, says : — 
 
 " Thy father's beard is turned white with the news." 
 
 Although this has been styled " a whimsical notion," 
 yet in its support various instances of its occurrence 
 have been from time to time recorded. The hair of Lud- 
 wig of Bavaria, for example, it is said, became almost 
 suddenly white as snow on his learning the innocence 
 of his wife, whom he had caused to be put to death 
 on a suspicion of infidelity ; and the same thing, we are 
 told, happened to Charles I. in a single night, when he 
 attempted to escape from Carisbrooke Castle, A similar 
 story is told of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, 
 when her flight from France was checked at Yarennes. 
 According to another notion, excessive fear has occa- 
 sionally caused the hair to stand on end, a belief which 
 Shakespeare has recorded. In Hamlet (Act iii., sc. 4), 
 in that famous passage where the Queen is at a loss to 
 understand her son's mysterious conduct and strange 
 appearance, during his conversation with the ghost 
 which is hidden to her eyes, she says : — 
 
 " And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm, 
 Your bedded hair, like Hfe in excrements, 
 Starts up, and stands on end." 
 
 Once more, too, in that graphic scene in the Tempest 
 (Act i., sc. 2), where Ariel describes the shipwreck, he 
 says :-^ 
 
74 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 '^ All but mariners 
 Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, 
 Then all afire ydth me ; the king's son, Ferdinand, 
 With hair up -staring — then like reeds, not hair — 
 Was the first man that leap'd." 
 
 The sudden loss of hair is considered unlucky, being 
 said to prognosticate the loss of children, health, or 
 property; whereas many consider it imprudent to 
 throw it away, or to leave the smallest scrap lying 
 about. One reason assigned for this notion is that 
 if hair is left about, birds might build their nests 
 with it, a fatal thing for the person from whose head 
 it has fallen. Thus, should a magpie use it for 
 any such purpose — by no means an unlikely circum- 
 stance — the person's death will be sure to happen 
 "vdthin a year and a day." Some say, again, that 
 hair should never be burnt, but only buried, a 
 superstition founded on a tradition that at the resur- 
 rection its owner will come in search of it. On the 
 other hand, it is customary with some persons to 
 throw a piece of their hair into the fire, drawing 
 various omens from the way it burns. Should it 
 gradually smoulder away, it is an omen of death ; 
 but its burning brightly is a sign of longevity, and the 
 brighter the flame the longer the life. In Devonshire, 
 too, if the hair grows down on the forehead and 
 retreats up the head above the temples, it is considered 
 an indication that the person will have a long life. 
 There is a very prevalent idea that persons who have 
 much hair or down on their arms are, to quote the 
 common expression, " born to be rich," although the 
 
THS HUMAIN BODY. 75 
 
 exception, in this as in many otlier similar cases, 
 rather proves the rule ; but abundance of hair on tlie 
 head has been supposed to denote a lack of brains, 
 from whence arose an odd proverb, ^'Bush natural, 
 more hair than wit." Once more, Judas is said to 
 have had red hair, and hence, from time immemorial, 
 there has been a strong antipathy to it. Shakespeare, 
 in As You Like It (Act iii., sc. 4), alludes to this 
 beKef, when he makes Rosalind say of Orlando : — 
 
 " His very hair is of the dissembling colour." 
 To which Oelia replies : — 
 
 " Something brov/ner than Judas's." 
 
 It has been conjectured, however, that the odium 
 attached to red hair took its origin in this country 
 from the aversion felt to the red-haired Danes. One 
 reason, perhaps, more than another why this dislike 
 to it arose, originated in the circumstance that the 
 colour was thought ugly and unfashionable, and the 
 antipathy to it, therefore, would naturally be in- 
 creased by this opinion. Thus, in course of time, a 
 red beard was also held in contempt, and was regarded 
 as an infallible token of a vile disposition. Yellow 
 hair, too, was formerly esteemed a deformity, and in 
 ancient tapestries both Cain and Judas are represented 
 with yellow beards, in allusion to which, in the 
 Merry Wives of Windsor (Act i., sc. 4), Simple, when 
 interrogated, says of his master, " He hath but a little 
 wee face, with a little yellow beard — a Cain-coloured 
 beard." While alluding to beards, we may note that 
 in former years they gave rise to various customs, 
 
76 DOMESTIC FOLK-LOKE. 
 
 many of which, however, have long ago fallen into 
 disuse. Thus, dyeing beards was a common practice, 
 and our readers may recollect how Bottom, in A 
 Midsummer NigMs Dream (Act i., sc. 2), is perplexed 
 as to what beard he should wear in performing his 
 part before the Duke. He says, '^ I will discharge 
 it either in your straw-coloured beard, your orange- 
 tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your 
 French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow." It 
 was evidently quite as much the habit for gentle- 
 men to dye their beards in Shakespeare's day as it 
 is said to be for ladies to dye their locks now-a-days. 
 When beards, too, were the fashion, to mutilate or 
 cut off one was considered an irreparable outrage. 
 
 Pursuing our subject, we find that the cheek is 
 not without its quota of folk-lore ; for, like the ear, 
 nose, and eye, it is considered ominous when one's 
 cheek itches. According to Grose, '' If the right 
 cheek burns, some one is speaking to the person's 
 advantage; if the left, to their disadvantage." One 
 may still occasionally hear the following charm 
 uttered by a person whose cheek suddenly burns : — 
 
 " Eight cheek ! left cheek ! why do you bum ? 
 Cursed he she that doth me any harm ; 
 If she he a maid, let her he staid ; 
 If she he a widow, long let her mourn ; 
 But if it he my own true love — hum, cheek, hum." 
 
 Again, the hand has been honoured with a very 
 extensive folk-lore, and the following extract from an 
 old writer shows that nearly every peculiarity of the 
 
THE HUMAN BODY. 77 
 
 Land has been made emblematical of some personal 
 trait of character. Thus, we are told: — "A great 
 thick hand signifies one not only strong, but stout ; 
 a little slender hand, one not only weak, but ti- 
 morous ; a long hand and long fingers betoken a 
 man not only apt for mechanical artifice, but liberally 
 ingenious. Those short, on the contrary, note a fool, 
 and fit for nothing ; a hard brawny hand signifies one 
 dull and rude ; a soft hand, one witty, but efieminate ; 
 a hairy hand, one luxurious. Long joints signify 
 generosity ; yet, if they be thick withal, one not so 
 ingenious. The often clapping and folding of the 
 hands note covetousness ; and their much moving 
 in speech, loquacity. Short and fat fingers mark a 
 man out as intemperate and silly ; but long and 
 lean, as witty. If his fingers crook upward, that 
 shows him liberal; if downward, niggardly. Long 
 nails and crooked signify one to be brutish, ravenous, 
 and unchaste ; very short nails, pale and sharp, show 
 him subtle and beguiling." Among other omens, we 
 are told that the itching of the right hand signifies 
 that it will shortly receive money, whereas if the left 
 hand be the one to itch, it is a sign that money will 
 before very many days have to be paid away. In 
 Suffolk the peasants have the following rhyme on the 
 subject: — 
 
 " If your hand itches, 
 
 You're going to take riches ; 
 
 Rub it on wood, 
 
 Sure to come good ; 
 
 Eub it on iron, 
 
 Sure to come flying ; 
 
78 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Eub it on brass, 
 
 Sure to come to pass ; 
 
 Rub it on steel, 
 
 Sure to come a deal ; 
 
 Rub it on tin. 
 
 Sure to come agin." 
 A moist hand is said to denote an amorous consti- 
 tution, and in 2 Henry IV, (Act i., sc. 2), the Lord 
 Chief Justice enumerates a dry hand among the 
 characteristics of age and debility. 
 
 Palmistry, or divination by means of the hands, a 
 species of fortune-telling still much practised, we have 
 already described in another chapter. A superstition, 
 hoYv^ever, which we must not omit to mention, is the 
 practice of rubbing with a dead hand for the purpose 
 of taking away disease, instances of which, even now-a- 
 days, are of occasional occurrence. Mr. Henderson 
 mentions a case that happened about the year 1853. 
 The wife of a pitman at Castle Eden Colliery, who 
 was suffering from a wen in the neck, went alone, 
 according to advice given her by a ^'wise woman," 
 and lay all night in the out-house, with the hand of a 
 corpse on her wen. She had been assured that the 
 hand of a suicide was an infallible cure. The shock, 
 at any rate, to her nervous system from that terrible 
 night was so great that she did not rally for some 
 months, and eventually she died from the wen. 
 As a further specimen of this incredible super- 
 stition, we may quote the following case, which 
 happened some years ago in an Eastern county. A 
 little girl of about eight years of age had from birth 
 been troubled with scrofulous disease, and had been 
 
THE HUMAN BODY. 79 
 
 reared with great difficulty. Her friends consulted 
 the ^'wise man" of the neighbourhood, who told 
 tlie mother that if she took the girl and rubbed her 
 naked body all over with the hand of a dead man she 
 would be cured. The experiment was tried, and the 
 poor little girl was nearly killed with fright, and, of 
 course, made no progress whatever towards health. 
 
 Many of our readers are, no doubt, acquainted 
 with the famous " dead man's hand," which Vv^as 
 formerly kept at Bryn Hall, in Lancashire. It is 
 said to have been the hand of Father Arrowsmith, a 
 priest y\^ho, according to some accounts, was put to 
 death for his religion in the time of William III. 
 Preserved with great care in a white silken bag, this 
 hand was resorted to by many diseased persons, and 
 wonderful cures are reported to have been effected by 
 this saintly relic. Thus, we are told of a woman who, 
 afflicted with the small-pox, had this dead . hand in 
 bed with her every night for six weeks ; and of a poor 
 lad who v/as rubbed with it for the cure of scrofulous 
 sores. It is, indeed, generally supposed that practices 
 of this kind are rare and of exceptional occurrence, 
 but they are far more common than might be imagined, 
 although not recorded in newspapers. This is, however, 
 in a great measure owing to the fact that those who 
 believe in and have recourse to such rites observe 
 secresy, for fear of meeting with ridicule from others. 
 
 The nails, also, as we have mentioned in our 
 chapter on Childhood, have their folk-lore, the little 
 specks which are seen on them being regarded as 
 ominous. Many have their particular days for cut- 
 
80 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 ting the nails. Of the numerous rhymes on the 
 subject, we may quote the following as a specimen, 
 from which it will be seen that every day has its 
 
 peculiar virtue : — 
 
 ^' Cut them on Monday, you cut them for health ; 
 Cut them on Tuesday, you cut them for wealth ; 
 Cut them on AVednesday, you cut them for news ; 
 Cut them on Thursday, a new pair of shoes ; 
 Cut them on Friday, you cut them for sorrow ; 
 Cut them on Saturday, see your true love to-morrow ; 
 Cut them on Sunday, the devil will be with you all the 
 week." 
 
 This old rhyming-saw differs in various localities, 
 although in the main points it is the same; as by 
 general consent both Friday and Sunday are regarded 
 as most inauspicious days for cutting both the nails 
 and hair. 
 
 Once more, to sit cross-legged is said to produce 
 good fortune ; and occasionally at a card-table one 
 may find some superstitiously-inclined person sitting 
 in this attitude with a view of securing good luck. 
 Sir Thomas Browne, on the contrary, tells us that in 
 days gone to "sit cross-legged, or with the fingers 
 pectinated " or shut together, was accounted a sign of 
 bad luck : a superstition alluded to by Pliny. 
 Hef erring to the feet, we cannot do more than just 
 allude to two or three items of folk-lore with which 
 they are connected. Thus, a flat-footed person is 
 generally considered to have a bad temper, a notion 
 indeed which daily experience often proves to be 
 incorrect. The itching of the foot has been supposed 
 to indicate that its owner will shortly undertake 
 
ABTICLES OP DRESS. 81 
 
 a strange journey; while that unpleasant sensation 
 popularly styled " the foot going to sleep," is often 
 charmed away by crossing the foot with saliva. 
 When the division between the toes is incomplete, and 
 they are partially joined, they are called ^'twin 
 toes," and are said to bring good luck. This section 
 of our ^-Domestic Folk-lore" might have been pro- 
 longed to an almost indefinite extent had space per- 
 mitted, but as the preceding pages amply bear wit- 
 ness to the prevalence of such ideas, we will proceed 
 to discuss another, and, it is to be hoped, not less 
 interesting class of superstitions. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ARTICLES OF DRESS. 
 
 New Clothes at Easter and "Whitsuntide — "Wearing of Clothes — 
 The Clothes of the Dead — The Apron, Stockings, Garters, kc. 
 —The Shoe— The Glove— The Ring— Pins. 
 
 One would scarcely expect to find a host of odd 
 fancies attached to such matter-of-fact necessities as 
 articles of dress, but yet they hold a prominent place in 
 our domestic folk-lore. However trivial at first sight 
 these may seem, they are nevertheless interesting, in 
 so far as they illustrate certain features of our social 
 history, and show from another point of view how 
 superstition is interwoven with all that appertains to 
 human life. Beginning, then, with a well-known 
 
 G 
 
82 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 piece of folk-lore, most persons wear new clothes on 
 Easter-Day, mindful of the old admonition : — 
 
 " At Easter let your clothes be new, 
 Or else be sure you will it rue " 
 
 — a notion that still retains its hold on the popular 
 mind, few being found bold enough to transgress this 
 long-rooted custom. In the North of England, so 
 strong is the feeling on this point, that young people 
 rarely omit visiting the nearest market-town prior to 
 Eastertide^ to buy some new article of dress or 
 personal ornament, as otherwise they believe the birds 
 — notably rooks — will spoil their clothes. A similar 
 fancy prevails with regard to Whitsuntide, and many 
 would consider that they had forfeited their good 
 luck for the next twelve months if they did not 
 appear in " new things " on Whitsunday. 
 
 The superstitions relating to clothes are very 
 numerous, varying in different localities. Thus, 
 according to a Suffolk notion, '' if you have your 
 clothes mended on your back, you will be ill-spoken 
 . of," or as they say in Sussex, '^ you will come to 
 want." Again, many before putting on a new coat or 
 dress, take care to place some money in the right-hand 
 pocket, as this insures its always being full. If by 
 mistake, however, the money is put in the left-hand 
 pocket, then the person will never have a penny so 
 long as the coat lasts. It is also a very prevalent 
 belief that if one would secure luck with any article 
 of dress, it must be worn for the first time at church. 
 Equal attention, too, is paid by many to tlie way 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 83 
 
 tliey put on each article of dress — as, in case of its 
 being accidentally inside out, it is considered an omen 
 of success. It is necessary, however, if one wishes 
 the omen to hold good, to wear the reversed portion 
 of attire with the wrong side out till the regular time 
 comes for taking it off. If reversed earlier, the luck 
 is immediately lost. The idea of the "hind-side 
 before" is so closely related to that of "inside out," 
 that one can hardly understand their being taken 
 for contrary omens ; yet, "It is worthy of remark, 
 in connection with this superstition," says a corre- 
 spondent of Chambers's " Book of Days," " that when 
 William the Conqueror, in arming himself for the 
 battle of Hastings, happened to put on his shirt of 
 mail with the hind-side before, the bystanders seem to 
 have been shocked by it, as by an ill-omen, till 
 William claimed it as a good one, betokening that 
 he was to be changed from a duke to a king." 
 Another piece of superstition tells us that the clothes 
 of the dead never last very long, but that as the body 
 decays, so in the same degree do the garments and 
 linen which belonged to the deceased. Hence, in 
 Essex there is a popular saying to the effect that " the 
 clothes of the dead always wear full of holes." When 
 therefore a person dies, and the relatives, it may be_, 
 give away the clothes to the poor, one may frequently 
 hear a remark of this kind, " Ah, they may look very 
 well, but they won't wear ; they belong to the dead." 
 A similar belief prevails in Denmark, where a corpse 
 is not allowed to be buried in the clothes of a living 
 person, lest as the clothes rot in the grave, that person 
 
84 ^ DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 to whom they belonged should waste away and perish. 
 In accordance also with a superstition prevalent in 
 the Netherlands, the rings of a dead friend or relative 
 are never give away, as it is a sure sign that the 
 giver too will soon die. An absurd notion exists in 
 many parts — one much credited by our country 
 peasantry — that if a mother gives away all the baby's 
 clothes in her possession, she will be sure to have 
 another addition to her family, although the event 
 may be contrary to all expectation. Among other 
 items of folk-lore associated with clothes, we may 
 mention that in the North of England to put a 
 button or hook into the wrong hole while one is 
 dressing in the morning, is held to be a warning that 
 some misfortune will happen in the course of the day ; 
 and in Northamptonshire it is said that servants who 
 go to their places in black will never stay the year 
 out. A Dorsetshire superstition is that if a gentle- 
 man accidentally burns the tail of his coat, or a lady 
 the hem of her skirt, during a visit at a friend's 
 house, it is a proof they will repeat their visit. 
 
 Another article of dress that has its superstitions 
 is the apron, which some women turn before the new 
 moon, to insure good luck for the ensuing month. In 
 Yorkshire, when a married woman's apron falls off, it 
 is a sign that something is coming to vex her ; when, 
 however, the apron of an unmarried girl drops down, 
 she is frequently the object of laughter, as there is 
 considered no surer sign than that she is thinking 
 about her sweetheart. Again, if a young woman's 
 petticoats are longer than her di^ss, this is a proof 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 85 
 
 that her mother does not love her so much as her 
 father, a notion which extends as far as Scotland. 
 This piece of folk-lore may have originated in the 
 mother not attending so much to the child's dress 
 as was her duty, whereas, however much the father 
 may love his child, he may at the same time be 
 perfectly ignorant of the rights and wrongs of female 
 attire : an excuse which does not hold good in 
 the case of the mother. Some of the descriptions 
 of plants in use among the rural peasantry refer to 
 the petticoat. Thus, the poppy is said to have a red 
 petticoat and a green gown ; the daffodil, a yellow 
 petticoat and green gown, and so on ) these fancies 
 being the subject of many of our old nursery rhymes, 
 as, for instance : — 
 
 " Daffadown-dilly is come up to town, 
 In a yellow petticoat and a green gown." 
 
 Passing on in the next place to stockings, it is 
 lucky, as with other articles of dress, to put one 
 wrong-side out, but unlucky to turn it on discovering 
 one's mistake. Some, too, consider it a matter of 
 importance as to which foot they put the stocking 
 on first when dressing themselves in the morn- 
 ing — the luck of the day being supposed in a great 
 measure to depend on this circumstance — as to 
 clothe the left foot before the right one is a sign of 
 misfortune. "Flinging the stocking" was an old 
 marriage custom, being really a kind of divination, 
 which Misson, in his '' Travels through England," 
 thus describes : — ^'The young men, it seems, took the 
 
86 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 "bride's stockings, and t/ie girls those of tlie bride- 
 groom, each of whom, sitting at the foot of the bed, 
 threw the stocking over their heads, endeavouring to 
 make it fall upon that of the bride or her spouse ; 
 if the bridegroom's stocking, thrown by the girls, 
 fell upon the bridegroom's head, it was a sign that 
 they themselves would soon be married ; and similar 
 luck was derived from the falling of the bride's 
 stockings, thrown by the young men." 
 
 There is a superstitious notion in some places that 
 Vvdien the bride retires to rest on her wedding-night, 
 her bridesmaids should lay her stockings across, as 
 this act is supposed to guarantee her future prosperity 
 in the marriage state. Another use to which the 
 stocking has been put is its being hung up to receive 
 presents at Christmas-time, a custom which, as Mr. 
 Henderson points out, the Pilgrim Fathers carried to 
 America, and bequeathed to their descendants. 
 
 It is curious to find even the garter an object of 
 superstition, being employed by young women in their 
 love divinations on Midsummer Eve, a period, it must 
 be remembered, considered most propitious for such 
 ceremonies. Their mode of procedure is this : — The 
 maiden anxious to have a peep of her future husband 
 must sleep in a county different from that in which 
 she usually resides, and on going to bed must take 
 care to knit the left garter about the right stocking, 
 lepeating the following incantation, and at every 
 pause knitting a knot : — 
 
 '' This knot I knit 
 To know the thing I know not yet; 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 87 
 
 That I may see 
 The man that shall my hushand be ; 
 How he goes, and what he wears, 
 And what he does all days and years." 
 
 On retiring to rest the wishecl-for one will appear 
 in her dreams, wearing the insignia of his trade or 
 profession. 
 
 Again, as a popular object of superstition the 
 shoe is unrivalled, and antiquaries are still undecided 
 as to why our forefathers invested this matter-of-fact 
 article of dress with such mysterious qualities, select- 
 ing it as the symbol of good fortune, one of the well- 
 known uses in which it has been employed being the 
 throwing of it for luck, constant allusions to which 
 practice occur in our old writers. Thus, Beaumont 
 and -Fletcher, in TliQ Honest MarCs Fortune^ refer 
 to it : — 
 
 " Captain, your shoes are old ; pray put 'em off, 
 And let one fling 'em after us." 
 
 And Ben Jonson, in his Masque of the Gipsies^ repre- 
 sents one of the gipsies as saying ; — 
 
 " Hurle after an old shoe, 
 I'll be merry whate'er I doe." 
 
 This custom, which was once so prevalent, has not yet 
 died out, for in Norfolk, whenever servants are going 
 after new situations, a shoe is thrown after them, 
 with the wish that they may succeed in what they are 
 going about. Some years ago, when vessels engaged 
 in the Greenland whale fishery left Whitby, in York- 
 shire, the wives and friends of the sailors threw old 
 shoes at the ships as they passed the pier-head. 
 
88 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Indeed, this practice is frequently observed in towns 
 on the sea-coast, and a correspondent of Notes and 
 Queries informs us that one day, when at Swansea, 
 he received a shoe on his shoulder which was intended 
 for a young sailor leaving his home to embark upon a 
 ti-ading voyage. Tennyson has not omitted to speak 
 of this piece of superstition : — 
 
 *' For this thou shalt from all things seek 
 Marrow of mirth and laughter ; 
 And wheresoe'er thou move, good luck 
 Shall throw her old shoe after." 
 
 As an emblem of good luck, the shoe is thrown with 
 much enthusiasm after a bridal couple. Yarious ex- 
 planations have been given of this popular custom. 
 Some think that it was originally intended as a sham 
 assault on the bridegroom for carrying off the bride ; 
 and hence a survival of the old ceremony of opposition 
 to the capture of a bride. Others again are of 
 opinion that the shoe was in former times a symbol of 
 the exercise of dominion and authority over her by 
 her father or guardian ; the receipt of the shoe by the 
 bridegroom, even if accidental, being an omen that the 
 authority was transferred to him. Thus, in the Bible, 
 the receiving of a shoe was an evidence and symbol of 
 asserting or accepting dominion or ownership ; where- 
 as the giving back of the shoe was the symbol of resign- 
 ing it. Another reason for throwing the shoe is given 
 in the following old rhyme : — 
 
 *' When Britons bold 
 Wedded of old, 
 Sandals were backward thrown, 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 89 
 
 The pair to tell 
 That, ill or well, 
 The act was all their own." 
 
 Throwing the shoe after the wedded pair was, also, 
 no doubt intended as an augury of long life to 
 the bride. In Yorkshire the ceremony of shoe-throw- 
 ing is termed " thrashing," and the older the shoe 
 the greater the luck ; and in some parts of Kent the 
 mode of procedure is somewhat peculiar. After the 
 departure of the bride and bridegroom the single 
 ladies are drawn up in one row, and the bachelors 
 in another. When thus arranged, an old shoe is 
 thrown as far as possible, which the fair sex run for : 
 the winner being considered to have the best chance 
 of marriage. She then throws the shoe at the gentle- 
 men, when the first who gets it is believed to have 
 the same chance of matrimony. A somewhat similar 
 custom prevails in Germany, where the bride's shoe 
 is thrown among the guests at the wedding, the person 
 who succeeds in catching it being supposed to have 
 every prospect of a speedy marriage. 
 
 Many auguries are still gathered from the shoe. 
 Thus young girls on going to bed at night place their 
 shoes at right angles to one another, in the form of 
 the letter T, repeating this rhyme : — 
 
 " Hoping this night my true love to see, 
 I place my shoes in the form of a T." 
 
 As in the case of the stocking, great importance is 
 attached by many superstitious persons as to which 
 shoe they put on first, in allusion to which Butler, in 
 his '^Hudibras," says : — 
 
90 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 " Augustus, having b' oversight 
 Put on his left shoe 'fore his right, 
 Had like to have been slain that day 
 By soldiers mutin'ing for pay." 
 
 An old writer speaking of Je^yisll customs tells us 
 that "some of tliem observe, in dressing themselves 
 in the morning, to put on the right stocking and right 
 shoe first without tying it. Then afterwards to put 
 on the left shoe, and so return to the right; that 
 so they may begin and end with the right one, 
 which they account to be the most fortunate. '^ A 
 Suffolk doggrel respecting the "wear of shoes" teaches 
 us the following : — 
 
 *' Tip at the toe : live to see woe; 
 Wear at the side : live to be a bride ; 
 Wear at the ball : live to spend all ; 
 Wear at the heel : live to save a deal." 
 
 Among some of the many charms in which the shoe 
 has been found efficacious, may be mentioned one 
 practised in the Korth of England, where the peasantry, 
 to cure cramp, are in the habit of hiying their shoes 
 across to avert it. Mrs. Latham^ in her "West Sussex 
 Superstitions/' published in the " Folk-lore Record,'' 
 tells us of an old woman who was at a complete 
 loss to understand why her " rheumatics was so un- 
 common bad, for she had put her shoes in the form 
 of a cross every night by the side of her head, ever 
 since she felt the first twinge." In the same county, 
 a cure for ague consists in wearing a leaf of tansy in 
 the shoe. 
 
 It is curious that the shoe should have entered into 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 91 
 
 tlie superstitions associated with death. According to 
 an Aryan tradition, the greater part of the way from 
 the land of the living to that of death lay through 
 morasses, and vast moors overgrown with furze and 
 thorns. That the dead might not pass over them 
 barefoot, a pair of shoes was laid with them in the 
 grave. Hence a funeral is still called in the Hemie- 
 berg district " dead-shoe," and in Scandinavia the shoe 
 itself is known as '' hel-shoe." There are countless 
 other items of folk-lore connected with the shoe : 
 thus in days gone by the phrase, " Over shoes, over 
 boots '^ was equivalent to the popular phrase, ^' In for 
 a penny, in for a pound," an allusion to which we find 
 in Taylor's " Workes" (1630) :— 
 
 *' Where true courage roots, 
 The proverb says, once over shoes, o'er boots. " 
 
 Again, "to stand in another man's shoe " is a popular 
 expression for occupying the place or laying claim to 
 the honours of another. " Looking for dead men's 
 shoes " is still an every-day phrase denoting those who 
 are continually expecting some advantage which will 
 accrue to them on the death of another. The shoe- 
 horn, too, from its convenient use in drawing on a 
 tight shoe, was formerly applied in a jocular meta- 
 phor to subservient and tractable assistants. Thus, 
 for instance, Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida 
 (Act v., sc. 1) makes Thersites in his railing mood 
 give this name to Menelaus, whom he calls '^ a thrifty 
 shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's 
 (Agamemnon's) leg." It was also employed as a 
 contemptuous phrase for danglers after young women. 
 
92 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORK 
 
 A further article of dress that has had much 
 honour conferred upon it is the glove, holding as it 
 does a conspicuous place in many of our old customs 
 and ceremonies. Thus in days gone by it was given, 
 by way of delivery or investiture, in sales or con- 
 veyances of lands and goods. It was also employed 
 as the token of a challenge to fight, a symbolical 
 staking, perhaps of the prowess of the hand to which 
 the glove belonged. Hence to hang up a glove in 
 church was a public challenge, very much as a notice 
 affixed to a church-door is a public notice. Apropos 
 of this custom, a story is given in the life of the Rev. 
 Bernard Gilpin, of the diocese of Durham, who died 
 in 1583. It appears that he observed a glove hanging 
 high up in his church, and ascertaining that it was 
 designed as a challenge to any]one who should dare to 
 displace it, he desired his sexton to do so. " Not I, 
 sir, I dare do no such thing, '^ he replied. Whereupon 
 the parson called for a long staff, and taking it down 
 himself, put it in his pocket. Preaching afterwards 
 on the subject, he denounced this unseemly practice, 
 saying, '^ Behold, I have taken it down myself," and 
 producing the glove, he exhibited it to the whole 
 congregation as a spectacle of honour. This custom, 
 we are told, does not appear to have been much 
 older in this country than the thirteenth century, for 
 Matthew Paris, in writing of the year 1245, speaks 
 of it expressly as French. Noblemen wore their ladies' 
 gloves in front of their hats, a practice mentioned by 
 Drayton as having been in vogue at the battle of 
 Agincourt :— 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 93 
 
 " The noble youth, the common rank above, 
 On their courveting coursers mounted fair, 
 One wore his mistress' garter, one her glove, 
 And he her colours whom he most did love ; 
 
 There was not one but did some favour wear ; 
 Ajid each one took it on his happy speed, 
 To make it famous by some knightly deed." 
 
 The gift of a pair of gloves was at one time the 
 ordinary perquisite of those who performed some small 
 service ; and in process of time, to make the reward 
 of greater value, the glove was ^' lined " with money ; 
 hence the term "glove-money." Kelics of the old 
 custom still survive in the presentation of gloves to 
 those who attend weddings and funerals. It is 
 difficult, however, to discover the connection between 
 gloves and a stolen kiss. Our readers, for example, 
 may recollect how, in Sir Walter Scott's " Fair Maid 
 of Perth," Catharine steals from her chamber on 
 St. Valentine's morn, and catching Henry Smith 
 asleep, gives him a kiss ; then we have the follow- 
 ing : — " Come into the booth with me, my son, and I 
 will furnish thee with a fitting theme. Thou knowest 
 the maiden who ventures to kiss a sleeping man, wins 
 of him a pair of gloves." Gloves are still given to 
 a judge at a maiden assize, a custom which, it has 
 been suggested, originated in a Saxon law, which 
 forbade the judges to wear gloves while sitting on the 
 Bench. Hence, to give a pair of gloves to a judge 
 was tantamount to saying that he need not trouble 
 to come to the Bench, but might wear gloves. Again, 
 in bygone times gloves were worn as a mark of 
 distinction by sovereigns, ecclesiastical dignitaries, 
 
94 DOMESTIC FOLK-LOIIE. 
 
 and otliers ; their workmanship being excessively 
 costly, richly embroidered as they were and deco- 
 rated with jewels. " The association of gloves with 
 ecclesiastical dignity survived/^ says Mr. Leadam 
 in the Antiquary^ '^ the Reformation in England ; 
 for although they ceased to be worn in the ser- 
 vices of the Church, yet as late as the reign of 
 Charles II. bishops upon their consecration were 
 accustomed to present gloves to the archbishop, and 
 to all who came to their consecration banquet. The 
 lavender gloves with golden fringes which do often 
 adorn their portraits, may still remind our modern 
 prelates of the ancient glories of their predecessors." 
 It was also customary to hang a pair of white gloves 
 on the pews of unmarried villagers who had died in 
 the flower of their youth, and at several towns in 
 England it has been customary from time immemorial 
 to announce a fair by hoisting a huge glove upon a 
 pole — a practice v/hich exists at Macclesfield, Ports- 
 mouth, Southampton, and Chester ; the glove being 
 taken down at the conclusion of the fair. Hone, 
 in his description of Exeter Lammas Fair, says : — 
 " The charter for this fair is perpetuated by a glove 
 of immense size, stuffed and carried through the city 
 on a very long pole, decorated with ribbons, flowers, &c.j 
 and attended with music, parish beadles, and the nobi- 
 lity. It is afterwards placed on the top of the Guild- 
 hall, and then the fair commences ; on the taking 
 down of the glove the fair terminates." Mr. Leadam 
 also quotes a passage from the *' Speculum Saxonicum " 
 which throws lierlit on the origin of this custom : — 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 95 
 
 " No one is allowed to set up a market or a mint, 
 without the consent of the ordinary or judge of that 
 place ; the king ought also to send a glove a.s a sign 
 of his consent to the same." The glove, therefore, 
 Avas the king's glove, the earliest form of royal charter, 
 the original sign-manual. Among other items of folk- 
 lore connected with this useful article of dress, we may 
 mention that the term " right as my glove " is a phrase, 
 according to Sir Walter Scott, derived from the prac- 
 tice of pledging the glove as the sign of irrefragable 
 faith. Gloves, too, were in olden times fashionable new 
 year's gifts, having been far more expensive than now- 
 a-days. When Sir Thomas More was Lord Chancellor, 
 he happened to determine a case in favour of a huly 
 named Croaker, who, as a mark of her gratitude, 
 sent him a new year's gift in the shape of a pair 
 of gloves with forty angels in them. But Sir Thomas 
 returned the money \vith the following letter: — 
 ** Mistress, since it were against good manners to 
 refuse your new year's gift, I am content to take 
 your ^doves, but as for the lining I utterly refuse 
 it." Ill the time of Queen Elizabeth, the rural bride- 
 groom wore gloves in his hat as a sign of good 
 husbandry; and on the ^'Border" to bite the glove 
 was considered a pledge of deadly vengeance, in allu- 
 sion to which Sir Walter Scott, in his ' ' Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel," says : — 
 
 " Stern Rutherford right little said, 
 But bit his glove and shook his head." 
 
 The ring, apart from its eventful history, has from 
 the most remote period been surrounded, both in this 
 
96 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 and other countries, not only with a most extensive 
 legendary lore, but with a vast array of superstitions, 
 a detailed account of which would be impossible in a 
 small volume like the present one ; so we must confine 
 ourselves to some of the most popular. 
 
 In the first place, then, certain mysterious virtues 
 have been supposed to reside in rings, not so much 
 on account of their shape as from the materials of 
 which they have been composed. Thus, they have 
 been much worn as talismans or charms, being thought 
 to be infallible preservatives against unseen dangers of 
 every kind. Referring to some of these, we find, for 
 instance, that the turquoise ring was believed to 
 possess special properties, a superstition to which Dr. 
 Donne alludes : — 
 
 " A compassionate tiu-quoise, that doth tell, 
 By looking pale, the wearer is not well." 
 
 Fenton, too, in his " Secret Wonders of N:' ture,'* 
 describes the stone : — ^^ The turkeys doth move when 
 there is any peril prepared to him that weareth if 
 The turquoise ring of Shylock, which, we are ^old in 
 the Merchant of Venice (Act iii., sc. 1), he would not 
 part with for a "wilderness of monkeys," was, no 
 doubt, valued for its secret virtues. 
 
 The carbuncle, again, amongst other properties, was 
 said to give out a natural light, to which it has been 
 supposed Shakespeare alludes in Titus Andronicus 
 (Actii., sc. 3), where, speaking of the ring on the finger 
 of Bassianus, he says : — • 
 
 " Upon his bloody finger he doth wear 
 A precious ring, that lightens all the hole, 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 97 
 
 Which, like a taper in some monument, 
 
 Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks, 
 
 And shows the ragged entrails of the pit." 
 
 A piece of popular superstition makes it unlucky 
 to wear an opal ring, although this lovely stone has 
 always been an object of peculiar admiration from the 
 beautiful variety of colours which it displays, and in the 
 Middle Ages was even thought to possess the united 
 virtues of all the gems with whose distinctive colours 
 it was emblazoned. The diamond was believed to coun- 
 teract poison, a notion which prevailed to a compara- 
 tively late period; though, according to another belief, 
 it was considered the most dangerous of poisons, and as 
 such we find it enumerated among the poisons admi- 
 nistered to Sir Thomas Overbury, when a prisoner in 
 the Tower. An emerald ring was thought to insure 
 purity of thought ; and a toadstone ring was worn as 
 an amulet to preserve new-born children and their 
 mothers from fairies. 
 
 Among the omens associated with rings, we may 
 briefly note that to lose a ring which has been given 
 as a pledge of affection is unlucky ; as also is the 
 breaking of a ring on the finger j while further super- 
 stitions relating to the wedding-ring have been noticed 
 at length in our chapter on marriage. In days 
 gone by, too, " medicated rings " were held in great 
 repute, and were much used for the cure of diseases, 
 instances of which we find among the remedies still 
 in use for cramp, epilepsy, and fits. Silver seems to 
 have been considered highly efficacious ; and rings ■ 
 made of lead, mixed with quicksilver, were worn as 
 
 H 
 
98 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 charms against headaches and other complaints. 
 Dactylomancy, or divination by rings, is not quite 
 forgotten among eager aspirants after matrimony, one 
 mode being to suspend a ring by a thread or hair 
 within a glass tumbler, notice being taken as to how 
 many times it strikes the sides of the glass without 
 being touched. Once more, there is an old piece of folk 
 lore on the colours of stones in " keepsake rings " : — 
 
 " Oh, green is forsaken, 
 And yellow is forsworn, 
 But blue is the prettiest colour that's worn." 
 
 Passing from the ring to another article of dress — 
 perhaps the most insignificant — namely, the pin, we 
 nevertheless find it invested with all kinds of curious 
 superstitions. Thus, it is said that on seeing a pin, 
 one should always pick it up for the sake of good 
 luck, as those who omit to do so run into imminent 
 danger of being overtaken by misfortune, a notion 
 embodied in the following rhyme : — • 
 
 ** See a pin and pick it up, 
 All the day you'll have good luck ; 
 See a pin and let it He, 
 All the day you'll have to cry." 
 
 Why, however. North-country people are so per- 
 sistent in their refusal to give one another a pin, it is 
 not easy to discover. When asked for a jnn, they 
 invariably reply, ^^ You may take one ; but, mind, I do 
 not give it." One of the most popular species of 
 enchantment to which pins have been applied is that 
 sometimes emjDloyed in counteracting the evil efiects 
 of witchcraft. One mode is by ^* pin-sticking," a case 
 
ARTICLES OF DRESS. 99 
 
 of which recently occurred in the parish of Honiton 
 Ciyst, in Devonshire. A landlord having lost one of hirj 
 tenants, certain repairs and improvements were found 
 necessary to prepare for the next. In carrying out 
 the work a chimney had to be explored, when, in 
 the course of the operation, there was found carefully 
 secreted a pig's heart stuck all over with thin prickles, 
 evidently a substitute for pins. This is supposed to 
 have been done by the direction of some " wise " or 
 cunning person, as a means of taking revenge on the 
 witch to whose incantations the party considered some 
 mischief due, in the belief that the heart of the ill- 
 wisher would be pierced in like manner, until it 
 eventually became as pulseless as that of the pig. 
 
 It appears, too, that pins were largely used in a 
 particular species of sorcery. Whenever, for instance, 
 some malevolent individual wished to carry out her 
 ill-natured designs, she made a clay image of the 
 person she intended to harm, baptised the said image 
 with the name of the party whom it was meant to 
 represent, and stuck it full of pins or burnt it. 
 Where the pins were placed the person whom it repre- 
 sented was afflicted wdth pain, and as the figure 
 wasted, so he was said to waste away. Shakespeare 
 alludes to this superstition, and in Richard III, (Act 
 iii., sc. 4) makes the Duke of Gloucester say to 
 Hastings : — 
 
 " Then be your eyes the witness of this ill, 
 See how I am bewitch' d ; behold, mine arm 
 Is, like a blasted sapling, withered up ! 
 And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch 
 
 tOFC. 
 
100 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore, 
 That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.** 
 
 Pins, too, have been in extensive demand for 
 divination, and here and there throughout the 
 country we find ** wishing wells," into which if the 
 passers-by only drop a crooked pin and breathe their 
 wish, it is said they may rest assured of its fulfilment 
 at some future date. 
 
 So much, then, for our illustrations of the folk-lore 
 of dress, a subject wliicli, interesting though it is, we 
 have now discussed at sufiicient length. 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 TABLE SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 Thirteen at Table— Salt-spilling— The Knife— Bread, and other 
 Articles of Food — Wishing Bones — Tea-leaves — Singing before 
 Breakfast — Shaking Hands across the Table. 
 
 It is frequently found that even strong-minded persons 
 are not exempt from the prejudice against sitting 
 down to dinner when there are only thirteen present. 
 Many amusing anecdotes are recorded of the devices 
 resorted to for avoiding the consequences supposed 
 to be incurred by the neglect of this superstition — 
 the notion being that one of the thirteen, generally 
 the youngest, wdll die within the next twelve montlis. 
 To avoid, therefore, any such contingency, many 
 persons, should they be disappointed in one of their 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS. 101 
 
 guests, have the empty place filled by a child, and 
 should one not always be forthcoming, no slight incon- 
 venience is occasionally produced. ISTot very long ago 
 a case was recorded in which a lady, not being able at 
 the last moment to make up the number fourteen, had 
 her favourite cat seated at the table, hoping thereby 
 to break the fatal spell attaching to the unlucky 
 number thirteen. 
 
 The origin popularly assigned to this widespread 
 superstition is the fact that thirteen was the number 
 at the Last Supper, Judas being the thirteenth. A 
 correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine^ however, 
 writing at the close of the last century, says that it is 
 " founded on the calculations adhered to by the 
 insurance offices, which presume that out of thirteen 
 persons, taken indiscriminately, one will die within 
 a year." But this is not the probable origin, that 
 which connects it with the Last Supper being no 
 doubt the correct one. Some, says Lord Lyttelton, in 
 Notes and Queries^ have carried the superstition ^'to 
 the extent of disliking the number thirteen at all 
 times ; but the commoner form limits it to Friday — 
 not that there is any ground for fact in this, for the 
 Last Supper was on the fifth, not the sixth day of 
 the week. Sailors are held somewhat superstitious, 
 and I knew an eminent naval officer who actually 
 would walk out of the room when the conjunction 
 happened on a Friday, after the death of the wife and 
 eldest daughter, both of which events were preceded 
 by the said conjunction." Among other instances of 
 this piece of superstition, we may quote the following, 
 
102 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 related by Addison in tlie Spectator : — " I remember," 
 he says, " I was one in a mixed assembly that was 
 full of wine and mirth, when on a sudden an old 
 woman unluckily observed that there were thirteen of 
 us in company. This remark struck a panic terror 
 into several who were present, insomuch that one or 
 two of the ladies were going to leave the room ; but 
 a friend of mine, taking notice that one of our female 
 companions was likely to become a mother, affirmed 
 there were fourteen in the room, and that instead 
 of portending that one in the company should die, 
 it plainly foretold that one of them should be born. 
 Had not my friend found this expedient to break the 
 omen, I question not but half the women in the com- 
 pany should have fallen sick that very night." Again, 
 we may give another anecdote recorded by Rachel, the 
 celebrated tragedienne. On her return from Egypt, 
 in the spring of 1857, she installed herself in a villa 
 in the neighbourhood of Montpellier. There she re- 
 ceived a visit from the poet Ponsard and Arsene 
 Houssaye, the latter of whom was making a tour as 
 inspector of the Departmental Museums. " Do you 
 recollect the dinner we had at the house of Victor 
 Hugo, at the close of the repetition of L'Angelo ? '' she 
 said to the former. " You remember there were thirteen 
 of us. There was Hugo and his wife, you and your 
 wife, Rebecca and I, Girardin and his wife, and some 
 others. Well ! where to-day are the thirteen ] Victor 
 Hugo and his wife are in Jersey ; your wife is dead ; 
 Madame de Girardin is dead ; my poor Rebecca is 
 dead ; Gerard de Nerval, Oradie, Alfred de Musset 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS. 103 
 
 are dead. I — say no more. There remain but 
 Girardin and you. Adieu ! my friends. Never laugh 
 at thirteen at a table ! " Anecdotes, indeed, relating 
 to this superstition are without number, and form 
 many an amusing episode in the lives of noted charac- 
 ters. It may be mentioned here that the number 
 thirteen is considered ominous in other ways. Fuller, 
 by way of example, tells us how a covetous courtier 
 complained to King Edward YI. tt-at Christ College, 
 Cambridge, was a superstitious foundation, consisting 
 of a master and twelve fellows, in imitation of 
 Christ and His twelve Apostles. He, therefore, ad- 
 vised the king to take away one or two fellowships, 
 so as to dissolve that unlucky number. " Oh, no," 
 replied the king, ^* I have a better way than that 
 to mar their conceit ; I will add a thirteenth fellowship 
 to them," which he accordingly did. 
 
 Another equally popular superstition is the ill-luck 
 supposed to attach to salt-spilling : one notion being 
 that to upset the salt-cellar while in the act of hand- 
 ing it to any one is a sign of an impending quarrel 
 between the parties. It is also said to indicate sorrow 
 or trouble to the person spilling it, and to counteract 
 the evil consequences of this unlucky act one should 
 fling some salt over the shoulder. Gay speaks of this 
 popular fancy in the fable of the " Farmer's Wife 
 and the Raven " : — 
 
 " The salt was spilt, to mc it fell, 
 Then to contribute to my loss, 
 My knife and fork were laid across." 
 
 Indeed constant allusions are found to this wide- 
 
104 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 spread superstition both in our old and modern 
 writers. Gayton, describing two friends, says : — 
 
 " I have two friends of either sex, which do 
 Eat little salt, or none, yet are friends too, 
 Of both which persons I can truly tell, 
 They are of patience most invincible 
 Whom out of temper no mischance at all 
 Can put — no, if towards them the salt should faU.* 
 
 This piece of folk-lore dates back up to the time 
 of the Komans, and at the present day is not limited 
 to our own country. It has been suggested that it 
 tnay have originated from the circumstance that salt 
 was formerly used in sacrifices, and that to spill it 
 when once placed on the head of the \dctim was 
 regarded as a bad omen. Bailey, however, assigns 
 a very different reason, telling us that salt was 
 considered by the ancients incorruptible, and on this 
 account was made the symbol of friendship. If it, 
 therefore, was spilt, the persons between whom it 
 happened thought their friendship would not be of 
 long duration. 
 
 Some people dislike even so much as to put salt 
 on another person's plate, considering this act 
 equivalent to wishing one's neighbour misfortune. 
 Hence there is a well-known couplet : — 
 
 " Help me to salt. 
 Help me to sorrow." 
 
 A correspondent of Notes and Queries relates how 
 one day he offered to help an old Highland lady at 
 dinner to some salt from the cellar, which stood much 
 nearer to him than to her ; when she gravely put 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS. 105 
 
 back his hand, and drew away her plate, saying at 
 the same time, with a kind of shudder, between her 
 teeth, ^^ Help me to' salt, help me to sorrow." The 
 ill-luck may be averted by a second help. Salt has 
 also been considered a powerful safeguard against 
 evil spirits ; and in Scotland it was once customary in 
 brewing to throw a handful of salt on the top of the 
 mash to ward off witches. Again, as an interesting 
 illustration of the change which has passed over our 
 domestic manners, we may quote the phrase '^ to sit 
 above the salt," that is, in a place of honour, where- 
 by a marked and invidious distinction was formerly 
 maintained among those at the same table. A large 
 salt-cellar was usually placed about the middle of a 
 long table, the places above which were assigned to 
 the guests of distinction, those below to inferiors and 
 poor relations. It argues little for the delicacy of our 
 ancestors that they should have permitted such 
 ill-natured distinctions at their board ; often, as it has 
 been said, placing their guests '' below the salt " for 
 no better purpose than that of mortifying them. 
 Hence Ben Jonson, speaking of the characteristics of 
 an insolent coxcomb, says : — "His fashion is not to 
 take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. 
 He never drinks below the salt." 
 
 Among the many other odd items of folk-lore 
 associated with the table, we may mention in the 
 next place those relating to the knife. Thus, to let a 
 knife drop is a sign that a visitor is coming to the 
 house : and to lay the knife and fork crosswise on 
 one's plate is an omen that crosses and troubles will 
 
106 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 soon occur. Equally unlucky, too, is it to give any 
 kind of knife away, for, as Gay in his " Shepherd's 
 Week " says : — 
 
 *' But woe is me ! such presents luckless prove, 
 For knives, they tell me, always sever love,*' 
 
 Indeed, this superstition is not confined to a knife, 
 but extends to any sharp or cutting instrument, such 
 as a pair of scissors, a razor, &c. To avoid the 
 danger of such a misfortune, some trifling recompense 
 must be made in return. This superstition was con- 
 futed by a versifier of the last century — the Rev. 
 Samuel Bishop — who presented a knife to his wife on 
 her fifteenth wedding-day, with a copy of some very 
 clever verses of which the following are a specimen : — 
 
 " A knife, dear girl, cuts love, they say, 
 Mere modish love perhaps it may ; 
 For any tool of any kind 
 Can separate what was never joined; 
 The knife that cuts our love in two 
 \Yill have much tougher work to do ; 
 Must cut your softness, worth, and spirit, 
 Down to the vulgar size of merit,'' &c. 
 
 Some consider it unlucky to find a knife, from a 
 notion that it will bring ill-luck to them ; while 
 others again often place a knife near a sleeping child 
 as a charm to preserve it from danger, a belief to 
 which Herrick thus refers : — 
 
 " Let the superstitious wife 
 Near the child's heart lay a knife ; 
 Point be up, and haft be down ; 
 While she gossips ia the town. 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS. 107 
 
 This 'mongst other mystic charms 
 Keeps the sleeping child from harms." 
 
 Even the loaf of bread, too, without which the most 
 frugal board would be incomplete, has not escaped 
 without its quota of folk-lore. Thus, many a house- 
 wife still marks the sign of the cross upon her loaf 
 before placing it in the oven, just as the Durham 
 butcher does to the shoulder of a sheep or lamb after 
 taking off the skin — the notion probably being to 
 protect it against the injurious influence of witchcraft. 
 In many parts of Scotland peasants were formerly in 
 the habit of making a cross on their tools, considering 
 that by so doing they would be rendered safe against 
 the mischievous pranks of the fairy folks as they 
 went on their midnight errands. Again, if a loaf 
 accidentally parts in the hand while an unmarried 
 lady is cutting it, this either prognosticates that she 
 will not be married during the next twelve months, 
 or, what is still worse, that there will be a dissension 
 of some kind in the family. Some, too, have a super- 
 stitious objection to turning a loaf upside-down after 
 cutting it. Herrick refers to the custom of carryiu 
 a crust of bread in the pocket for luck's sake — a 
 practice which is not quite obsolete : — 
 
 *' If ye fear to be affrighted 
 When ye are, by chance, benighted ; 
 In your pocket for a trust 
 Carry nothing but a crust, 
 For that holy piece of bread 
 Charms the danger and the dread." 
 
 While speaking of bread it may not be inappro- 
 
 o 
 
108 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 priate to refer to a few other articles of fare around 
 which superstition has cast its mantle. Thus, eggs 
 have an extensive folk-lore both in this and other 
 countries. Many persons, for instance, after eating 
 an egg take special care to crush the shell ; the 
 omission of this ceremony, as they fancy, being 
 attended with ill-luck. Sir Thomas Browne informs 
 us that the real reason is to prevent witchcraft : 
 *' lest witches should draw or prick their names 
 therein, and veneficiously mischief their person, 
 they broke the shell." It is also considered a bad 
 omen to bring eggs into the house after dark, 
 and many persons avoid burning egg-shells lest the 
 hens should cease to lay. According to a superstition 
 current in the West of England, one should always 
 make a hole through an egg-shell before throwing it 
 away, as, unless this is done, there is a danger of 
 witches using them to put to sea for the purpose 
 of wrecking ships. Beaumont and Fletcher in their 
 *' Women Pleased " allude to this notion : — 
 
 *' The devil should think of purchasing that egg-shell 
 To victual out a witch for the Burmoothies." 
 
 Just as it is considered, too, unlucky to bring eggs 
 into the house after dark, so the same prejudice exists 
 with regard to taking them out. One day, we are 
 told in the Stamford Mercury (Oct. 29, 1852), a 
 person in want of some eggs called at a farmhouse 
 and inquired of the good woman whether she had 
 any eggs to sell, to which she replied that she had a 
 few scores to dispose of. '' Then 111 take them home 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS. 109 
 
 with me in the cart," was his answer, to which 
 she somewhat indignantly replied, " That you will 
 not j don't you know the sun has gone down 1 
 You are welcome to the eggs at a proper hour 
 of the day, but I would not let them go out of the 
 house after the sun is set on any consideration 
 whatever." A Norfolk superstition warns persons 
 against eating the marrow of pork lest they should 
 go mad ; and, in the North of England, we are 
 told that should the meat for dinner shrink in the 
 pot, it presages a downfall in life. Should it swell, 
 on the contrary, to a large size, it denotes that the 
 head of the family will be prosperous in his under- 
 takings. These odd fancies vary in different localities, 
 and in out-of-the-way districts where the railway 
 has not yet penetrated, they still retain their hold on 
 the primitive and uncultivated minds of our agricul- 
 tural peasantry. At the same time, however, occa- 
 sional survivals of many of these old worn-out 
 superstitions crop up in unexpected quarters, showing 
 they are not completely dead. Thus, our children 
 still practise their divination by means of the ^Svishing 
 bone " of a fowl, and are, moreover, ever on the alert 
 to discover, what they consider, infallible omens from 
 any article of food which nursery tradition has stamped 
 as possessing such remarkable qualities. As we have 
 already pointed out in another chapter, tea-leaves 
 often afford to both old and young a constant source 
 of amusement ; and we may, now and then, find 
 some elderly damsel, who still aspires to enter one 
 day on the marriage state, taking care to put the 
 
110 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORR. 
 
 milk into her tea before tlie sugar lest she should 
 lose her chance of securing a sweetheart. Mrs. Latham, 
 too, tells us how matrimonial fortunes are often 
 told by seers at home from the grounds or sediment 
 remaining at the bottom of a tea-cup ; and where to 
 unenlightened eyes nothing is apparent but a little 
 black dust floating in a slop, those who have the wit 
 to do so may discern a hidden meaning. Again, 
 among the host of small superstitions connected with 
 our daily meals, one at the very outset relates to 
 breakfast ; there being a v/idespread belief that if a 
 person sings before breakfast, he will cry before 
 supper. This notion probably has some reference to 
 another popular one, namely, that high spirits fore- 
 bode evil, proving the forerunner of adversity. 
 Many anecdotes illustrative of this theory have been 
 recorded at various times. In the last act of Romeo 
 and Juliet, Romeo is introduced as saying : — 
 
 " If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, 
 My dreams presage some joyful news at hand; 
 My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne ; 
 And all this day an unaccustomed spirit 
 Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts." 
 
 In the evidence given at the inquest upon the 
 bodies of four persons killed by an explosion at a 
 firework manufactory in Bermondsey, October 12th, 
 1849, one of the witnesses stated : — ^' On Friday they 
 were all very merry, and Mrs. B. said she feared 
 something would happen before they went to bed, 
 because they were so happy." 
 
 If, in a social gathering of any kind, an unmarried 
 
FURNITURE OMENS. Ill 
 
 person is inadvertently placed between a man and his 
 wife, it is an indication tliat the individual so seated 
 will be married within the course of a year. Many 
 consider it unlucky to shake hands across the table ; 
 and there is also an old superstition mentioned by 
 Grose, that, in eating, to miss the mouth and let 
 the food fall is a bad omen, betokening approaching 
 sickness. Once more, if a person in rising from table 
 overturns his chair, this is not a very fortunate 
 occurrence, as it is said to show that he has been 
 speaking untruths. Without further extending our 
 list of the superstitious beliefs and practices that 
 have clustered round the table — to which many of 
 our readers will doubtless be able to make their own 
 additions — we may briefly sum up this branch of the 
 subject by saying : — 
 
 *' 'Tis a history 
 Handed from ages down ; a nurse's tale, 
 Which children open-eyed and mouth' d devour, 
 And thus, as garrulous ignorance relates, 
 We learn it and beheve." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FURNITURE OMENS. 
 
 Folk-lore of the Looking-glass— Luck of Edenliall— Clock-falling 
 — Chairs — Beds — The Bellows. 
 
 The desire to gather omens from the various sur- 
 rounding objects of every-day life has naturally in-' 
 eluded articles of furniture ; and hence we find signs 
 
112 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 and portents attached to certain of these which are 
 implicitly credited by many, from the highest to the 
 lowest, who, notwithstanding, would consider them- 
 selves deeply insulted if the idea of their being 
 superstitious were only so much as hinted at by some 
 sceptical friend. Among the most common of these 
 odd fancies are those relating to the looking-glass. 
 As a piece of furniture this is most necessary, and its 
 very importance is, perhaps, the chief reason why 
 superstition has invested it with those mysterious 
 qualities which certainly do not belong in the same 
 ratio to chairs and tables. A chair, however beautiful 
 and costly in its manufacture, may nevertheless be 
 cruelly broken with perfect impunity ; whereas, if 
 some wretched, dilapidated looking-glass is acci- 
 dentally cracked, the inmates of the house are 
 thoroughly discomposed, from a conviction that such 
 an event is sure to be followed by misfortune of some 
 kind or other. In Cornwall, the supjoosed penalty for 
 such an offence is seven years of sorrow ; and a York- 
 shire proverb informs us that this unfortunate occur- 
 rence entails *' seven years^ trouble, but no want." It 
 has also been said to foretell the speedy decease of the 
 master of the house ; and in Scotland it is regarded as 
 an infallible sign that some member of the family will 
 shortly die. It has been suggested that this popular 
 superstition dates very many years back, and probably 
 originated in the terror inspired by the destruction of 
 the reflected human image — an interesting illustration 
 of how the formation of certain ideas is often deter- 
 mined by mere analogy. A similar style of thinking 
 
FURNITURE OMENS. 113 
 
 also underlies tlie mediaeval necromancer^s practice of 
 making a waxen image of his enemy, and shooting at 
 it with arrows in order to bring about his death. 
 
 The folk-lore, however, of the looking-glass does 
 not end here ; for many consider it the height of 
 ill-luck to see the new moon reflected in a looking- 
 glass or through a window-pane ; and some mothers 
 studiously prevent their youngest child looking in one 
 until a year old. It is also associated with marriage 
 and death. Thus, in the South of England it is 
 regarded as a bad omen for a bride on her wedding 
 morning to take a last peep in the glass when she is 
 completely dressed in her bridal attire, before starting 
 for the church. Hence very great care is generally 
 taken to put on a glove or some slight article of 
 adornment after the final lingering and reluctant look 
 has been taken in the mirror. The idea is that any 
 young lady who is too fond of the looking-glass will 
 be unfortunate when married. This is by no means the 
 only occasion on which superstitious fancy interferes 
 with the grown-up maiden's peeps into the looking- 
 glass. Thus, Swedish young ladies are afraid of look- 
 ing in the glass after dark, or by candle-light, lest by so 
 doing they should forfeit the goodwill of the other sex. 
 
 The practice of covering the looking-glass, or re- 
 moving it from the chamber of death, still prevails in 
 some parts of England — the notion being that ^' all 
 vanity, all care for earthly beauty, are over with the 
 deceased." It has also been suggested that, as the 
 invisible world trenches closely upon the visible one 
 in the chamber of death, a superstitious dread is felt 
 I 
 
114 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 of some spiritual being imaging himself forth in tlie 
 blank surface of the mirror. Mr. Baring Gould 
 considers that the true reason for shrouding the look- 
 ing-glass before a funeral was that given him in 
 Warwickshire, where there is a popular notion that if 
 a person looks into a mirror in the chamber of death 
 he will see the corpse looking over his shoulder. 
 Again, Brand informs us that looking-glasses were 
 generally used by magicians '' in their superstitious 
 and diabolical operations." He quotes an old au- 
 thority, who says : — " Some magicians, being curious 
 to find out by the help of a looking-glass, or a glass 
 full of water, a thing that lies hidden, make choice 
 of young maids to discern therein those images or 
 sights which a person defiled cannot see." Sometimes, 
 too, our ancestors dipped a looking-glass into the 
 water when they were anxious to ascertain what 
 would become of a sick person. Accordingly as he 
 looked well or ill in the glass, when covered with the 
 drops of water, so they foretold whether he would re- 
 cover or not. Mirrors were also regarded by our fore- 
 fathers as the most efiective agencies in divining secrets 
 and bringing to light hidden mysteries. Thus, there is 
 a tradition that the Gunpowder Plot was discovered 
 by Dr. John Dee with his magic mirror. We find in 
 a prayer-book, printed by Basket t in 1737, an en- 
 graving which depicts the following scene : — In the 
 centre is a circular looking-glass, in which is the 
 reflection of the Houses of Parliament by night, and 
 a person entering carrying a dark lantern. On the 
 left side there are two men in the costume of James's 
 
FURNITURE OMENS. 115 
 
 time looking into the mirror — one evidently tlie king, 
 the other probably Sir Kenehn Digby. On the right 
 side, at the top, is the eye of Providence darting a 
 ray on to the mirror; and below are some legs and 
 hoofs, as if evil spirits were flying out of the picture. 
 This plate, says a correspondent of Notes and Queries^ 
 " would seem to represent the method by which, under 
 Providence (as is evidenced by the eye), the discovery 
 of the Gunpowder Plat was at that time seriously 
 believed to have been effected. The tradition, more- 
 over, must have been generally believed, or it never 
 could have found its way into a prayer-book printed 
 by the king's printer." It may be noted, however, 
 that as the fame of Dee's magic mirror was at its 
 zenith about the time of the Gunpowder Plot, this 
 may have led to the mirror being adopted as a popular 
 emblem of discovery, or 'throwing light" upon a 
 subject. Hence it has been reasonably suggested that 
 the mirror in the print may simply be a piece of 
 artistic design, rather than evidence of its actual 
 employment in the discovery. 
 
 In days gone by, too, it appears to have been 
 customary for both sexes to wear small looking-glasses 
 — a fantastic fashion much ridiculed by Ben Jonson 
 and others of his time. Men even wore them in 
 their hats — an allusion to which custom we find in 
 Ben Jonson's Cynthia s Revels (Act ii., sc. 1) ; ''Where 
 is your page ? Call for your casting-bottle, and place 
 your mirror in your hat as I told you." We may 
 infer that this was the very height of affectation by 
 the nuamer in which the remark is introduced. 
 
116 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 While men of fashion wore mirrors as brooches or 
 ornaments in their hats, ladies carried them at their 
 girdles or on their breasts. Thus Lovelace makes a 
 lady say : — 
 
 " My lively shade thou ever shalt retains 
 In thy inclosed feather-framed giasse." 
 
 It was a popular superstition in former years that 
 fine glass, such as that of Venice, would break if 
 poison were put into it. To this curious notion 
 Massinger thus gracefully alludes : — 
 
 " Here crystal glasses .... 
 
 This pure metal 
 
 So innocent is, and faithful to the mistress, 
 Or master, that possesses it, that rather 
 Than hold one drop that's venomous, of itself 
 It flies in pieces, and deludes the traitor." 
 
 This is among the errors noticed by Sir Thomas 
 Browne, who says, " And although it be said that 
 poison will break a Yenice glass, yet have we not 
 met with any of that nature. Were there a truth 
 herein, it were the best preservative for princes and 
 persons exalted to such fears, and surely far better 
 than divers now in use." It may not be inappropriate 
 here to refer to the well-known tradition connected 
 with the " Luck of Edenhall. " From time immemorial 
 there has been a current belief that any one who had 
 the courage to rush upon a fairy festival and snatch 
 from the merry throng their drinking-glass, would 
 find it prove to him a constant source of good fortune, 
 supposing he could carry it across a running stream. 
 A glass has been carefully preserved at Edenhall, 
 
FURNITURE OMENS. 117 
 
 Cumberland, which was in all probability a sacred 
 chalice ; but the legend is that the butler, one 
 day going to draw water, surprised a company of 
 fairies who were amusing themselves on the grass 
 near the well. He seized the glass that was standing 
 upon its margin, which the fairies tried to recover, but, 
 after an ineffectual struggle, they vanished, crying : — 
 
 ** If that glass do hreak or fall. 
 Farewell the luck of Edenhall." 
 
 The good fortune, however, of this ancient house 
 was never so much endangered as by the Duke of 
 Wharton, who, on one occasion having drunk the 
 contents of this magic glass, inadvertently dropped it, 
 and here most assuredly would for ever have ter- 
 minated the luck of Edenhall, if the butler, who 
 stood at his elbow to receive the empty glass, had not 
 happily caught it in his napkin. 
 
 Referring, however, more particularly to our 
 subject, we find several items of folk-lore associated 
 with the clock. Thus, in the North of England, there 
 is a superstition called "Clock-falling," the idea 
 being that if a woman enters a house after her 
 confinement, and before being churched, the house- 
 clock will immediately fall on its face. So strong 
 was this belief in years past that a woman would 
 never think of transgressing this rule under any 
 circumstances whatever. In some places the house- 
 clock is stopped on the occasion of a death, no doubt 
 to remind the survivors that with the deceased one 
 time is over, and that henceforth the days and hours 
 
118 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 are no longer of any account to liim. A corres- 
 pondent of Notes and Queries informs us that lie 
 knew ^^an intelligent, well-informed gentleman in 
 Scotland who, among his last injunctions on his 
 death-bed, ordered that as soon as he expired the 
 house-clock was to be stopped, a command which was 
 strictly obeyed." Aubrey also tells us that formerly 
 it was customary for people of a serious turn of mind 
 to say, every time they heard the clock strike, " Lord, 
 grant my last hour may be my best hour." 
 
 Chairs, again, have their superstitions. It is 
 regarded as a bad omen, for instance, if, when a 
 person leaves a house, he replaces the chair on which 
 he has been sitting against the wall, the probability 
 being that he Avill never visit the house again. The 
 chair on which a woman sits after her confinement 
 to receive the congratulations of her friends is 
 popularly termed " a groaning chair," an allusion to 
 which we find in " Poor Robin's Almanack " : — 
 
 " For a nurse, the child to dandle, 
 Sugar, soap, spiced pots, and candle, 
 A groaning chair, and eke a cradle." 
 
 Another article of furniture not without its folk-lore 
 is the bed. Thus some superstitious persons always 
 have their bedsteads placed parallel to the planks 
 of the floor, considering it unlucky to sleep across 
 the boards. Others again pay particular attention 
 to the point of the compass towards which the head 
 should be when in bed, a belief we find existing 
 even among the Hindoos, who believe that to sleep 
 with the head to the north will cause one's days to 
 
FURNITURE OMENS. 119 
 
 be shortened. To lie in the direction of the south 
 they say is productive of longevity, whereas the 
 east and west, it is asserted, are calculated to bring 
 riches and change of scene respectively. Various 
 theories in this country have been, at different times, 
 started as to the proper position of the bedstead 
 during the hours of sleep, which find ready accept- 
 ance among those who are ever ready to grasp any 
 new idea, however fanciful it may be. A corre- 
 spondent of The Builder^ writing on the subject, 
 says : — " So far as my own observations have gone, I 
 know that my sleep is always more sound when my 
 head is placed to the north. There are persons whom 
 I know, the head of whose bed is to the north, and 
 who, to awake early, will reverse their usual position 
 in the bed, but without knowing the reason why, 
 beyond ^ that they could always wake earlier,' the 
 sleep being more broken." An eminent physician 
 in Scotland states that, when he failed by every other 
 prescription to bring sleep to invalid children, he 
 recommended their couches or little beds to be turned 
 due north and south — the head of the child being 
 placed towards the north — a process which he had 
 always found successful in promoting sleep. After all, 
 however, as has been so often said, the best prescrip- 
 tion for a good night's rest is a healthy body and a 
 sound mind. 
 
 The well-known phrase, " to get out of bed the 
 wrong way," or " with the left leg foremost," is 
 generally said of an ill-tempered person ; the term 
 having originated in an ancient superstition, which 
 
120 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 regarded it as unlucky to place the left foot first on 
 the ground on getting out of bed. 
 
 Once more, as a mark of the simplicity of ancient 
 manners, it was customary for persons even of the 
 highest rank to sleep together, an allusion to which 
 practice occurs in Henry V. , where Exeter says : — 
 
 *' I^ay, but the man that was his bedfellow, 
 Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with kingly favours." 
 
 In conclusion, we may take one further illustra- 
 tion on this subject from that useful little article, the 
 bellows, to place which on a table is considered ex- 
 tremely unlucky, and few servants will either do it or 
 allow it to be done. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 Prevalence and Continuity of Superstitions — Sneezing — Stumbling 
 — A Whistling "Woman — Sweeping — Breaking Crockery — Fires 
 and Candles— Money— Other Superstitions. 
 
 It has often been asked how that formidable array of 
 superstitions, which are so firmly established in most 
 houses, came into being, and what is their origin ? 
 Although indeed one may occasionally smile at the 
 " reign of terror " which these frequently exercise 
 over their credulous believers, yet it must be admitted 
 they are not limited to any one class. In discussing 
 and comparing the intellectual condition of one class 
 of society with another, we are apt, while passing 
 
HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 121 
 
 censure on the one for its odd notions and fanciful 
 beliefs, to forget how the other often cherishes the 
 very same, although it may be in a more disguised 
 form. Thus, by way of example, whereas some 
 ignorant persons resort to a cunning man or 
 ^' wise woman " for advice in case of emergency, 
 many an educated person is found consulting with 
 equal faith a clairvoyant or spirit-medium. While, 
 too, some uneducated person believes in a particular 
 omen, which is condemned by an intelligent com- 
 munity as the height of folly, many cultivated people, 
 as we have said, may be found who hesitate before 
 sitting down to dinner when the party consists of 
 thirteen. However much, therefore, we may dislike 
 to own the fact, we must acknowledge that superstition 
 is a distinct element in the human character, although 
 under the influence of education it has not the same 
 opportunity for development as in the case of those 
 whose mental powers have never been thoroughly 
 trained. These superstitions, beliefs, and practices, 
 too, it must be remembered, have not sprung up in 
 a day, but have been handed down from genera- 
 tion to generation in popular traditions, tales, rhymes, 
 and proverbs, and consequently have become so inter- 
 woven with the daily life as to make it no easy task 
 to root them out. It has been truly said : — 
 
 " How superstitiously we mind our evils ! 
 The throwing down salt, or crossing of a hare, 
 Bleeding at nose, the stumbling of a horse, 
 Or singing of a cricket, are of power 
 To daunt whole man in us." 
 
122 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 As Mr. Tylor has truly shown, when a custom or 
 superstition is once fairly started in the world, disturb- 
 ing influences may long affect it so slightly that it 
 may keep its course from generation to generation, as 
 a stream once settled in its bed will flow on for ages. 
 Thus thousands of superstitions, the true meanings of 
 which have perished for centuries, continue to exist 
 simply because they have existed. A striking example 
 of this fact may be found in the widespread folk-lore 
 associated with the act of sneezing in this and other 
 countries, which may be traced back to the most 
 remote period. Thus, in the classic ages of Greece and 
 Rome, we read of the lucky sneeze of Telemachus, and 
 of Aristotle's remark that people consider a sneeze as 
 divine, but not a cough. On account of sneezing 
 being deemed lucky, it has always been customary 
 to salute the sneezer, a custom which the ancient 
 Greeks claimed to have derived from Prometheus, 
 who stole celestial Are to animate his newly-made 
 figure of clay. Tradition says that as the fire per- 
 meated its frame, the creature sneezed, which caused 
 Prometheus to invoke blessings on it. Anyhow the 
 practice of salutation on sneezing dates from the 
 earliest times, and it is interesting to find a super- 
 stition of this kind, which may be looked on as a 
 curiosity of primitive civilisation, still existing in our 
 midst. Thus, in the Midland counties, grandmothers 
 still exclaim, *^ God help you ! " when they hear a 
 child sneeze ; and it is a very common notion that 
 to sneeze three times before breakfast is a pledge 
 that one will soon receive a present of some kmd. 
 
HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 123 
 
 The sneezing of a cat is considered an evil omen, it 
 being a sign that the family will all have colds. 
 According to a Scotch superstition a new-born child 
 is in the fairy spells until it sneezes, but when this 
 takes place all danger is past. A correspondent of 
 Notes and Queries tells us that he once overheard 
 "an old and reverend-looking dame crooning over a 
 new-born child, and then, watching it intently and in 
 silence for nearly a minute, she said, taking a huge 
 pinch of snufF, ' Oich ! Oich ! No yet — no yet.* 
 Suddenly the youngster exploded in a startling 
 manner, into a tremendous sneeze ; when the old 
 lady suddenly bent down and, as far as I could see 
 drew her forefinger across the brows of the child, very 
 much as if making the sign of the cross (although as 
 a strict Calvinist she would have been scandalised at 
 the idea), and joyfully exclaimed, 'God sain the bairn 
 it's 710 a warlochy^ Indeed it is a very prevalent 
 idea that no idiot ever sneezed or could sneeze. 
 Some attach importance to the day on which a person 
 sneezes ; and in the West of England it is said that — 
 
 *' Sneeze on Sunday morning fasting, 
 You'll enjoy your own true love to everlasting." 
 
 Another household superstition which has come 
 down to us from the far-ofi* past is connected with 
 stumbling ; frequent allusions to which occur in the 
 classic writers. Thus, at the present day to stumble 
 up-stairs is considered unlucky by some, but just the 
 reverse by others. Grose remarks that to stumble up 
 the stairs is a prognostic of good luck, and in some 
 
124 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 places it is supposed to indicate that the stumbler if un- 
 married will cease to be so before the year is out. 
 Others affirm that to stumble in the morning as soon 
 as one goes out of doors is a sign of ill-luck. As an 
 instance of this omen in ancient times, it is stated that 
 Tiberius Gracchus, as he was leaving his house on the 
 day of his death, stumbled upon the threshold with 
 such violence that he broke the nail of his great toe. 
 It is not necessary, however, to quote further cases of 
 this superstition in years gone by, it being sufficient 
 for our purpose to show that it has been handed down 
 to us by our ancestors, and that stumbling, like 
 sneezing, has always been regarded as an ominous act. 
 Again, stumbling at a grave has been ranked among 
 unlucky omens, a superstition to which Shakespeare 
 refers in Romeo and Juliet (Act v., sc. 3), where Friar 
 
 Laurence says : — 
 
 " How oft to-night 
 Have my old feet stumbled at graves.'* 
 
 We may also compare Gloucester's words in 3 Henry 
 VI. (Act v., sc. 3) :— 
 
 ** For many men that stumble at the threshold 
 Are well foretold that danger lurks within." 
 
 Hence vaiious charms have been practised to 
 counteract the supposed ill-effect of this unlucky act, 
 upon which Poor Robin, in his "Almanack for 1695," 
 quaintly remarks : — " All those who, walking the 
 streets, stumble at a stick or stone, and when they 
 are past it turn back again to spurn or kick the stone 
 they stumbled at, are liable to turn students in 
 Goatam College, and upon admittance to have a coat 
 
HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 125 
 
 put upon him, with a cap, a bauble, and other orna- 
 ments belonging to his degree." 
 
 Again, in most places there is a very strong 
 antipathy to a woman whistling about a house, or 
 even out of doors, this act being said to be always 
 attended with fatal results. Thus, there is a Cornish 
 saying to the following effect : — *' A whistling woman 
 and a crowing hen are the two unluckiest things under 
 the sun ; " and the ISTorthamptonshire peasantry have 
 this rhyme which is to the same purport : — 
 
 " A whistling woman and crowing hen 
 Are neither fit for God nor men." 
 
 Or, according to another version : — 
 
 *' A whistling wife and a crowing hen 
 Will call the old gentleman out of his den.'* 
 
 Why there should be this superstitious dislike to a 
 woman's whistling it is difficult to decide, but at 
 the same time it is a curious fact that one seldom 
 hears any of the fair sex amusing themselves in 
 this manner. Mr. Henderson informs us that the 
 seafaring part of the population on the coast of 
 Yorkshire have the same dread of hearing a woman 
 whistle. A few years ago, when a party of friends 
 were going on board a vessel at Scarborough, the 
 captain astonished them by declining to allow one of 
 them to enter it. " Not that young lady," he said, 
 ''she whistles." Curiously enough the vessel was 
 lost on her next voyage ; so, had the poor girl set 
 foot on it, the misfortune would certainly have been 
 ascribed to her. According to one legend, this super- 
 
126 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 stition originated in the circumstance that a woman 
 stood by and whistled while she watched the nails for 
 the Cross being forged. A correspondent of Notes 
 and Queries assigns another origin. He tells us 
 that one day, after attempting in vain to get his dog 
 to obey orders to come into the house, his wife 
 essayed to whistle, when she was suddenly inter- 
 rupted by a servant, a Roman Catholic, who 
 exclaimed in the most piteous accents, "If you 
 please, ma'am, don't whistle. Every time a woman 
 whistles, the heart of the Blessed Virgin bleeds." 
 The French, it seems, have a similar prejudice to 
 hearing a woman whistle about a house, their proverb 
 being as follows : — " Une poule qui chante le coq, et 
 une fi lie qui siffle, portent malheur dans la maison." 
 
 There are numerous signs and omens connected 
 with household work. Thus, in Suffolk, the people 
 say that if after sweeping a room the broom is 
 accidentally left up in a corner, strangers will visit 
 the house in the course of that day ; while others 
 affirm, in the Northern counties, that to sweep dust 
 out of the house by the front door is equivalent to 
 sweeping away the good fortune and happiness of 
 the family. Care should rather be taken to 
 sweep inwards — the dust being carried out in a 
 basket or shovel — and then no harm will happen. 
 Furthermore, the spider, which in daily life is 
 little noticed except for its cobweb, the presence of 
 which in a house generally betokens neglect, is by no 
 means an unfriendly intruder. Although the servant 
 oftentimes ruthlessly sweeps this uncared-for little 
 
HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 127 
 
 visitor, away from the wall, yet a common proverb 
 reminds us that — 
 
 " If you wish to live and thrive, 
 Let the spider run alive," 
 
 ill-luck being supposed to quickly overtake those who 
 kill or even so much as injure it. It was a notion 
 formerly prevalent in many parts of Scotland that 
 should a servant wilfully kill a spider, she would 
 certainly break a piece of crockery or glass before the 
 day was out. One reason why the spider is protected 
 against ill-usage is that it is supposed to bring pros- 
 perity ; but the real cause, perhaps, is due to the 
 influence of an old legend which relates how, when 
 Christ lay in the manger at Bethlehem, the spider 
 came and spun a web over the spot where He was, 
 thus preserving His life by screening Him from all 
 the dangers that surrounded Him. 
 
 Heferring to the breaking of crockery, of which we 
 have just spoken, there is a prevalent idea that if a 
 servant breaks two things she will break a third. On 
 one occasion the mistress of a household in Suffolk 
 was not a little horrified at seeing one of her servants 
 take up a coarse earthenware basin and deliberately 
 throw it down upon the brick floor. '' What did you 
 do that for 1 " she not unnaturally inquired. " Because, 
 ma'am, I'd broke two things," answered the servant, 
 " so I thout the third better be this here," pointing 
 to the remains of the least valuable piece of pottery 
 in the establishment, which had been sacrificed to 
 glut the vengeance of the offended ceramic deities. 
 A correspondent of Chambers' ^' Book of Days," 
 
128 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 alluding to another piece of superstition of this 
 kind, tells us that he once had a servant who was 
 very much given to breaking glass and crockery. 
 Plates and wine-glasses used to slip out of her 
 hands as if they had been soaped; even spoons 
 came jingling to the ground in rapid succession. 
 "Let her buy something," said the cook, ^'and 
 that will change the luck." " Decidedly," said the 
 mistress, " it will be as well that she feel the 
 inconvenience herself.'' ^* Oh, I didn't mean that, 
 ma'am ! " was the reply ; " I meant that it would 
 change the luck." A few days after this conversation, 
 on being asked whether she had broken anything 
 more, she answered, '' No, sir, I haven't broken nothing 
 since I bout the 'tater dish." Unluckily, however, 
 this was too good to last ; the breaking soon re-com- 
 menced, and the servant was obliged to go. 
 
 A superstitious dread still attaches in household 
 matters to Friday as being an unlucky day, and many 
 will not even so much as turn a bed for fear of some 
 misfortune befalling them. Thus, in Northampton- 
 shire, we are told the housewife allows the bed to 
 remain unturned ; and a Sussex saying admonishes 
 persons " never to begin a piece of work on Friday, 
 or they will never finish it." We may note here 
 that one tradition assigns a very early origin to the 
 unfortunate reputation of Friday, affirming that it 
 was on this day that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden 
 fruit. It is considered very unlucky to change servants 
 on this day of the week, and many try to avoid, if 
 possible, doing so. 
 
HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 129 
 
 That bright and ever-cheerful companion of our 
 homes in winter time, the fire, has given rise to a 
 host of omens and portents, many of which at times 
 create no small consternation when the events sup- 
 posed to be prognosticated are not of a very lucky 
 character. A hollow cinder, for example, thrown out 
 of the fire by a jet of gas from burning coals is 
 looked upon as a coffin if it be long, but as a money- 
 box if it be round. Some, too, exclaim on seeing the 
 fire suddenly blaze up that a stranger is near 3 whereas 
 in the Midland counties if the fire burn brightly 
 after it has been stirred, this is considered a sign that 
 the absent lover, wife, or husband, as the case may be, 
 is in good spirits. A very popular charm for reviving 
 a fire when it has burnt down is to set the poker across 
 the hearth, with the fore-part leaning against the top 
 bar of the grate. The poker and top bar thus combined 
 form a cross, and so defeat the malice of the witches 
 and demons who preside over smoky chimneys. One 
 notion is that the poker when in this position creates 
 a draught, but the real meaning of this harmless super- 
 stition is, perhaps, the one that we have just given. 
 Various items of weather-lore, also, have been derived 
 from the way fires burn, an enumeration of which we 
 find in Willsford's " Nature's Secrets" : — "When our 
 common fires do burn with a pale flame, they presage 
 foul weather. If the fire do make a buzzing noise, it 
 is a sign of tempests near at hand. When the fire 
 sparkleth very much, it is a sign of rain. If the- 
 ashes on the hearth do dodder together of themselves, 
 it is a sign of rain. When pots are newly taken off 
 J 
 
130 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 the fire, if tliey sparkle, the soot upon them being 
 incensed, it is a sign of rain. When the fire scorcheth 
 and burneth more vehemently than it nseth to do, it 
 is a sign of frosty weather ; but if the living coals do 
 shine brighter than commonly at other times, expect 
 then rain. If wood, or any other fuel, do crackle and 
 v/ind break forth more than ordinary, it is an evident 
 sign of some tempestuous weather near at hand ; the 
 much and sudden falling of soot presages rain." 
 Once more, there is a curious notion that if a person 
 sit musing and intently looking into the fire, it is a 
 sign that a badly-disposed person is either fascinating 
 him for evil, or throwing an evil spell over him. 
 When this is the case, in order to break the spell, 
 some one without speaking or attracting notice should 
 take the tongs and turn the centre piece of coal in the 
 grate right over, at the same time repeating certain 
 words. While speaking of fires, we may note that 
 there is a belief among the Yorkshire peasants that 
 it is unlucky to allow a light to be taken out of their 
 houses on Christmas Day — a superstition which pre- 
 vails in Lancashire with regard to New Year's Day. 
 A few years ago a man was summoned at Bradford 
 on a charge of wilful damage by breaking a pane of 
 glass in a cottage window. Having entered for the 
 purpose of lighting his candle, the woman of the 
 house strongly remonstrated, but offered him instead 
 a few matches. The man then created a disturbance, 
 and on the husband trying to eject him he broke the 
 window. 
 
 Omens, too, from candles are very numerous. Thus, 
 
HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 131 
 
 we may note that in some of the Northern coun- 
 ties a bright spark in the candle predicts the arrival 
 of a letter, and if it drops on the first shake, it is 
 an indication that the letter has already been posted. 
 To snuff out a candle accidentally is a sign of matri- 
 mony, and a curious mode of divination is still practised 
 by means of a pin and a candle. The anxious lover, 
 while the candle is burning, takes a pin and cautiously 
 sticks it through the wax, taking care that it pierces 
 the wick, repeating meanwhile the following rhyme : — 
 
 ** It's not this candle alone I stick, 
 But A. B.'s heart I mean to prick ; 
 Whether he be asleep or awake, 
 I'd have him come to me and speak." 
 
 She then patiently watches, for if the pin remains 
 in the wick after the candle has burnt below the place 
 in which it was inserted, then the loved one will be 
 sure to appear ; but should the pin drop out, it is a 
 sign that he is faithless. 
 
 There are, however, a host of other superstitions 
 relating to home-life, some of which we can only 
 briefly describe, scattered as they are here and there 
 over the United Kingdom, and varying in different 
 localities. Thus, according to a well-known super- 
 stition, if a person suddenly shivers, it is a sign that 
 some one is walking over his future grave, a notion 
 which is not limited to any particular county, extend- 
 ing as far north as Scotland. It is fortunate, how- 
 ever, that all persons are not subject to this sensation, 
 otherwise the inhabitants of those districts or parishes 
 
132 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 whose burial-grounds are much frequented would, as 
 an old antiquarian writer has observed, " live in one 
 continued fit of shaking." Some, too, deem it unlucky 
 to turn back after they have once started on some 
 errand, or to be recalled and told of something pre- 
 viously forgotten. This superstition extends beyond 
 our own country, and is found on the Continent, as for 
 example in Sweden, where it is considered unadvisable 
 not only to turn round when one is going on business, 
 lest it should turn out ill, but even so much as to 
 look back. At the present day, too, in the Midland 
 counties, children are frequently cautioned by their 
 parents not to walk backwards when going on some 
 errand, it being regarded as a sure sign that misfor- 
 tune will befall them if they disobey this injunction. 
 Akin to this superstition, there are several others of 
 a similar kind, among w^hich we may include the 
 supposed ill-luck of walking under a ladder ; and North- 
 country people have a dislike to meeting a left-handed 
 person on a Tuesday morning, although on other days 
 it is considered fortunate to do so. Keferring to the 
 many other items of folk-lore associated with our daily 
 life, we must not omit those relating to money. Thus, 
 it is generally acknowledged to be a bad omen to 
 find it; and to insure health and prosperity, one 
 should always turn a piece of money in one's pocket on 
 first seeing the new moon, and on hearing the cuckoo 
 in spring. There is, too, the common custom of the 
 lower orders to spit on money for "luck's sake," a 
 practice which is not only found in foreign countries, 
 but may be traced back to ancient times. Misson, in 
 
HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. 133 
 
 his " Travels in England/' describes this piece of super- 
 stition as it j)re vailed in this country in former years : — 
 ** A woman that goes much to market told me t'other 
 day that the butcher-women of London, those that sell 
 fowls, butter, eggs, etc., and in general most trades- 
 people, have a peculiar esteem for what they call a 
 handsel, that is to say, the first money they receive in 
 the morning they kiss it, spit upon it, and put it in 
 a pocket by itself." Many, too, as a charm against 
 poverty, carry a piece of money, with a hole in it, or 
 one that is bent, in allusion to which Gay says : — 
 
 "This silver ring beside, 
 Three silver pennies, and a nine-pence bent, 
 A token kind to Brunkinet is sent." 
 
 Others, again, dislike " counting their gains," a 
 superstition which, it has been suggested, may have 
 some connection with David's sin in numberinor the 
 
 o 
 
 people of Israel and Judah. Hence some regard 
 with feelings of strong antipathy our own decennial 
 census, and it is only the compulsion of the law which 
 induces them to comply with this national means of 
 ascertaining the state of the population. Among minor 
 superstitions, it is said that smoke and dust always 
 follow the fairest ; and if without any neglect, but even 
 with care, articles of steel, such as keys, knives, <fcc., 
 continually become rusty, it is a sign that some kind- 
 hearted person is laying up money for one's benefit. 
 
 When, too, as often by coincidence happens, two 
 persons in conversation are on the point of telling 
 each other the same thing, it is an indication that 
 gome lie will before long be told about them ; others 
 
134 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 think that if the two immediately join hands and wish 
 silently, their desires cannot fail to come to pass. Some 
 again, have a strong objection either to being weighed 
 or to having their likeness taken, the latter super- 
 stition being mentioned by Mr. Napier as prevalent 
 in some parts of Scotland. Once more, there is a 
 belief among the Sussex peasantry that bottles which 
 have contained medicine should never be sold, or else 
 they will soon be required to be filled again for some 
 one in the house. These are some of the quaint 
 superstitions with which even the trivial occurrences 
 of home life are surrounded, and although, according 
 to one view, many of these have little or no foun- 
 dation for their existence beyond their traditionary 
 history, yet it is a remarkable fact that they should 
 have preserved their characteristic traits in spite of 
 the long course of years through which they have 
 travelled down to us from the past. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 POPULAR DIVINATIONS. 
 
 Bible and Key— Dipping— Sieve and Shears— Crowing of the 
 Cock — Spatulamancia — Palmistry and Onymancy — Look- 
 divination — ^Astrology — Cards — Casting Lot — Tea-stalks. 
 
 The practice of divination, or foretelling future events, 
 has existed amongst most nations in all ages ; and, 
 although not so popular as in days gone by, yet it 
 still retains its hold on the popular mind. Many of 
 the methods for diving into futurity are extremely 
 
POPULAR DIVINATIONS. 135 
 
 curious, and instances of them occasionally find their 
 way into the papers. In a previous chapter we 
 have already shown how numerous are the divinations 
 practised in love affairs, and what an importance is 
 attached to them by the maiden bent on ascertaining 
 her lot in the marriage state. There are, however, 
 many other ends to which this species of superstition 
 is employed, one being the detection of guilt. Thus, 
 a common method is by the ^' Bible and the Key," 
 which is resorted to more or less by the humbler 
 classes from one end of the United Kingdom to the 
 other, the mode of procedure being as follows : — The 
 key is placed on a certain chapter, and the Sacred 
 "Volume closed and fastened tightly. The Bible and 
 the key are then suspended to a nail, the accused 
 person's name is repeated three times by one of those 
 present, while another recites these words : — 
 
 "If it turns to thee thou art the thief, 
 And we all are free." 
 
 This incantation being concluded, should the key be 
 found to have turned, it is unanimously agreed that 
 the accused is the guilty one. Not very long ago, a 
 lady residing at Ludlow having lost a sheet made use 
 of this test. Armed with a copy of the Sacred Book, 
 she perambulated the neighbourhood, placing the key 
 in the volume near several houses. At last, on 
 arriving before a certain door, it was alleged that the 
 key with much alacrity began, of its own accord, to 
 turn ; whereupon the owner of the lost sheet uttered 
 the suspected person's name as loudly as she could ; 
 
136 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 after which, it is said, the Bible turned completely 
 round and fell on the ground. Again, a year or two 
 ago, at Southampton, a boy working on a collier was 
 charged with theft, the only evidence against him 
 being such as was afforded by the ordeal of the Bible 
 and key. It seems that the mate and some others 
 swung a Bible attached to a key with a piece of yarn, 
 the key being placed on the first chapter of Ruth. 
 While the Bible was turning, the names of several 
 persons suspected were called over, but on mention of 
 the prisoner's the book fell on the ground. The bench, 
 of course, discharged the prisoner. 
 
 Closely akin to this method of divination is the 
 well-known mediaeval diversion known as the Sortes 
 Virgiliance, which consisted in opening a volume of 
 Yirgil's works, and forecasting the future from some 
 word or passage selected at random. The Sacred 
 Book is now the modern substitute, and there is 
 no doubt but that the superstition is thousands of 
 years older than even the Yirgil of the Augustan age. 
 This custom, practised in many parts of England on 
 New Year's Day, is called ^'Dipping.'* A Bible is 
 laid on the table at breakfast-time, and those who 
 wish to consult it open its pages at random ; it being 
 supposed that the events of the ensuing year will 
 be in some way foreshown by the contents of the 
 chapter contained in the two open pages. Sometimes 
 the anxious inquirer will take the Bible to bed with 
 him on ISTew Year's Eve, and on awaking after twelve 
 o'clock, open it in the dark, mark a verse with his 
 thumb, turn down a corner of the page, and replace 
 
POPULAR DIVINATIONS. 137 
 
 the book under the pillow. That verse is said to be a 
 prophecy of the good or bad hick that will befall him 
 during the coming year. This as a mode of divination 
 is extensively practised. Another form of this super 
 stition consists in foretelling the events in a man's 
 life from the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs, 
 the thirty-one verses of this chapter being supposed 
 to have a mystical reference to the corresponding days 
 of the month. Thus, it is predicted of persons born 
 on the 14th that they will get their *'food from 
 afar." A correspondent of Notes and Queries, writing 
 from a Northamptonshire village, tells us that " this 
 is so fully believed in by some that a boy has actually 
 been apprenticed to a Z^7^e?^-draper, for no other 
 reason than because he was born on the 24th of the 
 month j whilst those born on the 1 3th would be sent 
 to a i6"oo^/67i-draper. The twenty -fourth verse speaks 
 of 'fine linen,' and the thirteenth of 'wool.'" 
 
 Another means of discovering a guilty person is 
 by the '' Sieve and Shears," one of those divinatory 
 instruments upon which such implicit reliance has 
 been placed by superstitious folk from time out of 
 mind, described as it is in the '' Hudibras " as 
 
 " Th' oracle of sieve and shears, 
 That turns as certain as the spheres." 
 
 The sieve is held hanging by a thread, or else by 
 the points of a pair of shears stuck into its rim, 
 it being su]3posed to turn, or swing, or fall at the 
 mention of a thief's name, and give similar signs for 
 other purposes, This ancient rite wa§ formerly known 
 
138 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 as the "Trick of the Sieve and Scissors," and was 
 generally practised among the Greeks for ascertaining 
 crime. We find an allusion to it in Theocritus : — 
 
 " To Agrio, too, I made the same demand ; 
 A cunning woman she, I cross'd her hand : 
 She turn'd the sieve and shears, and told me true, 
 That I should love, but not be lov'd by you." 
 
 Among other modes of divination practised for the 
 same purpose, there is one by the crowing of the cock. 
 Thus, a farmer in Cornwall having been robbed of 
 some property, invited all his neighbours into his 
 cottage, and when they were assembled he placed 
 a cock under the " brandice " (an iron vessel formerly 
 much used by the peasantry in baking), he then asked 
 each one to touch the brandice with the third finger, 
 and say, " In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost, speak." Every one did as they were directed, 
 and yet no sound came from beneath the brandice. 
 The last person was a woman who occasionally 
 laboured for the farmer in his field. She hung back, 
 hoping to pass unobserved amidst the crowd. The 
 neighbours, however, would not permit her to do 
 so, and no sooner had she touched the brandice than, 
 before she could even utter the prescribed words, 
 the cock crew. Thereupon she fainted on the spot, 
 and on recovering confessed her guilt. 
 
 In the North of England there was formerly a 
 curious process of divination in the case of a person 
 bewitched : — A black hen was stolen, the heart taken 
 out, stuck full of pins, and roasted at midnight. It 
 
POPULAR DIVINATIONS. 139 
 
 was then supposed that the *^ double" of the witch 
 would come and nearly pull the door down. If, 
 however, the " double " was not seen, any one of the 
 neighbours who had passed a remarkably bad night 
 was fixed upon. 
 
 Referrmg in the next place to what may be con- 
 sidered the principal object of divination, a know- 
 ledge of futurity, we find various mystic arts in 
 use to gain this purpose. Foremost among these may 
 be reckoned " Spatulamancia," " reading the speal- 
 bone," or '^ divination by the blade-bone," an art 
 which is of very ancient origin. It is, we are told 
 by Mr. Tylor, especially found in Tartary, whence it 
 may have spread into all other countries where we 
 hear of it. The mode of procedure is as follows : — 
 The shoulder-blade is put on the fire till it cracks in 
 various directions, and then a long split lengthwise 
 is reckoned as *Hhe way of life," while cross-cracks 
 on the right and left stand for different kinds of good 
 and evil fortune, and so on. In Ireland, Camden 
 speaks of looking through the blade-bone of a sheep, 
 to discover a black spot which foretells a death; and 
 Drayton in his " Polyolbion " thus describes it : — 
 
 ** By th' shoulder of a ram from off the right side par'd, 
 "Which usually they boile, the spade-bone being bar'd, 
 Which when the wizard takes, and gazing thereupon 
 Things long to come foreshows, as things done long agone." 
 
 This species of divination was in days gone by 
 much practised in Scotland, and a good account of the 
 Highland custom of thus divining is given by Mr. Thorns 
 
140 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 in the "Folk-Lore Record" (i. 177), from a manu- 
 script account by Mr. Donald McPherson, a book- 
 seller of Chelsea, a Highlander born, and who was 
 well acquainted with the superstitions of his country- 
 men : — ** Before the shoulder-blade is inspected, the 
 whole of the flesh must be stripped clean off, without 
 the use of any metal, either by a bone or a hard wooden 
 knife, or by the teeth. Most of the discoveries are 
 made by inspecting the spots that may be observed in 
 the semi-transparent part of the blade ; but very great 
 proficients penetrate into futurity though the opaque 
 parts also. Nothing can be known that may happen 
 beyond the circle of the ensuing year. The dis- 
 coveries made have relation only to the person for 
 whom the sacrifice is offered. 
 
 Chiromancy, or palmistry, as a means of unravel- 
 ling hidden things, still finds favour not only with 
 gipsy fortune-tellers, but even with those who profess 
 to belong to the intelligent classes of society. This 
 branch of fortune-telling flourished in ancient Greece 
 and Italy, as we are informed it still does in India, 
 where to say, "It is written on the palms of my hands," 
 is the ordinary way of expressing what is looked upon 
 as inevitable. The professors of this art formerly 
 attributed to it a Divine origin, quoting as their 
 authority the following verse from the Book of Job : 
 " He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men 
 may know his work ; " or as the Vulgate renders the 
 passage : " Qui in manu omnium hominum signa 
 posuit" — "Who has placed signs in the hand of all 
 men " — which certainly gives it a more chiromantical 
 
POPULAR DIVINATIOKS. 141 
 
 meaning. Thus chiromancy, or palmistry, traces the 
 future from an examination of the "lines" of the 
 palm of the hand, each of which has its own peculiar 
 character and name, as for instance the line of long 
 life, of married life, of fortune, and so on. However 
 childish this system may be, it still has its numerous 
 votaries, and can often be seen in full force at our 
 provincial fairs. Referring to its popularity in this 
 country in former years, we find it severely censured 
 by variovis writers. Thus one author of the year 1612 
 speaks of "vain and frivolous devices of which sort 
 we have an infinite number, also used amongst us, as 
 namely in palmistry, where men's fortunes are told by 
 looking on the palms of the hand." 
 
 A superstition akin to palmistry is onymancy, or 
 divination by the finger-nails, which is still a wide- 
 spread object of belief. Sir Thomas Browne, in his 
 " Vulgar Errors," describing it, admits that conjec- 
 tures "of prevalent humours may be gathered from 
 the spots on the nails," but rejects the sundry prog- 
 nostications usually derived from them, such as "that 
 spots on the tops of the nails signify things past, in 
 the middle things present, and at the bottom events 
 to come ; that white specks presage our felicity, blue 
 ones our misfortunes ; that those in the nail of the 
 thumb have significations of honour, of the fore-finger 
 riches." As practised at the present day, this mode 
 of divination differs in various counties. Thus, in 
 Sussex, we are told by Mrs. Latham that the fortune- 
 tellers commence with the thumb, and say " A gift," 
 judging of its probable size by that of the mark. 
 
142 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Tliey then toiich the fore-finger, and add "A friend ;" 
 and should they find a spot upon the nail of the 
 middle finger, they gravely affirm it denotes the 
 existence of an enemy somewhere. It is the presence 
 or absence of such a mark on the third finger that 
 proves one's future good or ill success in love ; whereas 
 one on the little finger is a warning that the person 
 will soon have to undergo a journey. 
 
 Again, some profess to be able to tell events by the 
 face, or ^'look-divination" — a species of physiognomy 
 which was formerly much believed in by all classes 
 of society, and may still be met with in country 
 villages. Indeed, there is scarcely a mark on 
 the face which has not been supposed to betoken 
 something or other ; and in a book of " Palmistry 
 and Physiognomy," translated by Fabian Withers, 
 1656, are recorded sundry modes of divination from 
 " upright eyebrows, brows hanging over, narrow fore- 
 heads, faces plain and flat, lean faces, sad faces, sharp 
 noses, ape-like noses, thick nostrils," &c. However 
 foolish these may appear, yet there will always be 
 simple-minded persons ready to make themselves 
 miserable by believing that the future events of their 
 life — either for weal or woe — are indelibly written on 
 their face. Equally illogical and fanciful is that 
 pseudo- science, astrology, whereby the aftairs of 
 men, it is said, can be read from the motions of 
 the heavenly bodies. A proof of the extensive belief 
 at the present day in this mode of divination may be 
 gathered from the piles of " Zadkiel's Almanacks " 
 which regularly appear in the fashionable booksellers' 
 
POPULAR DIVINATIONS. 143 
 
 windows about Christmas-time. That educated people, 
 who must be aware how names of stars and constella- 
 tions have been arbitrarily given by astronomers, 
 should still find in these materials for calculating 
 human events, is a curious case of superstitious sur- 
 vival. Very many, for instance, are firmly convinced 
 that a child born under the " Crab " will not do well 
 in life, and that another born under the " Waterman" 
 is likely to meet with a watery death, and so forth. 
 This science, as is well known, is of very old institu- 
 tion, and originated in a great measure in the 
 primitive ages of the world, when animating intelli- 
 gences were supposed to reside in the celestial bodies. 
 As these mythical conceptions, however, have long ago 
 passed away under the influence of civilisation, one 
 would scarcely expect to find in our enlightened nine- 
 teenth century so great a number of intellectual persons 
 putting faith in such a system of delusion. In this 
 respect, happily, we are not worse than our Con- 
 tinental neighbours ; for there are many districts in 
 Germany where the child^s horoscope is still regularly 
 kept with the baptismal certificate in the family 
 chest. In days gone by, this kind of divination was 
 very widely credited in this country, and by most of 
 our old writers is most unsparingly condemned. Thus 
 Shakespeare, in King Lear (Act i., sc. 2), has ridiculed 
 it in a masterly way, when he represents Edmund as 
 saying : " This is the excellent foppery of the world, that 
 when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeit of our 
 own behaviour — we make guilty of our disasters the 
 sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains 
 
144 1)0MESTIC FOLK-LOM. 
 
 by necessity ; fools by heavenly compulsion ; knaves, 
 thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance ; 
 drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedi- 
 ence of planetary influence." Sir Thomas Browne 
 goes so far as to attribute divination by astrology 
 to Satan, remarking how he ** makes the ignorant 
 ascribe natural effects to supernatural causes ; and 
 thus deludes them with this form of error." And 
 another old writer sensibly adds that, although astro- 
 logers undertake "to tell all people most obscure 
 and hidden secrets abroad, they at the same 
 time know not what happens in their own houses 
 and in their own chambers." In spite, however, of 
 the frequent denunciations of this popular form of 
 superstition, it appears that they had little effect, for 
 James I. was notorious for his credulity about such 
 delusions ; and both Charles I. and Cromwell are 
 said to have consulted astrologers. 
 
 A further form of divination still much practised 
 is by a pack of cards, most of these being supposed to 
 have a symbolical meaning ; the king of hearts, for 
 example, denoting a true-loving swain, and the 
 king of diamonds indicating great wealth. The fol- 
 lowing quaint lines, extracted from an old chap-book 
 quoted in Brand's '* Popular Antiquities," describe 
 this mode of fortune-telling as it was formerly con- 
 sulted by our credulous countrymen : — 
 
 " This noble king of diamond shows, 
 Thou long shalt live where pleasure flows ; 
 But when a woman draws the king, 
 Great melancholy songs she'll sing. 
 
POPULAR DIVINATIONS. 145 
 
 He that draws the ace of hearts, 
 Shall surely be a man of parts ; 
 And she that draws it, I profess, 
 Will have the gift of idleness.'* 
 
 Indeed, scarcely a month passes without several per- 
 sons being punished for extorting money from silly 
 people, on the pretence of revealing to them by card- 
 divination their future condition in life. Among the 
 gipsies this is the favourite form of fortune-telling ; 
 and its omens are eagerly received by anxious aspi- 
 rants after matrimony, who are ever desirous to know 
 whether their husbands are to be tall or short, dark 
 or fair, rich or poor, and so on. Mrs. Latham tells us 
 of a certain woman who was reported to be skilful in 
 such matters, and was in the habit of confidently 
 foretelling with a pack of cards her fellow-servants' 
 coming lot in matrimony. The mode of procedure 
 was as follows : — The cards were dealt round by 
 the diviner, with much mystical calculation, and 
 the fortunate maiden who found the ace of dia- 
 monds in her heap was to marry a rich man. The 
 one, however, who was unlucky enough to have the 
 knave of clubs or spades was destined to have 
 nothing but poverty and misery in her wedded state. 
 Again, the presence of the king of diamonds or of 
 hearts in hand was a sign that the possessor's partner 
 for life would be a fair man, while the king of 
 clubs or spades gave warning that he would 
 be dark. To find in one's heap either the knave 
 of hearts or of diamonds was most ominous, as it 
 revealed an unknown enemy. Again, divination by 
 
146 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 casting lot has not yet fallen into disuse. Accord- 
 ing to some this means of deciding doubtful matters 
 is of God's appointment, and therefore cannot fail, 
 the following text being quoted as a proof : " The 
 lot is cast into the lap ; but the whole disposing 
 thereof is of the Lord " (Proverbs xvi. 33). In 
 Lancashire, when boys do not wish to divide any- 
 thing they decide " who must take all " by drawing 
 '^ short cuts." A number of straws, pieces of twine, 
 &c., of different lengths, are held by one not inte- 
 rested, so that an equal portion of each is alone 
 visible ; each boy draws one, and he who gets the 
 longest is entitled to the prize. 
 
 A new-laid egg affords another means of diving 
 into futurity. The person anxious to be enlightened 
 about his future perforates with a pin the small end 
 of an egg, and lets three drops of the white fall into 
 a basin of water, which soon diffuse themselves- on 
 the surface into a variety of fantastic shapes. From 
 these the fortune-teller will predict the fortune of 
 the credulous one, the character of his future wife, 
 and a variety of particulars concerning his domestic 
 happiness. A similar practice is kept up in Den- 
 mark, where young women melt lead on New Year's 
 Eve, and after pouring it into water, observe on the 
 following morning what form it has assumed. If it 
 resembles a pair of scissors, they will inevitably marry 
 tailors ] if a hammer, their husbands will be smiths, 
 and so on. 
 
 Divination by a staff was formerly a common 
 practice in Scotland. When a person wished to go 
 
POPULAR DIVINATIONS. 147 
 
 on a pleasure excursion into the country, and was 
 vmsettled in his mind as to which way to go, he 
 resorted to this form of consulting fate. Taking a 
 stick, he would poise it perpendicularly, and then 
 leave it to fall of itself ; and he would select the direc- 
 tion towards which it pointed while it lay on the 
 ground. It has been suggested by some of our 
 Biblical scholars that it is to this sort of divination 
 that the prophet Hosea referred when he said *^ Their 
 staff declareth unto them ;" but this is mere conjecture. 
 Among other common modes of divination may be 
 mentioned that by tea-stalks. If two appear on the 
 surface of a cup of tea, they should be placed on the 
 back of the left hand, and struck with the back of the 
 right. If they remain unmoved on the left, or adhere 
 to the right, then it is an omen that the absent loved 
 one will remain faithful. Tea-stalks are also said to 
 foretell visitors, indicating the person to be visited by 
 floating to the side of the individual. We might 
 easily extend our list of popular divinations, but 
 space forbids our doing so ; and those already enu- 
 merated in the preceding pages have perhaps given 
 a sufficient idea of the devices which have been 
 resoi-ted to, from time to time, by our superstitious 
 country-folk for gaining an insight into futurity. 
 
lis DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 COMMON AILMENTS. 
 
 Charm-reinedies — For Ague— Bleeding of the Nose — Bums — 
 Cramp — Epilej)sy— Fits — Gout — Headache, &c. 
 
 At the present day, in spite of the " march of intel- 
 lect/' there is still a wide-spread belief in the preven- 
 tion and cure of the common ailments of life by 
 certain remedies, which take the form of charms 
 and amulets, or are preserved in those countless 
 quaint recipes which, from time immemorial, have 
 been handed down from parent to child. Indeed, 
 thousands of our population place far greater faith in 
 their domestic treatment of disease than in the skill 
 of medical science^ one of the chief requirements being 
 that the patient should submit to the treatment re- 
 commended for his recovery with a full and earnest 
 belief that a cure will be effected. Hence, however 
 eccentric the remedy for some complaint may be, 
 we occasionally find not only the ignorant but even 
 educated classes scrupulously obeying the directions 
 enjoined on them, although these are often by no 
 means easy of accomplishment. Therefore, as most 
 of the ordinary ailments of every-day life have what 
 are popularly termed in folk-medicine their " charm- 
 remedies," we shall give a brief account of some of 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 149 
 
 these remedies in the present chapter, arranging the 
 diseases they are supposed to cure in alphabetical order. 
 
 Ague. — No complaint, perhaps, has offered more 
 opportunities for the employment of charms than 
 this one, owing in a great measure to an old super- 
 stition that it is not amenable to medical treatment. 
 Thus, innumerable remedies have been suggested for 
 its cure, many of which embody the strangest super- 
 stitious fancies. According to a popular notion, 
 fright is a good cure, and by way of illustration we 
 may quote the case of a gentleman, afflicted by this 
 disease in an aggravated form, who entertained a 
 great fear of rats. On one occasion he was acci- 
 dentally confined in a room with one of these un- 
 welcome visitors, and the intruder jumped upon 
 him. The intensity of his alarm is said to have 
 driven out the ague, and to have completely cured 
 him. An amusing anecdote is also told of a poor 
 woman who had suffered from this unenviable com- 
 plaint for a long time. Her husband having heard 
 of persons being cured by fright, one day came to 
 her with a very long face, and informed her that 
 her favourite pig was dead. Her first impulse was 
 to rush to the scene of the catastrophe, where she 
 found to her great relief that piggy was alive and 
 well. The fright, however, had done its work, 
 and from that day forth she never had a touch of 
 ague, although she resided in the same locality. A 
 Sussex remedy prescribes " seven sage leaves to be 
 eaten by the patient fasting seven mornings running ;" 
 
150 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 and in Suffolk the patient is advised to take a 
 handful of salt, and to bury it in the ground, the 
 idea being that as the salt dissolves so he will lose 
 his ague. A Devonshire piece of folk-lore tells us 
 that a person suffering from ague may easily give 
 it to his neighbour by burying under his threshold a 
 bag containing the parings of a dead man's nails, and 
 some of the hairs of his head. Some people wear a 
 leaf of tansy in their shoes, and others consider pills 
 made of a spider's web equally efficacious, one pill 
 being taken before breakfast for three successive 
 mornings. 
 
 Bleeding of the Nose. — A key, on account of the 
 coldness of the metal of which it is composed, is 
 often placed on the person's back ; and hence the 
 term " key-cold " has become proverbial, an allusion to 
 which we find in King Richard III, (Act i., sc. 2), 
 where Lady Anne, speaking of the corpse of King 
 Henry YL, exclaims : — 
 
 " Poor key-cold figure of a holy king." 
 
 A Norfolk remedy consists in wearing a skein of 
 scarlet silk round the neck, tied with nine knots 
 in the front. If the patient is a male, the silk 
 should be put on and the knots tied by a female, 
 and vice versa. In some places a toad is killed by 
 transfixing it with some sharp-pointed instrument, 
 after which it is enclosed in a little bag and suspended 
 round the neck. 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 151 
 
 Bum or Scald. — According to a deep-rooted notion 
 among our rural population, the most efficacious cure 
 for a scald or burn is to be found in certain word- 
 charms, mostly of a religious character. One 
 example runs as follows : — 
 
 " There came two angels from the north, 
 One was Fire, and one was Frost. 
 Out Fire : in Frost, 
 In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 
 
 Many of our peasantry, instead of consultuig a 
 doctor in the case of a severe burn, often resort to 
 some old woman supposed to possess the gift of 
 healing. A person of this description formerly re- 
 sided in a village in Suffolk. AVhen consulted she 
 prepared a kind of ointment, which she placed on the 
 part affected, and after making the sign of the cross, 
 repeated the following formula three times : — 
 
 " There were two angels came from the north, 
 One brought fire, the other brought frost ; 
 Come out fire, go in frost, 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.*' 
 
 This, as the reader will see, is in substance the same 
 as the one quoted above, and is a fair sample of those 
 used in other localities. 
 
 Cram}). — Of the many charms resorted to for the 
 cure of this painful disorder, a common one consists 
 in wearing about the person the patella or knee-cap 
 of a sheep or lamb, which is known in some places 
 as the " cramp-bone." This is worn as near the skin 
 
152 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 as possible, and at night is laid under the pillow. In 
 many counties finger-rings made from the screws or 
 handles of coffins are still considered excellent pre- 
 servatives, and in Lancashire it is prevented by either 
 placing the shoes at bed-time with the toes just 
 peeping from beneath the coverlet, or by carrying 
 brimstone about with one during the day. Some, 
 again, wear a tortoise-shell ring, while others have 
 equal faith in tying the garter round the left 
 leg below the knee. In days gone by a celebrated 
 cure for this complaint was the "cramp-ring," allu- 
 sions to which we find in many of our old authors. 
 Its supposed virtue was conferred by solemn conse- 
 cration on Good Friday. 
 
 Epilepsy, — The remedies for this terrible disorder 
 are extremely curious, and in most cases vary in 
 different localities. One, however, very popular 
 charm is a ring made from a piece of silver money 
 collected at the oflfertory. A correspondent of 
 Chambers's " Book of Days " tells us that when 
 he was a boy a person " came to his father (a clergy- 
 man) and asked for a ^sacramental shilling,' i,e., one 
 out of the alms collected at the Holy Communion, to 
 be made into a ring and worn as a cure for epilepsy." 
 In the North of England " a sacramental piece,'* 
 as it is usually called, is the sovereign remedy for this 
 complaint. Thirty pence are to be begged of thirty 
 poor widows. They are then to be carried to the 
 church minister, for which he is to give the applicant 
 a half-crown piece from the communion alms. After 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 153 
 
 being "walked with nine times up and down the 
 church aisle," the piece is then to have a hole drilled in 
 it, and to be hung round the neck by a ribbon. It has 
 been suggested that these widows' pence may have some 
 reference to the widow's mite which was so estimable 
 in the eyes of Christ. According to one notion, per- 
 sons afflicted with epileptic fits are supposed to be 
 bewitched, and the following extraordinary remedy is 
 sometimes resorted to for their cure. A quart bottle 
 is filled with pins, and placed in front of the fire until 
 the pins are red-hot. As soon as this takes place it 
 is supposed they will prick the heart of the witch, 
 who to avoid the pain caused by the red-hot pins will 
 release her victim from the sufiering she has imposed 
 upon him. This mode of disenchantment seems to have 
 been of common occurrence ; and sometimes, when 
 old houses are under repair, bottles full of pins are 
 found secreted in out-of-the-way places. Another 
 remedy is for the patient to creep, head foremost, 
 down three pair of stairs, three times a day, for 
 three successive days. Sir Thomas Brown, too, dis- 
 courses of the virtues of mistletoe in this com- 
 plaint; and Sir John Colbach, wilting in the year 
 1720, strongly recommends it as a medicine, adding 
 that this beautiful plant must have been designed by 
 the Almighty ^^ for further and more noble purposes 
 than barely to feed thrushes, or to be hung up super- 
 stitiously in houses to drive away evil spirits." 
 
 Erysipelas, — This distemper has been popularly 
 called "St. Anthony's Fire," from the legend that 
 
154 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 it was miraculously checked by that saint when 
 raging in many parts of Europe in the eleventh 
 century. An amulet formerly worn to ward it off 
 was made of the elder on which the sun had never 
 shone. '^ If," says an old writer, "the piece between 
 the two knots be hung about the patient's neck, 
 it is much commended. Some cut it in little pieces, 
 and sew it in a knot in a piece of a man's shirt." 
 A remedy in use among the lower orders, and 
 extending as far as the Highlands, is to cut off one 
 half of the ear of a cat, and to let the blood drop on 
 the part affected — a practice which is evidently a 
 survival of the primitive notion that a living sacrifice 
 appeased the wrath of God. 
 
 Fits, — Numerous indeed have been the charms in- 
 vented for those suffering from this malady, and in 
 many cases they are "marvellously mystical withal." 
 Thus that little animal the mole has been in request, 
 as the following mystic prescription will show. A 
 gentleman residing in 1865, on the border ground of 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, was one day asked by a neigh- 
 bour to catch a live mole, as " her darter's little 
 gal was subject to fits, and she had been told that if 
 she got a live mole, cut the tip of his nose off, and let 
 nine drops bleed on to a lump of sugar, and gave that 
 to the child, 'twas a sartin cure." Here again we have 
 the same notion of a sacrifice, one which, it may be 
 noticed, underlies many of the charms of this kind. 
 A Devonshire remedy is to go into a church at mid- 
 nio^ht and to walk three times round the Communion 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 155 
 
 table, while many single women wear a silver ring 
 on the wedding-ring finger, made out of sixpences 
 which have been begged from six young bachelors. 
 
 Gout. — The periodical attacks of this disease have 
 from the earliest times been subjected to the influence 
 of charms, blackberries being considered by the Greeks 
 a good specific. Culpeper has bequeathed to us a 
 curious remedy. He says, ^^ Take an owl, pull off 
 her feathers, and pull out her guts ; salt her well for 
 a week, then put her into a pot, and stop it close, and 
 put her into an oven, that so she may be brought into 
 a mummy, which, being beat into powder and mixed 
 with boar's gi^ease, is an excellent remedy for gout, 
 anointing the grieved place by the fire.'' The german- 
 der speedwell has been esteemed highly efficacious, 
 and the Emperor Charles Y. is reported to have 
 derived benefit from it. 
 
 Headache. — Cures to alleviate this tiresome pain 
 are numberless. Mrs. Latham mentions what is 
 considered by the Sussex peasantry a sure way of 
 avoiding it in the spring, a piece of superstition we 
 have already noticed: ^^No hair, either cut or 
 combed from the head, must be thrown carelessly 
 away, lest some bird should find it and carry it 
 off, in which case the person's head v>^ould ache 
 during all the time that the bird was busy working 
 the spoil into its nest. \ I knew how it would be,' 
 exclaimed a servant, ^ when I saw that bird fly away 
 with a bit of my hair that blew out of the window this 
 
156 DOMESTIC FOLK-LOHE. 
 
 morning when I was dressing ; I knew I should have 
 a clapping headache, and so I have.' " In some counties 
 the common corn-poppy is called " headache/' from the 
 cephalalgic tendency of the scent. 
 
 HydropJwhia, — From the most remote period no 
 disease, perhaps, has possessed such a curious history, 
 or been invested with so many superstitions as hydro- 
 phobia, and the countless remedies suggested for its 
 cure form an important chapter in folk-medicine. In 
 tracing back its history, we find that it was not only 
 regarded by our ancestors with the same horror as 
 now-a-days, but that every conceivable device was 
 resorted to for removing its fatal effects. Thus, Pliny 
 relates the case of a Homan soldier who was cured by 
 the dog-rose, a remedy said to have been revealed to 
 the man's mother in a dream. Among sundry other 
 remedies he enumerates the hair of a man's head, 
 goose-grease, fuller's earth, colewort, fish-brine, tfec, as 
 applications to the wounds. The favourite cure of 
 Dioscorides was hellebore, and Galen's principal one 
 was the river-crab. Sucking the wound seems also 
 to have been considered efiicacious. Passing on to 
 modern times, the extraordinary remedies still em- 
 ployed are a convincing proof of the extent to which 
 superstition occasionally reaches. The list, indeed, is 
 not an inviting one, consisting amongst other things 
 of the liver of a male goat, the tail of a shrew-mouse, 
 the brain and comb of a cock, the worm under the 
 tongue of a mad dog, horse-dung, pounded ants, and 
 cuckoo soup. It may seem, too, incredible to us that 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 157 
 
 less than a century ago the suffocation of the wretched 
 victim was not unfrequently resorted to, and instances 
 of this barbarous practice may be found in the 
 periodical literature of bygone years. Thus, in The 
 Dublin Chronicle (28th October, 1798), the follow- 
 ing circumstances are recorded : — '' A fine boy, aged 
 fourteen, was bitten by a lady's lap-dog near Dublin. 
 In about two hours the youth was seized with 
 convulsive fits, and shortly after with hydrophobia; 
 and, notwithstanding every assistance, his friends 
 were obliged to smother him between two feather 
 beds." In the year 1712, four persons were tried at 
 York Assizes for smothering a boy, who had been 
 bitten by a mad dog, on a similar plea as that 
 uttered by Othello : — 
 
 ** I that am cruel am yet merciful : 
 I would not have thee linger in thy pain." 
 
 As recently as the year 1867 this mode of death 
 was put into execution in the town of Greenfield, 
 Michigan. A little girl having been seized with 
 hydrophobia, a consultation was held by the phy- 
 sicians, and as soon as it had been decided by them 
 that she could not recover, her parents put an end 
 to her sufi'erings by smothering her to death. The 
 folk-lore of this disease is most extensive, and as our 
 space is limited we cannot do better than recommend 
 our readers to consult Mr. Dolan's capital volume on 
 "Rabies, or Hydrophobia," which contains an ex- 
 cellent description of the antiquity and history of this 
 cruel complaint, and of superstitions which surround it. 
 
158 DOMESTIC FOLK-LOHE. 
 
 Hysteria. — This disorder, which assumes so many 
 deceptive forms, was formerly known as ^' the mother," 
 or *' hysterica passio," an allusion to which occurs in 
 King Lear (Act ii., sc. 4), where Shakespeare re- 
 presents the king as saying, 
 
 " 0, how this mother swells up toward my heart! 
 Hysterica passio ! down, thou climbing sorrow, 
 Thy element's below !" 
 
 Some of the charms used for its cure are much 
 the same as those employed in cases of epilepsy^ a 
 favourite one being the wearing of a ring made of a 
 certain number of silver pieces obtained from persons 
 of the opposite sex. 
 
 Jaundice, — Many of the remedies recommended 
 for this complaint are not of a very agreeable kind, 
 as, for instance, the following one mentioned by a 
 correspondent of Notes and Queries, first, as having 
 been resorted to in a Dorsetshire parish, where the 
 patient was ordered to eat nine lice on a piece of 
 bread and butter. One popular charm in days gone 
 by, and certainly not of a very refined character, was 
 known as the cure by transplantation, and consisted 
 in burying in a dunghill an odd number of cakes 
 made of ashes and other ingredients. 
 
 Lameness, — Sleeping on stones, on a particular 
 night, is an old method of curing lameness practised 
 in Cornwall. 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 159 
 
 Lumhago. — In Dundee it is customary to wear 
 round the loins as a cure for lumbago a hank of yarn 
 which has been charmed by a wise woman, and girls 
 may be seen with single threads of the same round the 
 head as an infallible specific for tic-douloureux. 
 
 Measles. — In the quarterly return of the mar- 
 riages, births, and deaths registered in the provinces, 
 &c., in Ireland, published in October, 1878, we find 
 the following extraordinary cure for measles, ad- 
 ministered with what results will be seen : — ^* Sixty- 
 three cases of measles appear on the medical relief 
 register for past quarter, but this does not represent a 
 third of those afiected, the medical officers being only 
 called in when the usual amount of local nostrums 
 had been tried without efiect. Every case seen 
 suffered from violent diarrhoea, caused by the ad- 
 ministration of a noxious compound called crooke. 
 This consists of a mixture of porter, sulphur, and 
 the excrement of the sheep collected in the fields. 
 Every unfortunate child that showed any symptom 
 of measles was compelled to drink large quantities 
 of this mixture. All ordinary remedies failed to 
 stop the diarrhoea thus produced, in many cases the 
 children nearly dying from exhaustion.' Kepulsive 
 as this piece of folk-medicine is, yet it is only 
 one of a most extensive class of the same kind, 
 many being most revolting. It is difficult to con- 
 ceive how either ignorance or superstition could 
 tolerate any practice of so senseless and indelicate .a 
 nature. 
 
160 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Paralysis. — One of the popular charms for this 
 disease is the same as that used in the case of epilepsy, 
 namely, a silver ring made from money solicited from a 
 certain number of persons. Cowslips, too, have been 
 esteemed highly efficacious, and have on this account 
 been termed " Herbse Paralysis '' by medical writers. 
 For the same reason they are called " Palsyworts " in 
 many country places. 
 
 Rheumatism. — Professors of the healing art have 
 advised the sufferer to carry about in his pocket 
 the right fore-foot of a female hare, while others 
 consider a potato equally efficacious. A Cornish 
 cure is to crawl under a bramble which has formed 
 a second root in the ground, or to drink water in 
 which a thunder-stone has been boiled. There is, 
 also, a strong belief that a galvanic ring^ as it is 
 called, worn on the finger will serve as an excellent 
 preservative. "A large number of persons," says 
 Mr. Clyde in his '^ Norfolk Garland," '* may be 
 seen with a clumsy-looking silver ring, which has a 
 piece of copper let into the inside, and this, though 
 in constant contact throughout, is supposed (aided by 
 the moisture of the hand) to keep up a gentle but 
 continual galvanic current, and so alleviate rheu- 
 matism." A Sussex remedy is to place the bellows 
 in the sufferer's chair that he may lean against them, 
 and so have his rheumatism charmed away. 
 
 Spasms. — The belief in the curative powers of 
 the form of the cross still holds its sway in the 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 161 
 
 popular mind, and in the case of spasms, or that pain- 
 ful state of the feet in which they are said '' to sleep," 
 it is used under an impression that it allays the pain. 
 
 Small-pox. — The curative properties attributed to 
 some colours is illustrated by the treatment formerly 
 employed in cases of small-pox. Thus, red bed-cover- 
 ings were thought to bring the pustules to the surface 
 of the body, and the patient was recommended to look 
 at red substances. Purple dye, pomegranate seeds, 
 or other red ingredients were dissolved in his drink, 
 with the idea that as red is the colour of the blood, 
 so disorders of the blood system should be treated 
 by red. The renowned English physician, John 
 of Gaddesden, introduced the practice into this 
 country, and tried its efficacy on one of the sons 
 of King Edward I., adding to his report, ^^et est 
 bona cura." Fried mice are considered in some 
 counties a good specific for this complaint, it being 
 thought necessary by some that they should be 
 fried alive. 
 
 Sprain. — Many of the charms practised in an 
 accident of this kind are of a semi-religious character, 
 and of a not very reverent form. Thus, to cure a 
 sprain, a thread called the ^^ wresting-thread " is tied 
 round the injured part, aftei* which the following 
 formula is repeated : — 
 
 " Oar Saviour rade, 
 His fore-foot slade, 
 
 Our Saviour liprhted down ; 
 
162 DOMESTIC FOLK-LOEE. 
 
 Sinew to sinew — joint to joint, 
 Blood to blood, and bone to bone, 
 Mend thou in God's name." 
 
 This incantation, wliicli, it has been suggested, may 
 have originated in some legend of Christ's life, is 
 frequently mentioned in the witch trials of the early 
 part of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Sty, — To prevent or cure this disorder, known in 
 some places as " west," it is customary on the first 
 sight of the new moon to seize a black cat by the 
 tail, and after pulling from it one hair, to rub the tip 
 nine times over the pustule. As this charm, however, 
 is often attended with sundry severe scratches, a gold 
 ring has been substituted, and is said to be equally 
 beneficial. This superstition is alluded to by Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, in the Jiad Lovers (Act v., sc. 4) : — 
 
 ** 1 have a sty here, Chilax. 
 
 Chil. I have no gold to cure it, not a penny." 
 
 Earrings are considered a good remedy for sore 
 eyes ; and in districts where the teasle is grown for 
 use in the manufacture of broadcloth, a preservative 
 against them is found in the water which collects in 
 the hollow cups of that plant. Pure rain-water is 
 reported to be another infallible remedy. This must 
 be carefully collected in a clean open vessel during 
 the month of June, and if preserved in a bottle 
 will, it is said, remain pure for any length of 
 time. 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 163 
 
 Tlirush, — There is a popular notion that a person 
 must have this complaint once in his life, either at 
 his birth or death. Norfolk nurses pi'efer to see it 
 in babies, on the plea that it is healthy, and makes 
 them feed more freely ; but if it appears in a sick 
 adult person he is generally given over as past re- 
 covery. Some of the remedies for this disease are 
 curious, as, for instance, a Cornish one, which recom- 
 mends the child to be taken fasting on three con- 
 secutive mornings, " to have its mouth blown into " 
 by a posthumous child. In Devonshire the parent is 
 advised to take three rushes from any running stream, 
 and to pass them separately through the mouth of the 
 infant. Afterwards the rushes should be thro^vn into 
 the stream again, and as the current bears them away, 
 so will the thrush, it is said, depart from the child. 
 Should this prove ineffectual, the parent is recom- 
 mended to capture the nearest duck that can be 
 found, and to place its beak, wide open, within the 
 mouth of the sufferer. As the child inhales the cold 
 breath of the duck, the disease, we are told, will 
 gradually disappear. A further charm consists in 
 reading the eighth Psalm over the child's head three 
 times every day on three days in the week for three 
 successive weeks. 
 
 Toothache, — This common ailment, which produces 
 so much discomfort, unfortunately rarely meets with 
 a degree of sympathy proportionate to the agony 
 it occasions, but has nevertheless been honoured 
 witli an extensive folk-lore ; and the quaint remedies 
 
164 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 that superstitious fancy has suggested for its cure 
 would occupy a small volume if treated with any- 
 thing like fulness. Selecting some of the best 
 known, we may mention one which, in point of 
 efficacy, is considered by many as unsurpassed, 
 namely, a tooth taken from the mouth of a corpse, 
 and worn round the neck as an amulet. Occa- 
 sionally a double- nut is carried in the pocket for 
 the same purpose. There is a belief, too, that 
 the possession of a Bible or a Prayer Book, 
 with the following legend written in it, is an 
 effectual charm: — ^^All glory, all glory, all glory 
 be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
 Holy Ghost. As our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 
 was walking in the Garden of Gethsemane, He 
 saw Peter weeping. He called him unto Him, and 
 said, * Peter, why weepest thou 1 ' Peter answered 
 and said, 'Lord, I am grievously tormented with 
 pain — the pain of my tooth.' Our Lord answered 
 and said, * If thou wilt believe in Me, and My words 
 abide with thee, thou shalt never feel any more pain 
 in thy tooth.' Peter said, 'Lord, I believe; help 
 Thou mine unbelief.' In the name, &c., God grant 
 M. N. ease from the pain in his tooth." These charm 
 formulas, which constitute an important element in 
 folk-lore literature, are still extensively used in this 
 country to arrest or cure some bodily disease ; 
 and they are interesting as being in most cases 
 modified forms of those used by our Anglo-Saxon 
 ancestors. 
 
COMMON AILMENTS. 165 
 
 Typhus Fever. — Even for so dangerous a disease 
 as typhus fever, our peasantry do not hesitate to 
 practise their own remedies. One consists in applying 
 the skii't of a sheep to the soles of the feet, and 
 keeping it there for several hours, under a notion 
 that this will draw away the fever from the head. 
 Some years ago a clergyman in Norfolk, whilst visit- 
 ing a poor man suffering from this complaint, found 
 that his wife had placed the spleen of a cow on 
 the soles of his feet, having been assured that it 
 was an efficacious remedy. There is another story 
 that the rector of a Norfolk parish was solicited 
 for the loan of the church plate to lay on the stomach 
 of a child, which was much swelled from some mesen- 
 teric disease, this being held to be an excellent remedy 
 in such cases. 
 
 Warts, — These have been regarded as prognostica- 
 tions of good or bad luck according to their position on 
 the body, those on the right hand foreboding riches, 
 whereas one on the face is believed to indicate 
 troubles of various kinds. It would be difficult to 
 enumerate the many methods that have been adopted 
 to charm or drive them away, most persons disliking 
 these ugly little excrescences, and willingly resorting 
 to any means, however eccentric, to lose them. As 
 in the case of so many other charms, most of those 
 used also for this complaint are of the nature of a 
 sacrifice, the warts being transferred to a substitute. 
 Thus, the person is recommended to count his warts, 
 to wrap in a piece of paper a pebble for each, and 
 
166 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 then to throw the parcel away, in the hope that its 
 unfortunate finder will get them. Another remedy 
 is to open the warts to the quick, and to rub 
 them with the juice of a sour apple, which should 
 afterwards be buried,^ and as it decomposes the warts 
 will die away. Some rub the waii; with eels' blood. 
 and others believe in the efficacy of the ashen tree. 
 After picking each wart with a pin, they stick it into 
 the bark, and repeat this rhyme : — 
 
 " Ashen tree, ashen tree, 
 Pray buy these warts of me." 
 
 An Irish servant's formula is to pass his hand over 
 the warts, making the sign of the cross, at the same 
 time bidding them, in God's name, depart and trouble 
 him no more. He then gives some one a slip of j)aper, 
 on which is written ^' Jesus Christ, that died upon the 
 cross, put my warts away,'' to drop by the roadside. 
 It is thought that as it perishes, so, too, will the 
 warts vanish. Another plan is to steal a piece of 
 raw meat, rub the warts with it, and throw it away, 
 a charm mentioned by Southey in *^ The Doctor." 
 Other remedies are the juice of ants, spiders' webs, 
 pigs' blood, while tying a horse-hair round each wart 
 is considered efficacious. Another method is to blow 
 on the warts nine times when the moon is full ; 
 and in some places boys take a new pin, cross the 
 warts with it nine times, and cast it over the left 
 shoulder. These, then, are some of the principal 
 cures for warts, most of them, as we have already 
 said, belonging to the category of vicarious charms, 
 
CO>rMON AILMENTS. 167 
 
 which have at all times been one of the favourite 
 resources of poor mortals in their difficulties — such 
 charms being sacrifices made on the principle so widely 
 adopted — Quifacit loer aliitmfacit "per se. 
 
 Wen, — The same notion of vicariousness enters 
 into the cures recommended for wens, one of the 
 most efficacious being the touch of a dead man's 
 hand. And Grose informs us how, in days gone 
 by, children were brought by their nurses to be 
 stroked with the hands of dead criminals, even whilst 
 they were hanging on the gallows. In Northampton- 
 shire numbers of sufferers were in the habit of con- 
 gregating round the gallows, in order to receive '^ the 
 dead-stroke," the notion being that as the hand of the 
 man mouldered away, so the w^en would by degrees 
 decrease. In Gloucestershire an ornamental necklace 
 made of plaited hair from a horse's tail is thought to 
 be a good remedy. 
 
 Whooping -Cough. — This common enemy of child- 
 hood has, from time immemorial, afforded ample 
 opportunity to the superstitiously-inclined to devise 
 sundry charms for its cure, of which the following are 
 a few : — Passing the patient three times under the 
 belly and three times over the back of a donkey ; or 
 let the parent of the afflicted child catch a spider, 
 and hold it over the head of the child, repeating three 
 times : — 
 
 *' Spider, as you waste away, 
 Whooping-cough no longer stay." 
 
168 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 The spider must then be hung up in a bag over the 
 mantlepiece, and when it has dried up the cough 
 will have disappeared. There is a notion in Cheshire 
 that this complaint can be cured by holding a toad 
 or frog for a few moments with its head within 
 the child's mouth, whereas in Norfolk the patient 
 is advised either to drink some milk which a ferret 
 has lapped, or to allow himself to be dragged three 
 times round a gooseberry bush or bramble, and then 
 three times again after three days' interval. In 
 Sussex the excrescence often found on the briar-rose, 
 and known as the ^*E.obin Redbreast's Cushion," is 
 worn as an amulet ; and in Suffolk, if several 
 children in a family are taken ill, some of the hair 
 of the oldest child is cut into small pieces, put into 
 some milk, and the mixture given to its brothers 
 and sisters to drink. Some, again, procure hair 
 from the dark cross on the back of a donkey, and 
 having placed it in a bag, hang it round the child's 
 neck. A Scotch remedy is to place a piece of red 
 flannel round the patient's neck ; the virtue residing, 
 says Mr. Napier, not in the flannel but in the red 
 colour, red having been a colour symbolical of 
 triumph and victory over all enemies. 
 
 As may be seen, therefore, from the extensive 
 use of charm-remedies in household medicine, the 
 physician's province has been assailed by the wide- 
 spread belief in such imaginary remedies. Indeed, 
 those who believe in the prevention and cure of disease 
 by supernatural means are far more numerous than 
 
MISCELLANEOUS HOUSEHOLD LORE. 169 
 
 one would imagine, having their representatives even 
 among the ^higher classes. However much we may 
 ridicule the superstitious notions of our rural pea- 
 santry, or speak with compassion of the African negro 
 who carries about hi:ii some amulet as a preservative 
 against disease or as a safeguard against any danger 
 that may befall him, yet we must admit that there 
 is in England also a disposition to retain, with more 
 or less veneration, those old-world notions which in 
 the time of our forefathers constituted, as it were, 
 so many articles of faith. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS HOUSEHOLD LORE. 
 
 Horse-shoes— Precautions against "VVitcli craft — The Charmer — 
 Second Sight — Ghosts— Dreams— Nightmare. 
 
 The belief in witchcraft, which in years gone by was 
 so extensively entertained, has not yet died out, and 
 in many of our country villages it is regarded as one 
 of those secret dangers to which every home is more 
 or less exposed. Hence we find various devices still 
 resorted to for the purpose of counteracting the sup- 
 posed hurtful influences of this baneful power, instances 
 of which we subjoin. Thus, according to a common 
 idea, one of the best preservatives is a horse-shoe nailed 
 
170 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 to the threshold. The reason of this is said to be that 
 Mars, the god of war, and the war-horse, was thought to 
 be an enemy to Saturn, who, according to a mediaeval 
 idea, was the liege lord of witches. Thus, iron 
 instruments of any kind have been said to keep 
 witches at bay, a superstition which has been traced 
 back to the time of the Romans, who drove nails into 
 the walls of their houses as an antidote against the 
 plague. Mr. Napier says that he has seen the horse-shoe 
 in large beer-shops in London, and was present in the 
 parlour of one of these when an animated discussion 
 arose as to whether it was most effective to have the 
 shoe nailed behind the door or upon the first step of 
 the door. Both positions had their advocates, and 
 instances of extraordinary luck were recounted as 
 having attended them. 
 
 In Lancashire, where there are, perhaps, more 
 superstitions connected with this subject than in any 
 other county of England, we find numerous traditions 
 relating to the evil actions of the so-called witches in 
 former years, many of which have become household 
 stories among the peasants. At the present day the 
 good housewife puts a hot iron into the cream during 
 the process of churning to expel the witch from the 
 churn ; and dough in preparation for the baker is 
 protected by being marked with the figure of a cross. 
 In some places a '' lucky stone " — a stone with a hole 
 through it — is worn as an amulet, and crossed straws 
 and knives laid on the floor are held in high repute. 
 A belief, too, which was once very prevalent, and 
 even still lingers on, was that the power of evil ceased 
 
MISCELLANEOUS HOUSEHOLD LORE. 171 
 
 as soon as blood was drawn from the witch. An 
 instance of this superstition occurred some years ago 
 in a Cornish village, when a man was summoned 
 before the bench of magistrates and fined for having 
 assaulted the plaintiff and scratched her with a pin. 
 Not many years ago a young girl in delicate health 
 living in a village near Exeter was thought to have 
 been bewitched by an old woman of that place, and, 
 according to the general opinion, the only chance 
 of curing her was an application of the witch's 
 blood. Consequently the girl's friends laid wait one 
 day for the poor old woman, and scratching her with 
 a nail till the blood flowed, collected the blood. This 
 they carried home, and smeared the girl with it in 
 the hope that it would insure recovery Curious to 
 say, she finally got well, an event which, it is need- 
 less to add, was attributed to this charm. It is still 
 thought by many that witchcraft, like hydroj)hobia, 
 is contagious, and that the person, if only slightly 
 scratched by a witch, rapidly becomes one. The 
 faculty of witchcraft is also said to be hereditary, and 
 in some places families are pointed out as possessing 
 this peculiarity. Again, witches are supposed to have 
 the power of changing their shape and resuming it 
 again at will, a notion which was very popular in past 
 years, the cat's and the toad's being the forms they 
 were thought to assume. Hence the appearance of a 
 toad on the doorstep is taken as a certain sign that 
 the house is under evil influence, and the poor rep- 
 tile is often subjected to some cruel death. Cats, 
 also, were formerly exposed to rough usage, one 
 
172 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 method being to enclose them with a quantity of soot 
 in wooden bottles suspended on a line. The person 
 who succeeded in beating out the bottom of the 
 bottle as he run under it and yet escaping the con- 
 tents was the hero of Lhe sport, a practice to which 
 Shakespeare alludes in Much Ado about Nothing, where 
 Benedick says : — 
 
 " Hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me." 
 
 It is only natural, too, that in Macbeth, Shake- 
 speare, in his description of the witches, should have 
 associated them with the cat, their recognised 
 agent. 
 
 Another important character whose supernatural 
 powers are still credited is the ** charmer.'^ She is 
 generally an elderly woman of good reputation, and 
 supposed to be gifted with extraordinary powers, by 
 means of which she performs wonderful feats of 
 skill. By her incantations and mysterious ceremonies 
 she stops blood, cures all manner of diseases, and is, 
 in short, regarded as almost a miracle-worker. At 
 the same time, however, it must not be imagined that 
 she exercises her power gratuitously, as oftentimes 
 her charges are very high, and it is only by patient 
 saving that the poor can accumulate enough to satisfy 
 her exorbitant demands. This kind of superstition 
 has been already incidentally alluded to in the 
 chapter on " Common Ailments ; " and it is one that 
 still holds its ground in our country districts. These 
 supposed charmers, however, do not always make a 
 
MISCELLANEOUS HOUSEHOLD LORE. 173 
 
 trade of their art ; for, on tlie contrary, it is supposed 
 by some of tliem that any offer of pecuniary remunera- 
 tion would break the spell, and render the charm of 
 no avail. 
 
 Again, there is still an extensive belief in "second 
 sight,'' certain persons being thought to possess the 
 faculty of peeping into futurity, and revealing future 
 events to their fellow-creatures. Many of the High- 
 landers lay claim to this power, which was called by 
 the ancient Gaels '* shadow-sight." 
 
 " Nor less availed his optic sleight, 
 And Scottish gift of second-sight." 
 
 Sometimes, says Mr. ISTapier, the person fell into 
 a trance, " in which state he saw visions ; at other 
 times the visions were seen without the trance con- 
 dition. Should the seer see in a vision a certain 
 person dressed in a shroud, this betokened that the 
 death of that person would surely take place within a 
 year. Should such a vision be seen in the morning, 
 the person seen would die before that evening ; should 
 such a vision be seen in the afternoon, the person seen 
 would die before next night ; but if the vision were 
 seen late in the evening, there was no particular time 
 of death intimated, further than that it would take 
 place within the year. Again, if the shroud did not 
 cover the whole body, the fulfilment of the vision was 
 at a great distance. If the vision were that of a man 
 with a woman standing at his left hand, then that 
 woman would be that man's wife, although they may 
 both at the time of the vision be married to others." 
 
174 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 The case is related of a man living near Blackpool 
 who foretold death and evil events from his visions. 
 Men of superior ability were credulous enough to 
 visit him, and to give implicit faith to his marvellous 
 stories. 
 
 A species of superstition that may be said to reign 
 supreme in almost every home is the belief in ghosts, 
 there being few households that do not contain those 
 who believe in ghostly visitants. In this respect, 
 therefore, we are not superior to our less instructed 
 forefathers whose experiences have been transmitted 
 to us in many of those weird and thrilling stories 
 which are to be found recorded in many of our old 
 county histories. Indeed, there is scarcely a village 
 in England that does not boast of the proud distinc- 
 tion of having its haunted house or spot. Hence as 
 nightfall approaches with its sombre hues of darkness, 
 few persons can be found bold enough to visit such 
 mysterious localities, for — 
 
 " Grey superstition's whisper dread, 
 Debars the spot to vulgar tread." 
 
 Although many of these grotesque stories which have 
 been from time to time associated with certain old 
 houses are simply legendary and destitute of any 
 truth, yet it cannot be denied that while occasion- 
 ally causing fear even to the strong-minded they 
 have acted most injuriously upon the credulous and 
 superstitious. According to an old fancy, ghosts of 
 every description vanish at cock-crow, in allusion to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS HOUSEHOLD LORE. 175 
 
 which Shakespeare makes the ghost of Hamlet's 
 father vanish at this season : — 
 
 " It faded on the crowing of the cock." 
 
 One night, however, in the year has been said to be 
 entirely free from spiritual manifestations of every 
 kind — namely Christmas Eve — an idea to which 
 Marcellus refers, who, speaking of the ghost, says : — 
 
 " Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes 
 Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
 The bird of dawning singeth all night long, 
 And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; 
 The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, 
 No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, 
 So hallow' d and so gracious is the time.'* 
 
 But on other days of the year, every noise at night, 
 however trivial, which cannot be satisfactorily ex- 
 plained by inquisitive minds, is thought by tli6 
 superstitious to indicate that spirits are walking 
 abroad ; such illogical persons forgetting hoAV in the 
 stillness of the night sounds, which at other times 
 would pass unnoticed, attract attention, and thus 
 assume an exaggerated importance. In this way the 
 whistling of the wind, the creaking of the floor, and 
 a host of other natural noises have in the deceptive 
 hours of midnight terrified their nervous victim, and 
 filled the overwrought fancy with the most alarming 
 delusions. 
 
 An amusing volume might be written showing how 
 
176 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 most of the ghost stories connected with so-called 
 haunted houses have arisen. Thus, as Mrs. Latham 
 points out in her '^ West Sussex Superstitions," there 
 is very little doubt but that the ghosts formerly seen 
 wandering in blue flajiies, near lonely houses on the 
 coast, " were of an illicit class of spirits, raised by 
 the smugglers in order to alarm and drive all others 
 but their accomplices from their haunts." On one 
 occasion, for instance, the unearthly noises heard 
 night after night in a house at Kottingdean caused 
 such alarm among the servants, that they all gave 
 warning, when one night the noises ceased, and 
 soon afterwards a gang of smugglers who had fallen 
 into the hands of the police confessed to having 
 made a secret passage from the beach close by the 
 house, and said that, wishing to induce the occupiers 
 to abandon it, they had been in the habit of rolling 
 at the dead of night tub after tub of spirits up the 
 passage, and so caused it to be reported that the 
 place was haunted. 
 
 Ghosts are said to be especially fond of walking 
 abroad on certain nights, the chief of these being St. 
 Mark's Eve, Midsummer Eve, and Hallowe'en. Hence 
 various methods have been resorted to for the purpose 
 of invoking them with a view of gaining an insight into 
 futurity, love-sick maidens, as we have said, seizing 
 these golden opportunities for gaining information 
 about their absent lovers. It must not be supposed, too, 
 that apparitions are confined to the spirits of the de- 
 parted, as throughout the country there are the most 
 eccentric traditions of headless animals having been 
 
MISCELLANEOUS HOUSEHOLD LORE. 177 
 
 seen at sundry times rushing madly about at night- 
 time. 
 
 Leaving, however, the subject of ghosts, we find in 
 the next place an extensive folk-lore associated with 
 dreams. We have already incidentally alluded to the 
 many divinations practised for the sake of acquiring 
 information by means of them on certain subjects, 
 but we may further note that dreams are by some 
 supposed occasionally to intimate not only future 
 events, but things which are actually happening at 
 a distance. Hence a ** Dictionary of Dreams '* 
 has been framed whereby the inquirer, if he be 
 credulously disposed, can learn the meaning and 
 signification of any particular dream which he 
 may recollect. Thus, it is said that to dream of 
 death denotes happiness and long life, but to dream 
 of gathering a nosegay is unlucky, signifying that 
 our best and fairest hopes shall wither away like 
 flowers in a nosegay. Dreaming about balls, dances, 
 &c. , indicates coming good fortune ; and thus we are 
 told that those — 
 
 ** \VTio dream of being at a ball 
 No cause have they for fear ; 
 For soon will they united be 
 To those they hold most dear." 
 
 To give one further illustration, to dream that one 
 is walking in a garden, and that the trees are bare and 
 fruitless, is a very bad omen, being said to indicate 
 that one's friends will either become poor or forsake 
 one. If the garden, on the other hand, should be in 
 
 M 
 
178 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 bloom, it is a propitious sign. Portents of approach- 
 ing death are said to be received through dreams ; and 
 we will quote an example of this from Mr. Henderson, 
 which happened, it is affirmed, some years ago in the 
 family of an Irish bishop : — ''A little boy came down- 
 stairs one morning, saying, ' Oh, mamma, I have had 
 such a nice dream. Somebody gave me such a pretty 
 box, and I am sure it was for me, for there was 
 my name on it. Look, it was just like this ; ' and, 
 taking up a slate and pencil, the child drew the 
 shape of a coffin. The parents gazed at one another 
 in alarm, not lessened by the gambols of the child, 
 who frolicked about in high health and spirits. The 
 father was obliged to go out that morning, but he 
 begged the mother to keep the child in her sight 
 through the day. She did so, till, while she was dress- 
 ing to go out in her carriage, the little boy slipped 
 away to the stables, where he begged the coachman to 
 take him by his side while he drove to the house door, 
 a thing he had often done before. On this occasion, 
 however, the horses were restive, the driver lost 
 control over them, and the child was flung off and 
 killed on the spot." Shylock, it may be remembered, 
 in the Merchant of Venice^ referring to his dream, 
 says : — 
 
 " There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest, 
 For I did dream of money -tags to-night." 
 
 Many curious charms are still practised to ward off 
 that unpleasant sensation popularly known as night- 
 mare, which both in this and other countries has 
 
MISCELLANEOUS HOUSEHOLD LORE. 179 
 
 given rise to a variety of superstitions. Accord- 
 ing to one old notion, this disagreeable feeling was 
 produced by some fairy, under a disguised form, 
 visiting the person, and worrying him while asleep 
 by certain mischievous pranks. Thus, in Germany, 
 the nightmare is said to appear at times in the shape 
 of a mouse, a weasel, or a toad, and occasionally, too, 
 in the form of a cat. One German story relates how 
 a joiner was, night by night, much plagued with the 
 nightmare, when he at last saw it steal into his room 
 about midnight in the form of a cat. Having at 
 once stopped up the hole through which the cat had 
 entered, he lost no time in seizing the animal and 
 nailing it by one paw to the ground. Next morning, 
 however, much to his horror and surprise, he dis- 
 covered a handsome young lady with a nail driven 
 through her hand. He accordingly married her, 
 but one day he uncovered the hole which he had 
 stopped up, whereupon she instantly escaped through 
 it in the shape of a cat, and never returned. There 
 are numerous stories of a similar kind, in most cases 
 the sequel being the same. Among the charms still 
 in use as a preservative against nightmare may be 
 mentioned a stone with a natural hole in it hung 
 over the sleeper, or a knife laid under the foot of 
 the bedstead, both being considered of equal efficacy. 
 In Lancashire the peasantry believe that nightmare 
 appears in the form of a dog, and they try to 
 counteract its influence by placing their shoes under 
 tlie bed with the toe upwards, on retiring to rest. 
 Not very long ago, too, at the West Riding Court at 
 
180 DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE. 
 
 Bradford, in a case of a husband and wife who had 
 quarrelled, the woman stated that the reason why she 
 kept a coal-rake in her bedroom was that she suflfered 
 from nightmare, and had been informed that the rake 
 would keep ifc away. The best charm after all, 
 however, for this common disorder is to be careful 
 that one's digestive organs are not upset by incautious 
 suppers eaten just before retiring to rest. 
 
 It only remains for us, in conclusion, to add once 
 more that the preceding pages are not intended to be 
 by any means exhaustive, our object having been to 
 give a brief and general survey of that extensive folk- 
 lore which has, in the course of years, woven itself 
 around the affairs of home-life. However much this 
 may be ridiculed on the plea of its being the outcome 
 of credulous belief, yet it constitutes an important 
 element in our social life, which the historian in years 
 to come will doubtless use when he studies the character 
 of the English people in this and bygone centuries. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abqartts, Letter of Christ to, 7 
 Ague, Chaniis against, 149 
 Apes, Leading, 43. 
 Apple-peel as a love-test, 30 
 Apple-tree blooming twice, a sign of 
 
 Death, 52 
 Apron, Superstitions about, 84 « 
 Articles of Dress, 81 
 *• Arval " and '* Arval Bread," 64 
 Aryan Myths and Legends, 16 
 Astrology, Divination by, 144 . 
 Auguries gathered from Shoes, 89 
 
 Baby axd Kittkn, 8 
 
 Banns, Superstitions about putting up, 
 43 . 
 
 Baptism, how rendered propitious in 
 Scotland, 19 * 
 
 Effect of, on Children, 18 » 
 
 Barring out, 27 
 
 Addison's conduct at, 27 
 
 Beards, Dyeing of, 76 • 
 
 Bed, Folk-lore about, 118 
 
 Position of, 119 
 
 Bellows, Superstition about, 120, 160 
 
 Bent piece of money, 133 
 
 Best man's prize, 46 
 
 Bible and Key, 135 
 
 Birds, Presages of Death by, 51 
 
 Birth and Infancy, Folk-lore relating 
 to, 2 
 
 •* Bishopping," good for rheumatism, 
 21 
 
 Bishop's Left Hand, Superstition re- 
 specting, 20 
 
 Biting the Glove, 95 
 
 " Black Ox " in Scotland, 51 
 
 Blade-bone, Divination by, 139 
 
 Bleeding of the Nose, 68, 150 
 
 as a sign of love, 68 
 
 Blue Vein across Nose, 69 
 
 Brake or Fern, Divination by, 31 
 
 Bread, Sui)erstitions about, 1U7 
 
 Breaking Egg-shells, 108 
 
 Bride and Looking-glass, 113 
 
 Sun shining on, 40 
 
 Brides of Elizabethan Dramas, 39 
 
 Bride's Stockings, 86 
 
 Broom left in Room after Sweeping, 
 126 
 
 Burial of Dead among Greeks, 63 
 
 "Burial without the Sanctuary," 62 
 
 Burn or Scald, 151 
 
 Burning Hair, Omens from, 74 
 
 tail of Coat, &c., 84 
 
 Butter-dock, Scattering Seeds of, 35 
 
 C-EXA FERALIS OF ROMANS, 64 
 
 Candle in Ghost's Hand, 54 
 Candles, Omens from, 130 
 Carbuncle in Ring, 96 
 
 Cards, Divination by, 144 
 
 Carrying the Dead with the Sun, 61 
 
 Casting Lot, Divination by, 146 
 
 Cat, Sneezing of, 123 
 
 Cats and Toads, Form of, assumed by 
 Witches, 177 
 
 Sucking Child's Breath, 13 ^ 
 
 Caul, Superstition about, 3, 4 • 
 
 Hood's Ballad about, 3 » 
 
 Price paid for, 4 , 
 
 Chairs, Superstitions about, 111, 118 
 
 Changelings, Superstiticms about, 4 
 
 Luther's remarks on, 4 » 
 
 Character of Book, 180 
 
 Charm-remedies, 148 
 
 Charmer, her power, 172 
 
 Charms against changing Children, 5 
 
 to detect Changelings, 5 
 
 against stumbling, 124 
 
 Cheeks, Itching of, 77 « 
 
 Cheese given by Bride, 42 
 
 Child Dying unchristened, 18 
 
 Childhood's Folk-lore, 16 
 
 "Chime Hours," Birth at, 2 
 
 Chiromancy, or Palmistrj', 140 
 
 Christmas Eve, Divinations on, SI 
 
 Christ's College, Cambridge, Fellow- 
 ships at, 103 
 
 Churchyard Lore, 61 
 
 Cinderella, a Nature-myth, 17 » 
 
 " Clock-falling," 117 
 
 striking thirteen, 54 
 
 losing stroke, 55 
 
 Clothes of the Dead, 83 
 
 Cock-crowing at Night, 52 
 
 " Connoisseur," Love-tivsts in, 29 
 
 Corn in Marriage Ceremony, 44 
 
 " Corpse-candles " in Wales, M < 
 
 Counting one's Gains, 133 
 
 Covering Looking-glass at Death, 113 
 
 Cramp, Charms au'ainst, 151 
 
 "Creeling" the Bridegroom in Scot- 
 land, 48 
 
 Crockery, Breaking of, 127 
 
 Cross on Dough, 170 
 
 Crowing Hen, 125 
 
 of a Cock, 138 
 
 Crying at Baptism, 19 
 
 Anecdote regarding, 20 
 
 at Wedding, 40 
 
 Cuckoo's Notes, 32 
 
 First Note heard in Bed, Ominous 
 
 of Illness or Death, 52 
 
 " Cunning Man," 121 
 
 Curious Marriage Customs, 47 
 
 Cutting tiie Nails, 80 
 
 Dactylomaxxy. or Divination by 
 
 Rings, 98 
 Dandelion, Divination by, 31 ♦ 
 Days of Week, Sneezing on, 123 
 
182 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Dead Children cannot rest if Mothers 
 fret for them, 15 
 
 Hand, Rubbing with, 78 » 
 
 Anecdotes respecting, 78 
 
 Man's Hand at Bryn Hall, Lanca- 
 shire, 79 
 Death and Burial, Superstition re- 
 specting, 48 
 
 Announced by the Dying, 55 
 
 Bell in Scotland, 67 
 
 Anecdote of Hogg about, 67 
 
 Dee, Dr., and Magic Mirror, 114 
 Destiny of Children, how augured in 
 
 Scotland, 19 
 Diamond, potent against Poison, 97 
 "Dipping," in Bible, 136 
 Divination among Children, 26 
 
 by Pins, 100 
 
 of Sex of unborn Infant, 3 
 
 Dog, Howling of, at Death, how caused, 
 
 50 
 Doorstep, Lifting Bride over, 42 
 Drawing Blood from Witch, 171 
 Dreams, What denoted by, 177 
 Dutch Parson and Will-o'-the-Wisp, 18 
 " Dying Hard," 58 
 
 Ears, Tingling of, 66 »- 
 
 Easter Day, New Clothes on, 82 * 
 
 Ecclesiastical Dignity and Gloves, As- 
 sociation of, 94 
 
 Eggs, Divination by, 146 
 
 Superstitions about, 108 
 
 Elder Sister Dancing in Hog's-trough 
 at younger Sister's Marriage, 43 
 
 Emerald, and Purity of Thought, 97 
 
 Epilepsv, Remedies for, 152 
 
 Erysipelas, Amulets against, 153 
 
 Evil Eye, 6 > 
 
 in " Satires of Persius," 6 ^ 
 
 Lancashire belief about, 6 "^ 
 
 Exeter Lammas Fair, 94 
 
 Eye, Omens relating to, 70 
 
 " Eye-biting " in Ireland, 7 
 
 Eye-brows, Meeting of, 70 ♦ 
 
 Eyes, Itching of, 70 
 
 Face, or Look-divination, 142 
 
 Fair, Opening of, announced by hang- 
 ing out Glove, 94 
 
 Fairy-tales, What embodied in, 16 ♦ 
 
 Feet, Folk-lore about, 80 
 
 Itching of, 80 
 
 " Fetch-lights," 54 
 
 Finger-nails, Superstitions about, 10 • 
 
 in Germany, 10 • 
 
 in Northumberland, 11 ^ 
 
 in Scotland, 11 - •^ 
 
 Fire, Omens and Portents of, 129 
 
 First Teeth, Precautions taken when 
 they come out, 10 
 
 ' Tooth in Upper Jaw, 8 
 
 Fits, Charms against, 154 
 
 Flat Feet and Bad Temper, 80 
 
 Flinging the Stocking, 85 
 
 Foot going to Sleep, 81 
 
 Fretting Baby, 12 
 
 Friday, an Unlucky Day, 128 * 
 
 Good for Love-omens, 35 • 
 
 Inauspicious for Marrying, 38 • 
 
 Lucky for Marrying in Scotlandj 39 
 
 Funeral Feasts, 64 
 
 Meeting of, by Bride or Bride- 
 groom, 40 
 
 Meeting a, 65 
 
 of Unmarried Girl, Custom at, 64 
 
 Furniture Omens, 111 
 
 Garters, Superstitions about, 86* 
 
 Tying I^nots in, SO » 
 
 Gathering Rose on Midsummer Eve, SO 
 
 Getting out of Bed the wrong way, 119 
 
 Ghosts, Belief in, 174 
 
 do not appear on Christmas Eve, 
 
 175 
 
 Favourite Days for appearance of, 
 
 176 
 
 seen by Animals, 50 
 
 Gloucester, Duke of. Born with Teeth, 
 9 
 
 Glove, Use of, at Fairs, 95 -^ 
 
 Glove-money, 93 
 
 Gloves, Superstitions about, 92 
 
 Going in at one Door and out at an- 
 other at Marriage, 41 
 
 " Going up " at Birth, 8 
 
 Gout, Charms against, 155 ~ 
 
 " Grave Scab," 14 
 
 Remedy for, 14 
 
 Graves, Position of, 63 
 
 Green Yarrow, 31 
 
 Grounds at bottom of Tea-cup, 110 
 
 Hair, Superstitions respectiso, 
 
 Omens from Growth of, 74 ^ 
 
 Sudden Loss of, 74 
 
 Hallowe'en, Divination on, 34"* 
 Hands, Emblematic of Character, 77 ' 
 
 Itching of, 77 ♦ 
 
 Headache, Cures for, 155 
 
 Headless Animals, 176 
 
 Helping to Salt, 104 
 
 Hen cackling at Wedding, 42 
 
 Hollow Cinder a Coffin, 129 
 
 Home-life, Superstitions relating to, 
 
 131 
 Horoscope in Germany, 143 
 Horse-shoes as Amulets, 169 
 Hot Iron in Cream, 170 
 Household Superstitions, 120 
 Howling of a Dog at Night indicative 
 
 of Death, 49 
 Human Body, Superstitions about, 65 
 Hydroi)hobia, Cures for, 156 
 Hysteria, Remedies for, 158 
 
 Idiots cannot sneeze, 123 
 Invalid asking for Pigeons, 52 
 Itching of the Nose, 68 
 
 " Jack-a-Dandy," 25 
 Jackdaw, Omen of Death, 52 
 Jacob's Prophecies, 57 
 Jaundice, Remedies for, 158 
 Jewish Customs respecting Shoes, 90 
 June popular for marrj'ing, 37 > 
 
 Keepsake Rings, Colours in,s.9 
 Knile, Folk-lore relating to, 105 
 
IKDEX. 
 
 183 
 
 Knife, Giving away, unlucky, 106 
 , Finding, unlucky, 106 
 
 Lady-bird, Divination by, 31 
 
 Lameness, Cure for, 158 
 
 Last Day of Year, Marrying on, m 
 
 Scotland, 39 
 Leap-year, Birth in, 3 
 Lending Knife to cut Cake, 26 
 Long Life, bow to secure, 12 . 
 Looking-glass, Fancies about, 112 
 Love and Courtship, 28 
 Love-tests, 28 
 
 • , whence derived, 29 
 
 " Luck of Edenhall," 116 
 " Lucky Stone" as Amulet, 170 
 Lucky Stones, 7 
 Lumbago, Cure for, 159 
 
 Magicians and Looking glasses, 
 
 114 » 
 Magpie using Hair, 74 
 Maiden Assize, Gloves at, 93 
 Making "the Deazil," 61 
 •' Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," 21 
 May Marriages unlucky, 36 ♦ 
 Measles, Cure for, 159 
 Medicated Rings, 97 
 M-edicine Bottles, selling, 134 
 Melted Lead, Divination by, 146 
 Midsummer Eve, Practices on, 33 
 Misfortune not to die in one's Bed, 53 
 Moist and dry Hands, 78 
 Moles, Omens drawn from, 66 * 
 Money and the New Moon, 1S2 
 
 Nails, Signification of, 77 
 
 Necklace of Peony Beads, 10 
 
 New Clothes, Superstitious relating 
 
 to, 82 
 
 Moon ill Looking-glass, 113 
 
 Nicking Schoolmaster's Cane, 26 
 Nightmare, Charms against, 178 
 
 , Curious Stories about, 179 
 
 North Side of Church, Burial in, 63 
 
 Nose, Omens relating to, 68 • 
 
 *' Nose out of Joint," and " Paying 
 
 through Nose," 69 - 
 Number Thirteen,SuperstitioDS about, 
 
 100, 101 
 *' Nutcrack-night," 34 
 Nuts and Apples, Divination by, 31 
 
 Odd Numbers, Antipathy to, in 
 
 School Games, 25 
 Omens associated with Rings, 97 
 
 of approaching Death, 49 
 
 Onyraancy, or Divination by the 
 
 Finger-nails, 141 
 Opal liing, unlucky to wear, 97 
 Open Grave at Wedding, 41 
 •' Over-looking," Superstitions about, 
 
 71 
 Overturning Chair, 111 
 Ovid on June Marriasres, 38 
 Ox or Cow breaking into Garden, Omen 
 
 of Death, 51 
 , Anecdote respecting, 51 
 
 Palmistry, or Divination by the 
 Hands, 78 
 
 Paralysis, Charms for, 160 
 
 " Parson's Penny" in Wales, 62 
 
 Picking Broom in Bloom unlucky, 52 
 
 , Anecdote respecting, 53 
 
 Pigeons' Feathers in Bed, 58 
 
 Heart, Divination by, 3-4 
 
 Pin in Candle, 131 
 
 Pins, Superstitions about, 98 » 
 
 in Witchcraft and Sorcery, 99 » 
 
 ' , Robbing Bride of, 41 * 
 
 Plants and Petticoats, 85 
 
 in Love-charms, 30 
 
 , Omens of Death derived from, 52 
 
 Poker across Bars of Grate, 129 
 
 Popular Divinations, 134 
 
 Pork, eating Marrow of, 109 
 
 Position of Grave, 63 
 
 Prayers of Poor in Lincolnshire, 22 
 
 , Origin of, 23 
 
 Taught by poor People to their 
 
 Children, 21 
 Prevalence of Superstitions, 122 
 Prophesying before Death, 57 
 Puritans and Wedding-ring, 4Ct 
 
 Rain, Rhymes about, 24 
 Rainbow, crossing out, 24 
 '•Rattley-bag9,"25 
 Rebuilding House fatal, 54 
 Red Hair and Beard, 75 * 
 Reversing Articles of Dress, 83 
 Rheumatism and Shoes, 90 
 
 , Charms against, 160 
 
 Rhymes used by Children, 23 
 Rings, Legendary Lore of, 95 « 
 
 as Talismans, 96 , 
 
 of dead Friend, 84 
 
 Rocking empty Cradle, 9 
 
 Rubbing Shoulders with Bride or 
 
 Bridegroom, 41 
 Rural Bridegroom and Gloves, 95 
 
 St. Valentine's Day, 32 • 
 
 , Divination on, in Devonshire, 33 * 
 
 Salt on Breast of Corpse, 60 
 Salt-spilling, Superstitions about, 103 « 
 Seasons admitting or prohibiting 
 
 Matrimony, 38 
 Second Sight, 173 
 Selling Eggs after dark, 108 
 "Shaping" of Wedding Dress for 
 
 Divination, 46 
 Shift, Divination by, 30 
 Shivering as a portent. 131 
 Shoeing-horn and Shakespeare, 91 
 Shoe-throwing, 87 
 
 at Weddings, 46 . 
 
 Shoes, Rhymes on, 90 
 
 , Superstitions about, 87 
 
 Shortbread at W^edding, 45 
 
 Sieve and Shears, 137 
 
 •' Sin-eaters" in Scotland, 60 
 
 Sitting above and below the Salt, 105 
 
 cross-legged, 80 
 
 Sleeping on Bones, 8 
 
 Small-pox, Remedies for, 161 
 
 Smith, Mr. G., the Assyriologlst, and 
 
 Dr. Delitzsch, 55 
 Snail, Divination by, .32 * 
 Snails, Rhymes about, 25 • 
 Sneezing and Sneezers, 122 • 
 
184 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Snow, Rhymes about, 24 
 SorUs Virgiliance, 136 
 Sowing Hempseed, 29 
 •• Spade-money " in Wales, 62 
 Spark in Candle, 130 
 Spasms, Cure for, 160 
 Spatulamancia, 139 
 Specks on the Nails, 79 
 Speedwell and Snowdrop. 53 
 Spider, Superstitions about, 126 
 Spitting on Money, 132 
 Sprains, Charms for, 161 
 Staff, Divination by, 146 
 Standing in another's Shoes, 91 
 
 on end, of Hair, 73 
 
 Stillborn Children, Graves of, 15 
 Stocklnss, Superstitions about, 85 * 
 Stolen Kisses and Gloves, 93 
 stopping House Clock at Death, 117 
 Stumbling Up-stairs, 123 
 
 on Threshold, 124 
 
 at Grave, 124 
 
 Sty, Prevention and Cure of, 162 
 Sudden whitening of Hair, 73 
 Sunday good Day to marry, 38 
 
 Lucky for Birth, 2 
 
 Superstitions about Marriage, 42 
 
 , value of, 1. 
 
 , in what interesting, 1 
 
 , whence sprung, 1 
 
 Sussex Superstition about Children 
 
 born on Sunday. 2 
 Sweeping, Sui-ersiiti-'US about, 126 
 Symbolism of Shoes, 88 
 
 Table Superstitions, lOO 
 Tea-leaves, Divination by, 109 •' 
 Tea-stalks, Divination by, 147 
 Teeth, Superstitions respecting, 72^ 
 Thirteen at Table, 101, 102 * 
 Three Magpies sign of a Wedding, 32 
 Thrush, Charm against, 163 
 Toothache, Charms against, 163 
 Touching Corpse among P<)t>r, 60 
 Turning Back after starting, 132 
 Turquoise in Ring, 96 
 Typhus Fever, Remedies for, 165 
 
 *' UNCHRISTKXED GROtTND," 14 
 
 '* Universal Fortune-teller," 2 
 Unmarried Person between Man and 
 Wife, 111 
 
 Venetian Glass. Breaking of, by 
 
 POISONED Draught, 116 
 Virgin Mary at Birth of John the 
 
 Baptist, 8 
 
 Warts. Charms against, 165, 166 
 Watching dead Body, 61 ' 
 Water used at Baptism, 20 
 Weakly Infants, how ti'eated in Corn- 
 wall, 12 
 Wearing Looking-classes, 115 
 Weather, Charms to influence, 23 
 Weather-lore from Fires, 129 
 Wedding-cake, 44 ♦ 
 Wedding-ring, Divination by, 45 * 
 
 placed in Wedding-cake, 45 > 
 
 hired in Ireland, 47 , 
 
 , Notions about, 47 » 
 
 Wens, Cures for, 167 
 Whistling Woman, 125 
 White Gloves and Death of the Un- 
 married, 94 
 Whitsuntide, new Clothes on, 82 
 Whooping-cough, Cures for, 167 
 Will-o'-th'-Wisp, Omen of Death. 53 ♦ 
 William I. at Hastings. 83 
 Wine, &c., drank at Funerals, 64 
 " Wise Woman," 121 
 " Wishing-bone " of Fowl, 109 
 V/itch taking form of Cat, 14 
 Witchcraft, Divination in, 138 
 
 Precautions against, 169 
 
 Worthing, case of Doer howWng at, 49 
 " Wrong Side of Church," 62 
 
 Yellow Hair and Beard, 75 
 Yew, at Christmas. 53 
 Younir, Lieutenant, Announcement of 
 Brother's Death to, 56 
 
 Zadkiel's Almanack, 142 
 
 CASSELL, PETTER, QALPIN & CO., BELLE SAUVAGE WOBKS, L0ND02J, E.C. 
 
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