COVERING A YAWNING MOUTH.
A well-bred man puts his hand over his mouth when he yawns, but not one well-bred man in ten thousand knows why. The reason is this:
Four or five hundred years ago there was a superstition common in Europe that the devil was always lying in wait to enter a man’s body and take possession of him.
Satan generally went in by the mouth, but when he had waited a reasonable time and the man did not open his mouth, the devil made him yawn, and when his mouth was open, jumped down his throat.
So many cases of this kind occurred that the people learned to make the sign of the cross over their mouths whenever they yawned, in order to scare away the devil.
The peasantry in Italy and Spain still adhere to this method, but most other people have dispensed with the cross sign, and keep out the devil by simply placing the hand before the lips. It is a most remarkable survival of a practice after the significance has perished.