April 24.] ST. MARK’S EVE.
April 24.]
ST. MARK’S EVE.
In Poor Robin’s Almanac for 1770 is the following:—
“On St. Mark’s Eve, at twelve o’clock,
The fair maid will watch her smock,
To find her husband in the dark,
By praying unto good St. Mark.”
Ass-ridlin
is another superstition practised in the northern counties. The ashes being riddled or sifted on the hearth, if any of the family be to die within the year the mark of the shoe, it is supposed, will be impressed on the ashes; and many a mischievous wight has made some of the credulous family miserable by slyly coming down stairs, after the rest have retired to bed, and marking the ashes with the shoe of one of the members.—Jamieson, Etymol. Dict.