SCOTLAND.
Formerly on the eve of St. Agnes’ Day the following custom was, and perchance still is observed in the northern parts of Scotland by the mountain peasantry. A number of young lads and lasses meeting together on the eve of St. Agnes, at the hour of twelve, went one by one to a certain cornfield, and threw in some grain, after which they pronounced the following rhyme:
“Agnes sweet and Agnes fair,
Hither, hither, now repair;
Bonny Agnes, let me see
The lad who is to marry me.”
The prayer was granted by their favourite saint, and the shadow of the destined bride or bridegroom was seen in a mirror on this very night.—Time’s Telescope, 1832, p. 15.
