The girl whose thoughts are turned towards love and matrimony has many approved methods of testing her fate on the new-year’s night. First of all, she may, by cracking her finger-joints, accurately ascertain the number of her admirers; also a fresh-laid egg broken into a glass of water will give much clew to the events in store for her by the shape it assumes; and a swine’s bristle stuck in a straw and thrown on the heated hearth-stone is reliable as a talisman which disperses love or jealousy.[44] To form a conjecture as to the figure and build of her future husband, she is recommended to throw an armful of firewood as far as she can backward over her shoulder; the piece which has gone farthest will be the image of her intended, according as the stick happens to be long or short, broad or slender, straight or crooked.
Another such game is to place on the table a row of earthen pots upside down. Under each of these is concealed something different—as corn, salt, wool, coals, or money—and the girl is desired to make her choice; thus money stands for a rich husband, and wool for an old one; corn signifies an agriculturist, and salt connubial happiness; but coals are prophetic of misfortune.
If these general indications do not suffice, and the maiden desire to see the reflection of her bridegroom’s face in the water, she has only to step naked at midnight into the nearest lake or river; or if she not unnaturally shrink from this chilly oracle, let her take her stand on the more congenial dunghill, with a piece of Christmas cake in her mouth, and, as the clock strikes twelve, listen attentively for the first sound of a dog’s bark which reaches her ear. From whichever side it proceeds will also come the expected suitor.
It is likewise on the last day of the year that the agriculturist seeks a prognostic of the weather for the coming year, by making what is called the onion calendar, which consists in putting salt into twelve hollowed-out onions and giving to each the name of a month. Those onions in which the salt has melted by the following morning will be rainy months.[45]
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
ROUMANIAN SUPERSTITION—CONTINUED: ANIMALS, WEATHER, MIXED SUPERSTITIONS, SPIRITS, SHADOWS, ETC.
Of the household animals the sheep is the most highly prized by the Roumanian, who makes of it his companion, and frequently his oracle, as by its bearing it is often supposed to give warning when danger is near.
The swallows here, as elsewhere, are luck-bringing birds, and go by the name of galinele lui Dieu—fowls of the Lord. There is always a treasure to be found where the first swallow has been espied.
The crow, on the contrary, is a bird of evil omen, and is particularly ominous when it flies straight over the head of any man.[46]
The magpie, when perched on a roof, gives notice of the approach of guests,[47] but a shrieking magpie meeting or accompanying a traveller denotes death.