Wednesday children are schlabberkinder—that is, chatterboxes. Friday bairns are unfortunate, but in some districts those born on Saturday are considered yet more unlucky; while again, in other places Saturday’s children are merely supposed to grow up dirty.
Whoever is born on a stormy night will die of a violent death.
The full or growing moon is favorable; but the decreasing moon produces weakly, unhealthy babes.
All children born between Easter and Pentecost are more or less lucky, unless they happen to have come on one of the distinctly unlucky days, of which I here give a list:
- January 1st, 2d, 6th, 11th, 17th, 18th.
- February 8th, 14th, 17th.
- March 1st, 3d, 13th, 15th.
- April 1st, 3d, 15th, 17th, 18th.
- May 8th, 10th, 17th, 30th.
- June 1st, 17th.
- July 1st, 5th, 6th, 14th.
- August 1st, 3d, 17th, 18th.
- September 2d, 15th, 18th, 30th.
- October 15th, 17th.
- November 1st, 7th, 11th.
- December 1st, 6th, 11th, 15th.
I leave it to more penetrating spirits to decide whether these seemingly capricious figures are regulated on some occult cabalistic system, the secret workings of which have baffled my understanding, so that I am at a loss to explain why January and April have the greatest, June and October the least, proportion of unlucky days allotted to them; and why the 1st and 17th of each month are mostly pernicious, while, barring the 30th of May and September, no date after the 18th is ever in bad odor.
Both mother and child must be carefully watched over during the first few days after the birth, and all evil influences averted. The visit of another woman who has herself a babe at the breast may deprive the young mother of her milk; and whosoever enters the house without sitting down will assuredly carry off the infant’s sleep.
If the child be subject to frequent and apparently groundless fits of crying, that is proof positive that it has been bewitched—either by some one whose eyebrows are grown together, and who consequently has the evil eye, or else by one of the invisible evil spirits whose power is great before the child has been taken to church. But even a person with quite insignificant eyebrows may convey injury by unduly praising the child’s good looks, unless the mother recollect to spit on the ground as soon as the words are spoken.
Here are a few specimens of the recipes en vogue for counteracting such evil spells: