Warning Stones. Bakers in Wiltshire and in some other counties used to put a certain kind of pebble in their ovens, to give notice when the oven was hot enough for baking. When the stone turned white, the oven was fit for use.
Water of Jealousy (The). This was a beverage which the Jews used to assert no adulteress could drink without bursting.--Five Philosophical Questions Answered (1653).
White Rose (The). A white rose gave assurance to a twin-brother of the safety or danger of his brother during his absence. So long as it flourished and remained in its pride of beauty, it indicated that all went well, but as it drooped, faded, or died, it was a warning of danger, sickness, or death.--The Twin-Brothers.
Witch Hazel. A forked twig of witch hazel, made into a divining-rod, was supposed, in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, to give warning of witches, and to be efficacious in discovering them.
Worms. If, on your way to a sick person, you pick up a stone and find no living thing under it, it tells you that the sick person will die, but if you find there an ant or worm, it presages the patient’s recovery.
Si visitans ægrum, lapidem inventum per viam attollat, et sub lapide inveniatur vermis se movens, aut formica vivens, faustum omen est, et indicium fore ut æger convalescat, si nihil invenitur res est conclamata et certa mors.--Buchardus, Drecretorum, lib. xix.
Warren (Widow), “twice married and twice a widow.” A coquette of 40, aping the airs of a girl; vain, weak, and detestable. Harry Dornton, the banker’s son, is in love with her daughter, Sophia Freelove; but the widow tries to win the young man for herself, by advancing money to pay off his friend’s debts. When the father hears of this he comes to the rescue, returns the money advanced, and enables the son to follow his natural inclinations by marrying the daughter instead of the designing mother.
A girlish, old coquette, who would rob her daughter, and leave her husband’s son to rot in a dungeon, that she might marry the first fool she could find.--Holcroft, The Road to Ruin, v. 2, (1792).
Wart (Thomas), a poor, feeble, ragged creature, one of the recruits in the army of Sir John Falstaff.--Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV., act iii. sc. 2 (1598).
Warwick (The earl of), a tragedy by Dr. T. Franklin. The theme is the last days and death of the “king maker” (1767).