and the curse, or bad luck, indicated by the appearance of the magpie, could not then come.
The number of magpies seen implied different events. It was a common saying:—
One’s grief, two’s mirth,
Three’s a marriage, four’s a birth;
and another rendering of the above heard in Montgomeryshire was:—
One for bad luck,
Two for good luck,
Three for a wedding,
Four for a burying.
Another ditty is as follows:—
One’s joy, two’s greet (crying),
Three’s a wedding, four’s a sheet (death).
As stated above, one is grief, or bad luck, if it flies from right to left, but if from left to right it implied success or joy. So these various readings can only be reconciled by a little verbal explanation, but “four’s a birth” cannot be made to be an equivalent to “four’s a sheet,” a winding sheet, or a burying, by any amount of ingenuity.
Should a magpie be seen stationary on a tree, it was believed that the direction in which it took its flight foretold either success or disaster to the person who observed it. If it flew to the left, bad luck was to follow; if to the right, good luck; if straight, the journey could be undertaken, provided the bird did not turn to the left whilst in sight, but disappeared in that direction.
I heard the following tale in Denbighshire:—In days of old, a company of men were stealthily making their way across the country to come upon the enemy unawares. All at once they espied a magpie on a tree, and by common consent they halted to see which way it would take its flight, and thus foretell the fortune which would attend their journey. One of the party, evidently an unbeliever in his comrades’ superstition, noiselessly approached the