But in his proper person, —— Lubberkin.
Gay, The Shepherd’s Week: Thursday, or The Spell.
How to discover a Lover
Other ways of discovering the name of the lover are: Cut through the stem of a bracken fern, and the veins will show the initial letter (Nrf.); examine the veins on the back of your left hand, and note the letter they form; on May morning, take a small white slug termed a drutheen (Irel.), place it on a slate covered with flour or fine dust, and the track it pursues in the dust will form the initial letter of the name of the prospective husband; place a key at random in a Bible, and note the letter to which it points (Oxf.); take an apple, pare it whole, and holding the paring in your right hand, stand in the middle of the room repeating the following lines:
St. Simon and Jude, on you I intrude,
By this paring I hold to discover,
Without any delay to tell me this day,
The first letter of my own true lover.
A future Husband’s Occupation revealed
Then turn round three times, and cast the paring over your left shoulder, and it will form the first letter of the future husband’s surname. A form of this divination trick was to my knowledge practised by some of the kindergarten children at the Oxford High School in 1910. A method whereby Berkshire damsels of to-day seek to discover the name of a future husband is this: Split open an unused envelope, and write three names of young men you know, or would like to know, one in each of three corners, leaving one corner a blank. Place a piece of wedding-cake in the middle of the envelope, and fasten it up firmly, and then lay it under your pillow for three successive nights. Each morning tear off a corner, and the name left on the fourth morning will be the name of the destined husband, or if it is the blank corner which remains, then you will die an old maid. The future husband’s occupation may be revealed on New Year’s Eve by pouring some melted lead into a glass of water, and observing what form the drops assume. If they resemble scissors, they point to a tailor; if they depict a hammer, then they foretell a carpenter, and so on (Lan.). Another similar custom, belonging to Midsummer Day, is recorded as known in Cornwall: Get a glass of water, throw into it the white of a freshly-broken egg, and then put the glass to stand in the sunshine. You will soon see by careful observation, the ropes and yards of a vessel if your husband is to be a sailor, or a plough and team if he is to be a farmer. If when you first hear the cuckoo you take off your left shoe and stocking, you will find inside the latter a hair of the same colour as that of the person you will marry (Shr.), cp. ‘Then doff’d my shoe, and by my troth, I swear, Therein I spy’d this yellow frizled hair,’ Gay, Thursday, or The Spell. Charms for procuring a vision of the beloved are: on St. Thomas’ Eve, Dec. 20, peel a large red onion, stick nine pins into it and say: Good St. Thomas, do me right, Send me my true love this night, In his clothes and his array, Which he weareth every day, and then place the onion under your pillow; on All Saints’ Eve go into the garden alone at midnight, and while the clock is striking twelve pluck nine sage-leaves, one at every stroke up to the ninth, when you will see the face of the future husband, or if not, you will see a coffin (Shr.); gather twelve sage-leaves at noon, keep them in a saucer till midnight, then drop them one by one from your chamber window into the street, simultaneously with each stroke of the hour, the future husband will then either be seen, or else his step will be heard in the street below (Yks.); on Midsummer Eve walk through the garden with a rake over your left shoulder, and throw hempseed over your right, repeating the while: Hempseed I set, hempseed I sow, The man that is my true love Come after me and mow. The future husband will then appear following with a scythe. This charm with variations in the words used, and performed at different seasons, is widespread throughout the country, cp.: