Washing but Once in a Lifetime.
No devout Spanish woman dares to bathe without the permission of her confessor. A female Bulgarian is permitted to wash only once in her life—on the day before her wedding; and in most South Sclavonian families the girls are rarely allowed to bathe—the women never.
Looking Back.
The superstition of the ill-luck of looking back, or returning, is nearly as old as the world itself, having no doubt originated in Lot's wife "having looked back from behind him," when he was leaving the doomed city of the Plain. Whether walking or riding, the wife was behind the husband, according to a usage still prevalent in the East. In Robert's "Oriental Illustrations" it is stated to be "considered exceedingly unfortunate in Hindostan for men or women to look back when they leave their house. Accordingly, if a man goes out and leaves something behind him which his wife knows he will want, she does not call him to turn or look back, but takes or sends it after him; and if some emergency obliges him to look back, he will not then proceed on the business he was about to transact."
Toad-Stone Rings.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a curious superstition was prevalent in England in connection with what was known as the toad-stone ring. The setting was of silver, and the stone was popularly believed to have been formed in the heads of very old toads. It was eagerly coveted by sovereigns, and by all persons in office, because it was supposed to have the power of indicating to the person who wore it the proximity of poison, by perspiring and changing color. Fenton, who wrote in 1569, says: "There is to be found in the heads of old and great toads a stone they call borax or stelon;" and he adds, "They, being used as rings, give forewarning against venom." Their composition is not actually known; by some they are thought to be a stone—by others, a shell; but of whatever they may be formed there is to be seen in them a figure resembling that of a toad, but whether produced accidentally or by artificial means, is not known, though, according to Albertus Magnus, the stone always bore the figure on its surface when it was taken out of the toad's head. Lupton, in his "One Thousand Notable Things," says: "A toad-stone, called crepaudina, touching any part envenomed, hurt or stung with rat, spider, wasp or any other venomous beast, ceases the pain or swelling thereof." The well known lines in Shakespeare are doubtless in allusion to the virtue which Lupton says it possesses—
"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."
And Lyly, in his Euphues, says—
"The foule toad hath a faire stone in his head."