A gift—a friend—a foe—
A journey—to go.
[DAYS OF BIRTH.]
Monday's child is fair in face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for its living;
And a child that's born on Christmas day
Is fair and wise, good and gay.
[COLOURS.]
Colour-superstitions, though rapidly disappearing, still obtain in the remote rural districts. The following lines were obtained from the East of England:
Blue is true,
Yellow's jealous,
Green's forsaken,
Red's brazen,
White is love,
And black is death!
[THE MAN IN THE MOON.]
The Man in the Moon
Sups his sowins with a cutty-spoon.
A Northumberland dish called sowins, is composed of the coarse parts of oatmeal, which are put into a tub, and covered with water, and then allowed to stand till it turns sour. A portion of it is then taken out, and sapped with milk. It may easily be imagined that this is a substance not very accessible to the movements of a cutty or very small spoon.
Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 412, informs us that there are three legends connected with the Man in the Moon; the first, that this personage was Isaac carrying a bundle of sticks for his own sacrifice; the second, that he was Cain; and the other, which is taken from the history of the Sabbath-breaker, as related in the Book of Numbers. The last is still generally current in this country, and is alluded to by Chaucer, and many early writers. The second is mentioned by Dante, Inferno, xx., Cain sacrificing to the Lord thorns, the most wretched production of the ground,—