But to the field a bag of hemp-seed brought;
I scatter’d round the seed on every side,
And three times in a trembling accent cried,—
‘This hemp-seed with my virgin hand I sow,
Who shall my true love be, the crop shall mow.’
I straight look’d back, and, if my eyes speak truth,
With his keen scythe behind me came the youth.”
Gay’s Pastorals.
The practice of sowing hemp-seed on midsummer-eve is not especially a Cornish superstition, yet it was at one time a favourite practice with young women to try the experiment. Many a strange story have I been told as to the result of the sowing, and many a trick could I tell of, which has been played off by young men who had become acquainted with the secret intention of some maidens. I believe there is but little difference in the rude rhyme used on the occasion,—
“Hemp-seed I sow,