“of sickle, horseshoe, hollow flint.”
In Gay’s fable of “The Old Woman and her Cats,” the alleged witch laments that
“Straws laid across my path retard;
The horseshoes nail’d each threshold’s guard.”
Turning now from the merely passive to the active agency on the part of the seeker after fortune’s favors, we enter upon a no less marvellous, but vastly more attractive, field. Here is something that is tried every day:—
Of two persons breaking apart the wishing-bone of a chicken before forming a wish, the one getting the longer piece is assured of the fulfilment of his or her wish; the shorter piece bodes disappointment.
Another way to test fickle fortune is to form a wish while a meteor is falling; if one can do so the desire will be gratified. This saying would be no bad symbol of the importance of seizing a golden opportunity ere it has escaped us. As the immortal Shakespeare says:—
“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
If a load of hay goes by, make a wish on it and your wish will be gratified, provided you instantly look another way. But the charm will surely be broken if, like Lot’s wife, you should look back.
To see the new moon with the old in her arms, a much more common thing by the way in this country than in England, is considered lucky; as runs an old couplet:—
“Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moone
Wi’ the auld moone in hir armes.”