Here is another instance wherein the auguries differ. An old sea-rhyme founded on the same thing adds this prediction:—
“And if we gang to sea, master,
I fear we’ll come to harm.”
It is also accounted good luck to see the new moon over the right shoulder, especially if you instantly feel in your pocket and find money there, as your luck thereby will be prodigiously increased, but you must take care instantly to turn the money over in your pocket.
Burglars are said to carry a piece of coal, or some other object, about with them for luck.
Upon getting out of bed in the morning, always put the right foot foremost. Slightly altered, this injunction has been turned into the familiar saying: “Put your best foot foremost.” Dr. Johnson was so particular about this rule, that if he happened to plant his left foot on the threshold of a house, he would turn back, and reënter right foot foremost. Similarly, one must always begin dressing the right foot first. An exception occurs to us: in military tactics it is always the left foot that goes foremost.
Professional gamblers are firm believers in the element of luck, the world over. According to their dictum, a youth who has never gambled before, is sure to be lucky at his first essay at play. Finding a piece of money or carrying a dice in the pocket also insures good fortune, they say.
To secure luck at cards or to change your luck, when it is going against you, you must walk three times around your chair or else blow upon the cards with your breath. Beyond reasonable doubt you will be a winner. Not so very long ago, it was the custom for women to offer to sit cross-legged in order to procure luck at cards for their friends. I have seen players spit on their hands for the same purpose. Sitting cross-legged, with the fingers interlaced, was formerly considered the correct magical posture.
The hair will grow better if cut on the waxing of the moon. This notion is probably based on the symbolism of the moon’s waxing and waning, as associated with growing and declining nature.
A Newfoundland fisherman to-day spits on the first piece of silver given him for luck. In the Old Country this was also a common practice among the lower class of hucksters, upon receiving the price of the first goods sold on that day, which they call “hansell.”[10] Boxers often spit into their hands before engaging in a set-to, as also did the schoolboys of my own age, who thought it a charm to prevent the master’s ferule from hurting them as much as it otherwise would, but later found out their mistake.
In some country districts the belief still holds that if a live frog can be passed through a sick cow the animal will get well, but the frog must be alive and kicking, or the charm will not work.