Fortune Telling.
Persons who have the temerity to wish to pry into the secrets of futurity are frequently punished for their curiosity by the exact fulfilment of the prediction, although it may appear to be such as could by no possibility come to pass. The following story may be taken as an instance.
A young man applied to a woman, who pretended to be able to foresee events, to tell him what was likely to happen to him hereafter. She foretold that he had not long to live, but that he should be hanged, drowned, and burnt. Not knowing how it was possible that all these evils should come upon him, he made light of the prophecy, but the event proved the truth of the soothsayer’s prediction. One night, having allowed his fire to go out, and having no means at hand to rekindle it, he ran across the fields to the nearest habitation to beg a light. On his return, in jumping over a ditch, his foot caught in some brambles, and he fell head foremost into the water, his legs at the same time became so entangled in the bushes that he remained suspended, and the torch which he held in his hand setting fire to his clothes, he perished, as the fortune-teller had predicted, by hanging, drowning, and burning.[199]
[199] From Rachel Du Port.
Editor’s Note.
Other Editor’s Notes on this subject will be found in [Appendix B].
Compare “Damasc, Seigneur d’Asnières, excommunié par Hugues de Saint-Calais, Evêque de Mans (A.D. 1136-1144). Damasc, averti qu’il périrait par le feu et par l’eau, ne fit qu’en rire; mais un jour, traversant en bateau la Sarthe pendant un orage, il fut foudroyé et noyé.”—La Suze.—Magazin Pittoresque, 34me année, p. 312.
