"Cut them on Monday, you cut them for health;
Cut them on Tuesday, you cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Wednesday, you cut them for news;
Cut them on Thursday, a new pair of shoes;
Cut them on Friday, you cut them for sorrow;
Cut them on Saturday, see your true love to-morrow;
Cut them on Sunday, the devil will be with you all the week."
This old rhyming-saw differs in various localities, although in the main points it is the same; as by general consent both Friday and Sunday are regarded as most inauspicious days for cutting both the nails and hair.
Once more, to sit cross-legged is said to produce good fortune; and occasionally at a card-table one may find some superstitiously-inclined person sitting in this attitude with a view of securing good luck. Sir Thomas Browne, on the contrary, tells us that in days gone to "sit cross-legged, or with the fingers pectinated" or shut together, was accounted a sign of bad luck: a superstition alluded to by Pliny. Referring to the feet, we cannot do more than just allude to two or three items of folk-lore with which they are connected. Thus, a flat-footed person is generally considered to have a bad temper, a notion indeed which daily experience often proves to be incorrect. The itching of the foot has been supposed to indicate that its owner will shortly undertake a strange journey; while that unpleasant sensation popularly styled "the foot going to sleep," is often charmed away by crossing the foot with saliva. When the division between the toes is incomplete, and they are partially joined, they are called "twin toes," and are said to bring good luck. This section of our "Domestic Folk-lore" might have been prolonged to an almost indefinite extent had space permitted, but as the preceding pages amply bear witness to the prevalence of such ideas, we will proceed to discuss another, and, it is to be hoped, not less interesting class of superstitions.
[CHAPTER VII.]
ARTICLES OF DRESS.
New Clothes at Easter and Whitsuntide—Wearing of Clothes—The Clothes of the Dead—The Apron, Stockings, Garters, &c.—The Shoe—The Glove—The Ring—Pins.
One would scarcely expect to find a host of odd fancies attached to such matter-of-fact necessities as articles of dress, but yet they hold a prominent place in our domestic folk-lore. However trivial at first sight these may seem, they are nevertheless interesting, in so far as they illustrate certain features of our social history, and show from another point of view how superstition is interwoven with all that appertains to human life. Beginning, then, with a well-known piece of folk-lore, most persons wear new clothes on Easter-Day, mindful of the old admonition:—
"At Easter let your clothes be new,
Or else be sure you will it rue"
—a notion that still retains its hold on the popular mind, few being found bold enough to transgress this long-rooted custom. In the North of England, so strong is the feeling on this point, that young people rarely omit visiting the nearest market-town prior to Eastertide, to buy some new article of dress or personal ornament, as otherwise they believe the birds—notably rooks—will spoil their clothes. A similar fancy prevails with regard to Whitsuntide, and many would consider that they had forfeited their good luck for the next twelve months if they did not appear in "new things" on Whitsunday.
The superstitions relating to clothes are very numerous, varying in different localities. Thus, according to a Suffolk notion, "if you have your clothes mended on your back, you will be ill-spoken of," or as they say in Sussex, "you will come to want." Again, many before putting on a new coat or dress, take care to place some money in the right-hand pocket, as this insures its always being full. If by mistake, however, the money is put in the left-hand pocket, then the person will never have a penny so long as the coat lasts. It is also a very prevalent belief that if one would secure luck with any article of dress, it must be worn for the first time at church. Equal attention, too, is paid by many to the way they put on each article of dress—as, in case of its being accidentally inside out, it is considered an omen of success. It is necessary, however, if one wishes the omen to hold good, to wear the reversed portion of attire with the wrong side out till the regular time comes for taking it off. If reversed earlier, the luck is immediately lost. The idea of the "hind-side before" is so closely related to that of "inside out," that one can hardly understand their being taken for contrary omens; yet, "It is worthy of remark, in connection with this superstition," says a correspondent of Chambers's "Book of Days," "that when William the Conqueror, in arming himself for the battle of Hastings, happened to put on his shirt of mail with the hind-side before, the bystanders seem to have been shocked by it, as by an ill-omen, till William claimed it as a good one, betokening that he was to be changed from a duke to a king." Another piece of superstition tells us that the clothes of the dead never last very long, but that as the body decays, so in the same degree do the garments and linen which belonged to the deceased. Hence, in Essex there is a popular saying to the effect that "the clothes of the dead always wear full of holes." When therefore a person dies, and the relatives, it may be, give away the clothes to the poor, one may frequently hear a remark of this kind, "Ah, they may look very well, but they won't wear; they belong to the dead." A similar belief prevails in Denmark, where a corpse is not allowed to be buried in the clothes of a living person, lest as the clothes rot in the grave, that person to whom they belonged should waste away and perish. In accordance also with a superstition prevalent in the Netherlands, the rings of a dead friend or relative are never given away, as it is a sure sign that the giver too will soon die. An absurd notion exists in many parts—one much credited by our country peasantry—that if a mother gives away all the baby's clothes in her possession, she will be sure to have another addition to her family, although the event may be contrary to all expectation. Among other items of folk-lore associated with clothes, we may mention that in the North of England to put a button or hook into the wrong hole while one is dressing in the morning, is held to be a warning that some misfortune will happen in the course of the day; and in Northamptonshire it is said that servants who go to their places in black will never stay the year out. A Dorsetshire superstition is that if a gentleman accidentally burns the tail of his coat, or a lady the hem of her skirt, during a visit at a friend's house, it is a proof they will repeat their visit.