Referring, however, more particularly to our subject, we find several items of folk-lore associated with the clock. Thus, in the North of England, there is a superstition called "Clock-falling," the idea being that if a woman enters a house after her confinement, and before being churched, the house-clock will immediately fall on its face. So strong was this belief in years past that a woman would never think of transgressing this rule under any circumstances whatever. In some places the house-clock is stopped on the occasion of a death, no doubt to remind the survivors that with the deceased one time is over, and that henceforth the days and hours are no longer of any account to him. A correspondent of Notes and Queries informs us that he knew "an intelligent, well-informed gentleman in Scotland who, among his last injunctions on his death-bed, ordered that as soon as he expired the house-clock was to be stopped, a command which was strictly obeyed." Aubrey also tells us that formerly it was customary for people of a serious turn of mind to say, every time they heard the clock strike, "Lord, grant my last hour may be my best hour."
Chairs, again, have their superstitions. It is regarded as a bad omen, for instance, if, when a person leaves a house, he replaces the chair on which he has been sitting against the wall, the probability being that he will never visit the house again. The chair on which a woman sits after her confinement to receive the congratulations of her friends is popularly termed "a groaning chair," an allusion to which we find in "Poor Robin's Almanack":—
"For a nurse, the child to dandle,
Sugar, soap, spiced pots, and candle,
A groaning chair, and eke a cradle."
Another article of furniture not without its folk-lore is the bed. Thus some superstitious persons always have their bedsteads placed parallel to the planks of the floor, considering it unlucky to sleep across the boards. Others again pay particular attention to the point of the compass towards which the head should be when in bed, a belief we find existing even among the Hindoos, who believe that to sleep with the head to the north will cause one's days to be shortened. To lie in the direction of the south they say is productive of longevity, whereas the east and west, it is asserted, are calculated to bring riches and change of scene respectively. Various theories in this country have been, at different times, started as to the proper position of the bedstead during the hours of sleep, which find ready acceptance among those who are ever ready to grasp any new idea, however fanciful it may be. A correspondent of The Builder, writing on the subject, says:—"So far as my own observations have gone, I know that my sleep is always more sound when my head is placed to the north. There are persons whom I know, the head of whose bed is to the north, and who, to awake early, will reverse their usual position in the bed, but without knowing the reason why, beyond 'that they could always wake earlier,' the sleep being more broken." An eminent physician in Scotland states that, when he failed by every other prescription to bring sleep to invalid children, he recommended their couches or little beds to be turned due north and south—the head of the child being placed towards the north—a process which he had always found successful in promoting sleep. After all, however, as has been so often said, the best prescription for a good night's rest is a healthy body and a sound mind.
The well-known phrase, "to get out of bed the wrong way," or "with the left leg foremost," is generally said of an ill-tempered person; the term having originated in an ancient superstition, which regarded it as unlucky to place the left foot first on the ground on getting out of bed.
Once more, as a mark of the simplicity of ancient manners, it was customary for persons even of the highest rank to sleep together, an allusion to which practice occurs in Henry V., where Exeter says:—
"Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with kingly favours."
In conclusion, we may take one further illustration on this subject from that useful little article, the bellows, to place which on a table is considered extremely unlucky, and few servants will either do it or allow it to be done.