The belief in the efficacy of the caul goes back at least to the time of St. Chrysostom, who, in the latter part of the fourth century, preached against this with kindred superstitions. Advertisements of cauls for sale, at prices ranging from twenty guineas down, have from time to time appeared in the London papers as recently as the middle of the present century, if not even later.
No. [60].—See “Current Superstitions,” Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. ii. No. V.
Nos. [116-118].—The custom of consulting in augury the occasional white spots on the finger-nails still survives, despite the protestation of old Sir Thomas Browne. He says:—
“That temperamental dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, may be collected from spots in our Nails, we are not averse to concede. But yet not ready to admit sundry divinations vulgarly raised upon them. Nor do we observe it verified in others, what Cardan discovered as a property in himself: to have found therein signs of most events that ever happened unto him. Or that there is much considerable in that doctrine of Cheiromancy, that spots in the top of the Nails do signifie things past; in the middle, things present; and at the bottom, events to come. That White specks presage our felicity; Blue ones our misfortunes. That those in the Nail of the Thumb have significations of honour, those in the fore-Finger, of riches, and so respectively in other Fingers (according to Planetical relations, from whence they receive their names), as Tricassus hath taken up, and Picciolus well rejecteth.”
No. [148].—A very complete account of the signification of moles is quoted from “The Greenwich Fortune Teller,” in Brand’s Popular Antiquities (Bonn’s ed.), iii. 254.
Chapters [IV.] and [V.]—Two of the most interesting and most accessible lists of projects and Halloween observances are Gay’s well-known Shepherds Week and Burns’s Halloween.
No. [170].—It is an interesting psychological fact that projects are in the great majority of cases tried by girls and young women rather than by boys and young men.
No. [174].—Here, as in many other cases, it is assumed that young men and women are accustomed to indulge in promiscuous kissing. The use of the word gentleman sufficiently indicates the level of society from which this project was obtained. Gentleman in this sense signifies any male human being over sixteen. It is often used more specifically to mean sweetheart, as “Mary and her gentleman were at the policemen’s ball.”
No. [184].—On Biblical divination see Brand’s Popular Antiquities (Bonn’s ed.), iii. 337, 338.
No. [186].—This custom of divining the color of the hair of one’s future wife or husband, which is probably very old, yet survives in many places, but with interesting modifications as to the bird which gives the signal to try the divination. In Westphalia it is at sight of the first swallow that the peasant looks to see if there be a hair under his foot. According to Gay, in England it is the cuckoo.