J. R. (Cork.)
FOLK LORE.
Valentine's Day (Vol. v., p. 55.).
—Your correspondent J. S. A. will find the following notice of a similar custom to the one he alludes to in Mr. L. Jewitt's paper on the Customs of the County of Derby, in the last number of the Journal of the British Archæological Association:
"Of the latter (divinations) there is a curious instance at Ashborne, where a young woman who wishes to divine who her future husband is to be, goes into the church-yard at midnight, and as the clock strikes twelve, commences running round the church, repeating without intermission—
'I sow hemp-seed, hemp-seed I sow,
He that loves me best
Come after me and mow.'
Having thus performed the circuit of the church twelve times without stopping, the figure of her lover is supposed to appear and follow her."
J.