[14] ] Steal out; unperceived, and sow a handful of hemp seed; harrowing it with anything you can conveniently draw after you. Repeat, now and then, “Hemp seed, I saw [sow] thee, Hemp seed, I saw thee; and him (or her) that is to be my true-love, come after me and pou thee.” Look over your left shoulder, and you will see the appearance of the person invoked, in the attitude of pulling hemp. Some traditions say, “come after me and shaw thee,” that is, show thyself; in which case it simply appears. Others omit the harrowing, and say, “come after me and harrow thee.”
[15] ] This charm must likewise be performed, unperceived and alone. You go to the barn, and open both doors; taking them off the hinges, if possible; for there is danger that the Being about to appear may shut the doors, and do you some mischief. Then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our country-dialect, we call a wecht; and go thro' all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. Repeat it three times; and the third time, an apparition will pass thro' the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having both the figure in question and the appearance or retinue, marking the employment or station in life.
[16] ] Take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a bear-stack, and fathom it three times round. The last fathom of the last time, you will catch in your arms the appearance of your conjugal yoke-fellow.
[17] ] You go out, one or more, for this is a social spell, to a south-running spring or rivulet, where “three lairds' lands meet,” and dip your left shirt sleeve. Go to bed in sight of a fire, and hang your wet sleeve before it to dry. Lie awake, and sometime near midnight, an apparition having the exact figure of the grand object in question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side of it.
[18] ] Take three dishes; put clean water in one, foul water in another; and leave the third empty: blindfold a person, and lead him to the hearth where the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand: if by chance in the clean water, the future husband or wife will come to the bar of matrimony, a maid: if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. It is repeated three times; and every time the arrangement of the dishes is altered.
[19] ] Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is always the Halloween supper.
In [The Twa Dogs] we have an entirely different method. Burns here gives expression to his social philosophy in a contrast between rich and poor, and adds a quaint humor to his criticism by placing it in the mouths of the laird's Newfoundland and the cotter's collie. The dogs themselves are delightfully and vividly characterized, and their comments have a detachment that frees the satire from acerbity without rendering it tame. The account of the life of the idle rich may be that of a somewhat remote observer; it has still value as a record of how the peasant views the proprietor. But that of the hard-working farmer lacks no touch of actuality, and is part of the reverse side of the shield shown in [The Cotter's Saturday Night]. Yet the tone is not querulous, but echoes rather the quiet conviction that if toil is hard it has its own sweetness, and that honest fatigue is better than boredom.
THE TWA DOGS
'Twas in that place o' Scotland's Isle,
That bears the name o' auld King Coil,