DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE.

BY

REV. T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A., Oxon.,
Author of "British Popular Customs" and "English Folk-lore."

Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.:
LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK.

[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]

PREFACE.

For the name "Folk-lore" in its present signification, embracing the Popular Traditions, Proverbial Sayings, Superstitions, and Customs of the people, we are in a great measure indebted to the late editor of Notes and Queries—Mr. W. J. Thoms—who, in an anonymous contribution to the Athenæum of 22nd August, 1846, very aptly suggested this comprehensive term, which has since been adopted as the recognised title of what has now become an important branch of antiquarian research.

The study of Folk-lore is year by year receiving greater attention, its object being to collect, classify, and preserve survivals of popular belief, and to trace them as far as possible to their original source. This task is no easy one, as school-boards and railways are fast sweeping away every vestige of the old beliefs and customs which, in days gone by, held such a prominent place in social and domestic life. The Folk-lorist has, also, to deal with remote periods, and to examine the history of tales and traditions which have been handed down from the distant past and have lost much of their meaning in the lapse of years. But, as a writer in the Standard has pointed out, Folk-lore students tread on no man's toes. "They take up points of history which the historian despises, and deal with monuments more intangible but infinitely more ancient than those about which Sir John Lubbock is so solicitous. They prosper and are happy on the crumbs dropped from the tables of the learned, and grow scientifically rich on the refuse which less skilful craftsmen toss aside as useless. The tales with which the nurse wiles her charge asleep provide for the Folk-lore student a succulent banquet—for he knows that there is scarcely a child's story or a vain thought that may not be traced back to the boyhood of the world, and to those primitive races from which so many polished nations have sprung."

The field of research, too, in which the Folk-lorist is engaged is a most extensive one, supplying materials for investigation of a widespread character. Thus he recognises and, as far as he possibly can, explains the smallest item of superstition wherever found, not limiting his inquiries to any one subject. This, therefore, whilst enhancing the value of Folk-lore as a study, in the same degree increases its interest, since with a perfect impartiality it lays bare superstition as it exists among all classes of society. Whilst condemning, it may be, the uneducated peasant who places credence in the village fortune-teller or "cunning man," we are apt to forget how oftentimes persons belonging to the higher classes are found consulting with equal faith some clairvoyant or spirit-medium.

Hence, however reluctant the intelligent part of the community may be to own the fact, it must be admitted that superstition, in one form or another, dwells beneath the surface of most human hearts, although it may frequently display itself in the most disguised or refined form. Among the lower orders, as a writer has observed, "it wears its old fashions, in the higher it changes with the rapidity of modes in fashionable circles." Indeed, it is no matter of surprise that superstition prevails among the poor and ignorant, when we find the affluent and enlightened in many cases quite as ready to repose their belief in the most illogical ideas.

In conclusion, we would only add that the present little volume has been written with a view of showing how this rule applies even to the daily routine of Domestic Life, every department of which, as will be seen in the following pages, has its own Folk-lore.

T. F. Thiselton Dyer.

Brighton, May, 1881.

CONTENTS.

[DOMESTIC FOLK-LORE.]

CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND INFANCY.

Value of Superstitions—Lucky Days and Hours of Birth—The Caul—The Changeling—The Evil Eye—"Up and not Down"—Rocking the Empty Cradle—Teeth, Nails, and Hands—The Maple and the Ash—Unchristened Children.

Around every stage of human life a variety of customs and superstitions have woven themselves, most of which, apart from their antiquarian value, as having been bequeathed to us from the far-off past, are interesting in so far as they illustrate those old-world notions and quaint beliefs which marked the social and domestic life of our forefathers. Although, therefore, many of these may appear to us meaningless, yet it must be remembered that they were the natural outcome of that scanty knowledge and those crude conceptions which prevailed in less enlightened times than our own. Probably, if our ancestors were in our midst now, they would be able in a great measure to explain and account for what is often looked upon now-a-days as childish fancy and so much nursery rubbish. In the present chapter it is proposed to give a brief and general survey of the folk-lore associated with birth and infancy, without, however, entering critically into its origin or growth, or tracing its transmigration from one country to another. Commencing, then, with birth, we find that many influences are supposed to affect the future fortune and character of the infant. Thus, in some places great attention is paid to the day of the week on which the child is born, as may be gathered from the following rhyme still current in Cornwall:—

"Sunday's child is full of grace,
Monday's child is full in the face,
Tuesday's child is solemn and sad,
Wednesday's child is merry and glad,
Thursday's child is inclined to thieving,
Friday's child is free in giving,
Saturday's child works hard for his living"—

a piece of folk-lore varying, of course, in different localities. By general consent, however, Sunday is regarded as a most lucky day for birth, both in this country and on the Continent; and according to the "Universal Fortune-teller"—a book very popular among the lower classes in former years—"great riches, long life, and happiness" are in store for those fortunate beings born on Sunday, while in Sussex they are considered safe against drowning and hanging. Importance is also attached to the hour of birth; and the faculty of seeing much that is hidden from others is said to be granted to children born at the "chime hours," i.e., the hours of three, six, nine, or twelve—a superstition found in many parts of the Continent. There is, too, an idea prevalent in Germany that when a child is born in leap-year either it or its mother will die within the course of the year—a notion not unknown in our own country. Again, from time immemorial various kinds of divination have been in use for the purpose of discovering the sex of an infant previous to its birth. One of these is by means of a shoulder-of-mutton bone, which, after the whole of the flesh has been stripped clean off, must be hung up the last thing at night over the front door of the house. On the following morning the sex of the first person who enters, exclusive of the members of the household, indicates the sex of the child.

We will next turn to some of the countless superstitions connected with the new-born child. A highly popular one refers to the caul—a thin membrane occasionally found covering the head at birth, and deemed specially lucky, as indicating, among other things, that the child will never be drowned. It has been, in consequence, termed the "holy" or "fortunate hood," and great care is generally taken that it should not be lost or thrown away, for fear of the death or sickness of the child. This superstitious fancy was very common in the primitive ages of the Church, and St. Chrysostom inveighs against it in several of his homilies. The presence of a caul on board ship was believed to prevent shipwreck, and owners of vessels paid a large price for them. Most readers will, no doubt, recollect how Thomas Hood wrote for his early work, "Whims and Oddities," a capital ballad upon this vulgar error. Speaking of the jolly mariner who confidently put to sea in spite of the ink-black sky which "told every eye a storm was soon to be," he goes on to say—

"But still that jolly mariner
Took in no reef at all;
For in his pouch confidingly
He wore a baby's caul."

It little availed him, however; for as soon as the storm in ruthless fury burst upon his frail bark, he

"Was smothered by the squall.
Heaven ne'er heard his cry, nor did
The ocean heed his caul!"

Advocates also purchased them, that they might be endued with eloquence, the price paid having often been from twenty to thirty guineas. They seem to have had other magical properties, as Grose informs us that any one "possessed of a caul may know the state of health of the person who was born with it. If alive and well, it is firm and crisp; if dead or sick, relaxed and flaccid." In France the luck supposed to belong to a caul is proverbial, and être né coiffé is an expression signifying that a person is extremely fortunate. Apart from the ordinary luck supposed to attach to the "caul," it may preserve the child from a terrible danger to which, according to the old idea, it is ever exposed—namely, that of being secretly carried off and exchanged by some envious witch or fairy for its own ill-favoured offspring. This superstition was once very common in many countries, and was even believed by Martin Luther, if we are to rely on the following extract from his "Table Book:"—"Changelings Satan lays in the place of the genuine children, that people may be tormented with them. He often carries off young maidens into the water." This most reprehensible of the practices attributed to the fairies is constantly spoken of by our old writers, and is several times mentioned by Shakespeare. In the speech of Puck, in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act ii., sc. 1), that jovial sprite says of Titania's lovely boy—the cause of quarrel between the King and Queen of Elfland:—

"She never had so sweet a changeling."

In the Winter's Tale (Act iv., sc. 4) the Shepherd, on discovering the babe Perdita, tells the Clown, "It was told me I should be rich by the fairies. This is some changeling." As a preservation against this danger, sundry charms are observed. Thus, in the North of England, a carving-knife is still hung from the head of the cradle, with the point suspended near the child's face. In the Western Isles of Scotland idiots are believed to be the fairies' changelings, and in order to regain the lost child, parents have recourse to the following device:—They place the changeling on the beach, below high-water mark, when the tide is out, and pay no heed to its screams, believing that the fairies, rather than allow their offspring to be drowned by the rising waters, will convey it away and restore the child they had stolen. The sign that this has been done is the cessation of the child's crying. In Ireland, too, the peasants often place the child supposed to be a changeling on a hot shovel, or torment it in some other way. A similar practice is resorted to in Denmark, where the mother heats the oven, and places the child on the peel, pretending to put it in; and sometimes she whips it severely with a rod, or throws it into the water. The only real safeguard, however, against this piece of fairy mischief is baptism, and hence the rite has generally been performed among the peasantry as soon as possible after birth.

Another danger to which the new-born child is said to be exposed, and to counteract which baptism is an infallible charm, is the influence of the "evil eye;" certain persons being thought to possess the power of inflicting injury by merely looking on those whom they wish to harm. Although this form of superstition has been gradually dying out for many years past, yet it still retains its hold in certain country places. It is interesting to trace this notion as far back as the time of the Romans; and in the late Professor Conington's translation of the "Satires of Persius" we find it thus laughably spoken of:—"Look here! A grandmother or a superstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle, and is charming his forehead against mischief by the joint action of her middle finger and her purifying spittle; for she knows right well how to check the evil eye." Confining ourselves, however, to instances recorded in our own country, we find that, even now-a-days, various charms are practised for counteracting the baneful influence of this cruel species of witchcraft. Thus, in Lancashire, some of the chief consist in spitting three times in the child's face, turning a live coal in the fire, exclaiming, "The Lord be with us;" whilst in the neighbourhood of Burnley "drawing blood above the mouth" was once a popular antidote. Self-bored or "lucky stones" are often hung by the peasantry behind their cottage doors; and in the South of England a copy of the apocryphal letter of our Lord to Abgarus, King of Edessa, may occasionally be seen pasted on the walls. In many places, when a child pines or wastes away, the cause is often attributed to the "evil eye," and one remedy in use against this disaster is the following:—Before sunrise it is brought to a blacksmith of the seventh generation, and laid on the anvil. The smith then raises his hammer as if he were about to strike the hot iron, but brings it gently down on the child's body. This is done three times, after which the child is considered certain to amend. This superstition survives in Cornwall; and the late Mr. Hawker, of Morwenstow, a noted authority on such topics, tells us that two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Tamar side firmly believe in the power of the evil eye. In Scotland this piece of folk-lore has prevailed extensively from time immemorial, and one of the charms to avert it is the "gold and silver water." A sovereign and a shilling are put into water, which is sprinkled over the patient in the name of the Trinity. Again, in the Highlands of Scotland, ash-sap is given to new-born children, because, in common with the rowan, that tree is supposed to possess the property of resisting the attacks of witches, fairies, and other imps of darkness. The Irish think that not only their children but their cattle are "eye-bitten" when they fall suddenly sick.

Among other important items of folk-lore associated with birth may be mentioned the popular belief that a child should go up in the world before it goes down. On leaving its mother's room for the first time, it is considered absolutely necessary that it should be carried up-stairs before it goes down-stairs, otherwise it will always keep low in the world, and never rise in after-life either to riches or distinction. When, however, as often happens, the mother's room is on the top storey, the nurse overcomes the obstacle by placing a chair near the door, on which she steps before leaving the room. In Yorkshire it is further stated that a new-born infant should always be placed first in the arms of a maiden before any one else touches it. It has been aptly questioned by Mr. Henderson, in his "Folk-lore of the Northern Counties," whether we may not trace in this practice an outgrowth of the mediæval belief that the Virgin Mary was present at the birth of St. John the Baptist, and received him first in her arms. Some, too, will never permit an infant to sleep upon bones—that is, the lap—a piece of folk-lore founded on some degree of truth; for it has been pointed out that it is undoubtedly better for a child to support it throughout its whole length, than to allow its head or legs to hang down, as they might probably do if the infant was sleeping on the lap. Again, there is a common idea that a baby and a kitten cannot thrive in the same house; and should, therefore, as is not unfrequently the case, a cat have kittens at the time of a birth, these are immediately either destroyed or given away. Few nurses, also, can be found courageous enough to weigh a young child, from a superstitious conviction that it is unfortunate so to do, the child often dying, or, at any rate, not thriving afterwards. Equally unlucky, too, is it considered to rock baby's empty cradle, it being an omen of its death—a belief which also prevails in Scotland. The same notion exists in many parts of the Continent, and the Swedish folk tell us that it should be avoided, as it is apt to make the child noisy and given to crying. It is also deprecated on another ground, that it is ominous of another claimant for that place of rest—a piece of folk-lore which the Sussex peasantry express in the following rhyme:—

"If you rock the cradle empty,
Then you shall have babies plenty."

Many consider it a bad sign when the first tooth makes its appearance in the upper jaw, denoting, it is said, that the child will not survive its infancy. Whilst speaking of teeth, it may be noted that they occupy an important place in the folk-lore of infancy. Many readers will no doubt recollect how the Duke of Gloucester, in 3 Henry VI. (Act v., sc. 6), when describing the peculiarities connected with his birth, relates that—

"The midwife wondered, and the women cried,
'O Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
And so I was, which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog."

In Sussex it is still customary for little children to wear a necklace of beads made from the root of the peony, as this is supposed to act as a charm in assisting the cutting of their teeth. In the same county, too, the peasantry have a great dislike to throwing away the cast teeth of young children, believing that should any be accidentally found and gnawed by an animal, the child's new tooth would exactly correspond with the animal's which had bitten the old one. Once more, in Scotland and the North of England, when the first teeth come out, sundry precautions are taken, to make sure that the fresh ones may be sound and healthy. One of these consists in filling the cavity with salt, after which the tooth must be burnt, while the following formula is repeated:—

"Fire! fire! burn bone;
God send me my tooth again."

This practice exists in Sweden, and likewise in Switzerland, where the tooth is wrapped up in paper, with a little salt, and then thrown into the fire. The teeth, however, are not the only objects of superstition in infancy, similar importance being attached to the nails. In many places, for instance, it is considered imprudent to cut them till baby is a year old, and then they should be bitten off, or else there is a likelihood of its growing up dishonest, or of its being, as the Sussex peasantry say, "light-fingered." Anyhow, special attention is to be paid to the day of the week on which the child's nails are cut, if there be any truth in a well-known proverb—

"Better a child had ne'er been born,
Than cut his nails on a Sunday morn."

The same warning is given in Germany, and if it is disregarded, it is said that the child will be liable to stammer as it grows up. A curious Northumberland belief affirms that if the first parings of a child's nails are carefully buried under an ash-tree, it will turn out in after-life a capital singer. It is also a popular fancy in nursery folk-lore that the child's future career in this world can be easily augured from the little specks on its nails, a species of palmistry still extensively credited by even educated persons, and one, too, not confined to infancy. Again, the infant's tiny hands are not free from superstition, and here and there, throughout the country, there is a notion that for the first few months after its birth the right one should remain unwashed, the reason assigned for this strange piece of eccentricity being that it may gather riches. According to another idea, children born open-handed are said to be of a bountiful disposition. In Scotland, too, great attention is paid as to which hand a child uses when taking up for the first time a spoon to eat. If it should happen to be the left, then, alas! he is doomed to be an unlucky fellow all through his life. Indeed, as far as we can judge from the numerous items of folk-lore still in vogue, it would seem that the early period of infancy, in one way or another, furnishes countless opportunities for ascertaining what kind of life is in store for the child in years to come, almost every trivial action being regarded as indicative of something or other that shall befall it. Although many of these ideas may seem to us in this nineteenth century apparently senseless, yet it must be remembered they are frequently survivals of primitive culture, and are interesting as having been handed down to us from the distant past. According to an old superstition, parents desirous of securing long life for their children should pass them through the branches of a maple. A few years ago one of these trees had long been resorted to for this purpose in West Grinstead Park, and as soon as a rumour spread through the parish that it was about to be demolished, quite a consternation prevailed in the neighbourhood. Similar properties are supposed to belong to the ash, weakly infants that do not thrive being drawn through a cleft in its trunk. This charm, as performed in Cornwall, is thus:—A large knife is inserted into the trunk of a young ash, about a foot from the ground, and a vertical opening made for about three feet. Two men then forcibly pull the parts asunder, and hold them so, whilst the mother passes the child through the cleft three times. The ceremony does not end here, as the child has to be washed for three successive mornings in the dew from the leaves of the "charmed ash." This supposed magical property of the ash has an additional interest, when we consider that some thousands of years ago our ancestors regarded it as one of their wonder-working trees, and associated it with some of their oldest traditions. At the present day, too, it is the subject of an extensive folk-lore, to which we shall have occasion to refer [in a succeeding chapter].

Again, if a baby frets and does not appear to thrive, it is supposed by some to be "longing." Thus, a Sussex nurse one day said to a lady, "Baby is so uncommon fretty, I do believe he must be longing for something." When asked what he could be longing for, she replied, "Something that his mother longed for, but did not get, before he was born, and the best way to satisfy him would be, I think, to try him with a brandied cherry, or some hare's brains." This piece of superstition, however, is not confined to Sussex. Once more, in addition to the popular notion that cats suck the breath of infants and so cause their death—one, indeed, without a particle of truth—there is another in which poor pussy is the victim, an illustration of which we quote from "Rambles in an Old City," by a Norfolk author:—"Not long since a woman, holding quite a respectable rank among the working classes, avowed herself determined to 'drownd' the cat as soon as ever her baby, which was lying ill, should die. The only explanation she could give for this determination was that the cat jumped upon the nurse's lap as the baby lay there soon after it was born, from which time it ailed, and ever since that time the cat had regularly gone under its bed once a day and coughed twice. These mysterious actions of poor 'Tabby' were assigned as the cause of the baby wasting, and its fate was to be sealed as soon as that of the poor infant was decided. That the baby happened to be the twenty-fourth child of his mother, who had succeeded in rearing only four of the two dozen, was a fact that seemed to possess no weight whatever in her estimation." This strange antipathy to our domestic animal no doubt took its origin in the old belief that the cat's is one of the numerous forms which witches are fond of assuming, and on this account, in days gone by, poor pussy was oftentimes subjected to gross ill-treatment at the hands of the ignorant classes. At the present day, in Germany, there is a deep-rooted belief that witches, when bent on doing mischief, take the form of a cat, and many stories are current of their frightening their victims by appearing as "the nightmare;" or, if dishonestly disposed, of their drinking their neighbour's beer. Returning, however, again to the subject of our present chapter, there is a superstitious fancy in the North of England that it is unlucky to walk over the graves of unchristened children, which is vulgarly called "unchristened ground," the person who does so rendering himself liable to catching the fatal disease of the "grave-scab." This complaint, we are told by Mr. Henderson, "comes on with a trembling of the limbs and hard breathing, and at last the skin burns as if touched with hot iron," in allusion to which an old ballad tells us—

"And it ne'er will be cured by doctor on earth,
Tho' every one should tent him, oh!
He shall tremble and die like the elf-shot eye,
And return from whence he came, oh!"

There is, however, a remedy, though not easy of attainment—"It lies in the wearing a sark, thus prepared:—The lint must be grown in a field which shall be manured from a farmyard heap that has not been disturbed for forty years. It must be spun by Habbitrot, the queen of spinsters; it must be bleached by an honest bleacher, in an honest miller's mill-dam, and sewed by an honest tailor. On donning this mysterious vestment, the sufferer will at once regain his health and strength." Unfortunately the necessary conditions for the successful accomplishment of this charm are so difficult, that he must be a clever man who can fulfil them. In the South of England, on the other hand, we do not find the same dread attaching to the graves of still-born children. Thus on a certain occasion, when one of the Commissioners of Devonport complained that a charge of one shilling and sixpence should have been made upon the parish authorities for the grave and interment of a still-born child, he added that "when he was a young man it was thought lucky to have a still-born child put into an open grave, as it was considered to be a sure passport to heaven for the next person buried there." According to another superstitious notion, if a mother frets and pines after her baby when it is dead, it is said that it cannot rest, and will come back to earth again. Various stories are on record of children thus visiting their mothers after death, an instance of which we quote from the "Dialect of Leeds:"—It appears that soon after the birth of the mother's next child, the previous one that had died entered her room with eyes deeply sunken, as if with much weeping, and on approaching the bed, said, "Mother, I can't rest if you will go on fretting." She replied, "Well, lad, I wean't fret any more." He then looked upon the bed and said, "Let's luke at it, mother!" She turned down the coverlet and let him look at her new-born babe. "It'll die," he said, and vanished. These, then, are some of the boundless dangers and difficulties that are supposed to beset the beginnings of life; and, taking into consideration the importance of that momentous crisis, when a fresh actor is introduced upon the world's great stage, it is not surprising that this event has, in most ages and countries, been associated with divers superstitions, and given rise to sundry customs, each of which has helped to invest man's entry into this world with all that grandeur which such a solemn occasion requires.

[CHAPTER II.]
CHILDHOOD.

Nursery Literature—The Power of Baptism—Confirmation—Popular Prayers—Weather Rhymes—School Superstitions—Barring out.

It must not be supposed that childhood has no special folk-lore of its own. It is, in fact, of a most varied kind, many of the old traditionary beliefs and practices associated with the nursery being relics of what the Scandinavian mothers taught their children in days of long ago. The familiar fairy-tales of our own childhood still form the nursery literature in most homes, and are of unusual interest as embodying not only the myths and legends of the ancient Aryan race, but their conceptions about the world around them. Thus, for instance, the well-known story of "Cinderella," like many others of the same character, such as "Jack the Giant Killer," or "Beauty and the Beast," are to be found in almost all countries, and although the versions differ in some respects, yet they point to a common origin at a very remote period. Indeed, it is curious that there should still exist among the children of the nineteenth century an undying love for these survivals of Aryan literature, couched in such graceful and simple language that few modern compositions can be found to equal them. In reading, therefore, about the dwellers in Wonderland, the young mind is unconsciously taking in primitive notions about the workings of nature as seen in the succession of day and night, the changes of the seasons, and so on. In the story of "Cinderella," we have the ancient nature-myth of the sun and the dawn, representing the morning sun in the form of a fairy prince pursuing Cinderella, the dawn, to claim her for his bride, whilst the envious clouds, her sisters, and the moon, her stepmother, strive to keep her in the background. It would, however, take too long and require a book of itself to discuss the history and meaning of these fairy tales which so delight the childish fancy, and exercise such a wholesome influence, inculcating some of the noblest sentiments and loftiest teachings of the founders of our race. Referring then more particularly to the superstitions connected with childhood, we would, first of all, briefly speak of those relating to certain outward circumstances, which are believed to affect more or less the child's welfare in life.

Thus, it is a deep-rooted belief that a child never thrives until after its baptism; and in cases of illness the clergyman is more often perhaps sent for by the poor from a belief in the physical virtue of the sacred rite itself, rather than from any actual conviction of its religious importance. Indeed, how much potency is supposed to reside in baptism may be gathered from the countless superstitions with which it is associated, the omission of this rite being attended more often than not with fatal results. Hence it is frequently performed as soon as possible after birth, one reason being, as we have already seen, that so long as the child remains unbaptised it is thought to be at the mercy of ill-disposed fairies, and subject to the influence of the evil eye. According to another popular fancy, not confined to our own country, should a child have the misfortune to die unchristened, it is doomed either to flit restlessly around its parents' abode, or to wander about in deserted spots, daily repining over its hard and unenviable lot. In Germany, tradition says that such children are transformed into that delusive little meteor known as the will-o'-the-wisp, and so ceaselessly hover between heaven and earth. On one occasion, we are told of a Dutch parson who, happening to go home to his village late one evening, fell in with no less than three of these fiery phenomena. Remembering them to be the souls of unbaptised children, he solemnly stretched out his hand and pronounced the words of baptism over them. Much, however, to his terrible consternation and surprise, in the twinkling of an eye a thousand or more of these apparitions suddenly made their appearance—no doubt all equally anxious to be christened. The good man, runs the story, was so terribly frightened, that forgetting all his good intentions, he took to his heels and ran home as fast as his legs could take him. In Lusatia, where the same superstition prevails, the souls of these unhappy children, which hover about in the form of will-o'-the-wisps, are said to be relieved from their unhappy wanderings so soon as any pious hand throws a handful of consecrated ground after them.

In Scotland, to make quite sure of baptism being altogether propitious, it was deemed highly important that the person entrusted with the care of the child should be known by common report to be lucky. She was generally provided with a piece of bread and cheese, which she presented to the first person she met as an offering from the infant. If the party readily accepted and partook of the proffered gift, it was undoubtedly a good omen; but if refused it was considered tantamount to wishing evil to the child. Hence the future destiny of the little one was often augured from this superstitious ceremony, which, by-the-by, is also practised in the West of England, but the events of its after-life only too often belied the weal and woe predicted for it. Again, it is thought highly necessary that the child should cry at its baptism, or else ill-luck will sooner or later overtake it, the idea being that, when the child screams and kicks, the evil spirit is in the act of quitting it; its silence, on the other hand, indicating that it is too good for this wicked world. An amusing little episode in illustration of this curious superstition is related by Mrs. Latham, in the "Folk-lore Record:"—"I was lately present at a christening in Sussex, when a lady of the party, who was grandmother of the child, whispered in a voice of anxiety, 'The child never cried; why did not the nurse rouse it up?' After we had left the church she said to her, 'O nurse, why did not you pinch baby?' And when the baby's good behaviour was afterwards commented upon, she observed, with a very serious air, 'I wish that he had cried.'" In the same county it is considered unlucky to divulge a child's intended name before its baptism; and the water sprinkled on its forehead at the font must on no account be wiped off. Whilst on the subject of baptism, we would just note that in former years peculiar curative properties were supposed to reside in water that had been used at this rite, and on this account it was employed for various disorders. It was also regarded in Scotland as a preservative against witchcraft; and eyes bathed in it were rendered for life incapable of seeing ghosts.

It may not be inappropriate to allude here to the superstitions relative to confirmation, following in due time, as this rite does, on baptism. In Norfolk, for instance, it is considered unlucky to be touched by the bishop's left hand; and in Devonshire, also, where a similar notion prevails, young people look upon his right hand as the lucky one, and should it not be their privilege to receive it, they leave the church much disappointed. In some of the northern counties, we are informed that the unfortunate recipients of the left hand are doomed, then and there, to a life of single blessedness. This is not the only species of superstition belonging to confirmation, for instances are on record of persons who, although confirmed in their early life, have again presented themselves for confirmation in their old age, under a conviction that the bishop's blessing would cure them of some bodily ailment. It is related that, at one of the confirmations of the venerable Bishop Bathurst, an old woman was observed eagerly pressing forward to the church. A by-stander, somewhat amazed at her odd conduct, and struck with her aged appearance, inquired if she was going to be confirmed, and, being answered in the affirmative, expressed his astonishment that she should have procrastinated it to such an advanced time of life. The old woman, however, resented his reproof, replying "that it was not so; that she had already been bishopped seven times, and intended to be again, it was so good for her rheumatism!"

In some cases the prayers taught by the poor to their children are curious. Thus, a popular prayer, formerly in use, and not yet forgotten, is evidently a relic of Roman Catholic times, having been handed down from a period anterior to the Reformation. As the reader will see, the version below contains a distinct appeal to certain saints for their intercession with God on the child's behalf:—

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed I lie upon;
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels at its head,
One to watch, two to pray,
And one to bear my soul away;
God within and God without,
Sweet Jesus Christ all round about;
If I die before I wake,
I pray to God my soul to take."

It has been pointed out that it is very singular that this prayer should have survived the great change which took place in religious opinion in the sixteenth century, and that it even still remains in use. There are many variations of it, and the following two distiches obtained from Lancashire are quaint, having been written, it has been thought, by the Puritans, in ridicule:—

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Hold the horse that I leap on.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Take a stick and lay upon."

A Lincolnshire clergyman, anxious to learn something of the nature of the prayers said by the children of the agricultural poor, visited some of their cottages a few years ago in the evening, and listened to the little ones as they said their prayers. The concluding portion, he tells us, was always intercession for relations, but the form it generally took was peculiar. In the first place, it was not, as is the case with the more educated classes, "Pray God bless father and mother," &c., but "Pray for father, pray for mother, pray for brothers and sisters," and so on. In certain cases, through carelessness and rapidity, the words had degenerated into "Pray father, pray mother," &c. There can be no doubt that originally the prayer was this:—"Pray for father;" then a Pater noster, or an Ave Maria, or both, would be said; then "Pray for mother," &c. After the Reformation, as time went on, the constant repetition of the Pater and the use of the Ave Maria would gradually die out with the change of religious ideas, and thus the prayer would assume its present form, "Pray for father, pray for mother."

Referring, in the second place, to the superstitions of children, we find an immense number of curious rhymes on various subjects used by them throughout the country. While many of these have, no doubt, been taught them by nurserymaids, a great part, as Mr. Chambers has pointed out in his "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," may be thought to have taken their rise in the childish imagination during that familiar acquaintance with natural objects, which it is one of the most precious privileges of the young to enjoy in rural districts. Besides, too, we must not forget that children seem to have a peculiar love for all natural objects, often finding pleasure in looking at some wayside flower, or in watching the movements of some tiny insect, which in after-years do not bring them the same interest. The fact, indeed, that the young mind is a true admirer of nature in all probability accounts for many of those pleasing rhymes which constitute much of the child's folk-lore.

Some of the charms, for instance, used to influence the weather are curious, and it is worthy of note that these, in many cases, are not confined to childhood only, but are frequently found in the mouths of our peasants. Thus the child's appeal to rain for its departure has become a general charm, and is familiar to most readers:—

"Rain, rain, go to Spain,
Fair weather, come again."

Aubrey considers this rhyme of great antiquity, and says that "it is derived from the Gentiles." Often in summer-time, when a thunder-shower interrupts some out-door game, one may hear a chorus of young voices shouting—

"Rain, rain, go away,
Come another summer's day."

Or, as other versions have it, "Come again on washing-day." The appearance of a rainbow is generally, too, the signal for various marks of dissatisfaction on the part of the young, who, besides entreating it to vanish as soon as possible, frequently try to charm it away. This they do by placing a couple of straws or twigs crossways on the ground, and so, to quote their phrase, "cross out the rainbow." Another way is to make a cross of two sticks, and to lay four pebbles on it, one at each end. Again, some of the rhymes relating to snow are highly quaint, the following being repeated when it makes its first appearance:—

"The men of the East
Are picking their geese,
And sending their feathers here away, here away."

When, however, boys wish the snow to go away, they sing:—

"Snow, snow, give over,
The cow's in the clover."

Thunder, in the North of England, is called by children "Rattley-bags," and during a storm the boys are in the habit of singing:—

"Rowley, Rowley, Rattley-bags,
Take the lasses and leave the lads."

There is a rhyme which is often repeated by the juvenile folks in the north and midland counties upon seeing the new moon, which, perhaps, may have an indirect allusion to its supposed lucky influence:—

"I see the moon and the moon sees me,
God help the parson that baptised me!"—

containing, evidently, a congratulation upon their birth. Boys, too, have a curious saying respecting the reflection of the sun's beams upon a ceiling, which they term "Jack-a-dandy beating his wife with a stick of silver." If a mischievous boy, with a piece of looking-glass, throws the reflection into the eyes of a neighbour, the latter complains "he's throwing Jack-a-dandy in my eyes."

Passing on to other charm-rhymes connected with natural objects, there are a very numerous class relating to the animal creation. In evening-time, for instance, when the dew begins to fall, boys are fond of hunting the large black snails, on discovering which they exclaim:—

"Snail, snail, put out your horn,
Or I'll kill your father and mother i' th' morn."

This charm, however, is not confined to our own country, but under a variety of forms is found on the Continent. In Scotland, too, children prognosticate the coming weather from the movements of this little creature:—

"Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn,
And tell us if it will be a bonny day the morn."

School-life, again, has its customs and superstitions, many of which have been transmitted from generation to generation; and childhood, indeed, would seem quite incomplete without them. Thus, according to an odd notion universally accepted in days gone by, and still received with implicit faith, if the master's cane is carefully nicked at the upper end, and a hair inserted, it will, as soon as used, split immediately to the very tip. In school-games, the usual antipathy to odd numbers is found, and a child is easily persuaded to give away a marble to make the number even. A kind of divination, also, is still frequently employed by boys to settle matters of difficulty, such, for example, as who shall be the leaders in a game, the choice of partners, and other details which are deemed of equal importance. The mode of procedure is this:—A long stick is thrown into the air, and caught by one of the parties. Each one then grasps it hand over hand, and he who succeeds in getting the last hold is the successful party. Mr. Henderson says that an odd expression was formerly connected with the lending a knife among boys for the cutting up of a cake or other dainty, the borrowers being asked to give it back "laughing," i.e., with some of the good things it was used to cut.

Among the many old school customs, we may close our present chapter by mentioning a popular one known as "barring out," upon which, it may be remembered, Miss Edgeworth has founded one of her instructive stories. The practice consisted in "barring out" the masters from the scene of their educational labours, the agents in this ceremony being the pupils of the school. It was an occasion of no small disorder—

"Not school-boys at a barring out,
Raised ever such incessant rout."

Addison is reported to have been the leader of a barring out at the Lichfield Grammar School, and to have displayed on the occasion a spirit of disorderly daring very different to that timid modesty which so characterised his after-life. So much, then, for the folk-lore of childhood, a subject indeed full of interest, and possessing a worth far beyond the circle of its own immediate influence, inasmuch as even the simplest nursery jingle or puerile saying has often been found of help in proving the affinity of certain races, and has an ethnological value which the student of comparative philology would be slow to underrate in his task of research.

[CHAPTER III.]
LOVE AND COURTSHIP.

Love-tests—Plants used in Love-charms—The Lady-bird—The Snail—St. Valentine's Day—Midsummer Eve—Hallowe'en—Omens on Friday.

No event in human life has, from the earliest times, been associated with a more extensive folk-lore than marriage, which is indeed no matter of surprise, considering that this is naturally looked upon as the happiest epoch—the summum bonum—of each one's career in this world. Hence, to write a detailed account of the charms, omens, and divinations, as well as of the superstitions and customs, connected with marriage, including its early stages of love and courtship, would require a volume for itself, so varied and widespread is this subject of universal interest.

In the present chapter, however, have been collected together, in as condensed a form as possible, some of the principal items of folk-lore connected with love and courtship, as we find them scattered here and there throughout the country. Commencing, then, with love-divinations, these are of every conceivable kind, the anxious maiden apparently having left no stone unturned in her anxiety to ascertain her lot in the marriage state. Hence in her natural longings to raise the veil of futurity, the aspirant to matrimony, if she be at all of a superstitious turn of mind, seldom lets an opportunity pass by without endeavouring to gain from it some sign or token of the kind of husband that is in store for her. As soon, too, as the appointed one has at last presented himself, she is not content to receive with unreserved faith his professions of love and life-long fidelity; but, in her sly moments, when he is not at hand, she proves the genuineness of his devotion by certain charms which, while they cruelly belie his character, only too often unkindly deceive the love-sick maiden.

In the first place, we may note that love-tests have been derived from a variety of sources, such as plants, insects, animals, birds, not to mention those countless other omens obtained from familiar objects to which we shall have occasion to allude. At the outset, however, it may not be uninteresting to quote the following account of love-charms in use about one hundred and fifty years ago, and which was written by a young lady to the editor of the Connoisseur:—

"Arabella was in love with a clever Londoner, and had tried all the approved remedies. She had seen him several times in coffee grounds with a sword by his side; he was once at the bottom of a tea-cup in a coach and six, with his two footmen behind it. On the last May morning she went into the fields to hear the cuckoo; and when she pulled off her left shoe, she found a hair in it the exact colouring of his. The same night she sowed hempseed in the back yard, repeating the words:—

'Hempseed I sow, hempseed I hoe,
And he that is my true love,
Come after me and mow.'

After that she took a clean shift and turned it, and hung it on the back of a chair; and very likely he would have come and turned it, for she heard a step, and being frightened could not help speaking, and that broke the spell. The maid Betty recommended her young mistress to go backwards, without speaking a word, into the garden on Midsummer Eve, and gather a rose, keep it in a clean sheet of paper without looking in it till Christmas Day, it will be as fresh as in June; and if she sticks this rose in her bosom, he that is to be her husband will come and take it out. Arabella had tried several other strange fancies. Whenever she lies in a strange bed, she always ties her garters nine times round the bed-post, and knits nine knots in it, saying all the time:—

'This knot I knit, this knot I tie,
To see my love as he goes by,
In his apparel and array,
As he walks in every day.'

On the last occasion Mr. Blossom drew the curtains and tucked up the clothes at the bed's feet. She has many times pared an apple whole, and afterwards flung the peel over her head, and on each occasion the peel formed the first letter of his Christian name or surname."

Referring to the use of plants in love-charms, they are very numerous. One popular one consists in taking the leaves of yarrow, commonly called "nosebleed," and tickling the inside of the nostrils, repeating at the same time these lines:—

"Green 'arrow, green 'arrow, you bear a white blow,
If my love love me, my nose will bleed now;
If my love don't love me, it 'ont bleed a drop;
If my love do love me, 'twill bleed every drop."

Some cut the common brake or fern just above the root to ascertain the initial letters of the future wife's or husband's name; and the dandelion, as a plant of omen, is much in demand. As soon as its seeds are ripe they stand above the head of the plant in a globular form, with a feathery top at the end of each seed, and then are without any difficulty detached. When in this condition the flower-stalk must be carefully plucked, so as not to injure the globe of seeds, the charm consisting in blowing off the seeds with the breath. The number of puffs that are required to blow every seed clean off indicates the number of years that must elapse before the person is married. Again, nuts and apples are very favourite love-tests. The mode of procedure is for a girl to place on the bars of the grate a nut, repeating this incantation:—

"If he loves me, pop and fly;
If he hates me, live and die."

As may be imagined, great is the dismay if the anxious face of the inquirer gradually perceives the nut, instead of making the hoped-for pop, die and make no sign. Again, passing on to insects, one means of divination is to throw a lady-bird into the air, repeating meanwhile the subjoined couplet:—

"Fly away east, and fly away west,
Show me where lives the one I like best."

Should this little insect chance to fly in the direction of the house where the loved one resides, it is regarded as a highly-favourable omen. The snail, again, was much used in love-divinations, many an eager maiden anxious of ascertaining her lover's name following the example of Hobnelia, who, in order to test the constancy of her Lubberkin, did as follows:—

"Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found,
For always snails near sweetest fruit abound.
I seized the vermin, home I quickly sped,
And on the hearth the milk-white embers spread;
Slow crawled the snail, and, if I right can spell,
In the soft ashes marked a curious L.
Oh! may this wondrous omen lucky prove,
For 'L' is found in Lubberkin and Love."

Three magpies are said to prognosticate a wedding; and in our rural districts the unmarried of either sex calculate the number of years of single blessedness still allotted to them by counting the cuckoo's notes when they first hear it in the spring.

Some days are considered specially propitious for practising love-divinations. Foremost among these is St. Valentine's Day, a festival which has been considered highly appropriate for such ceremonies, as there is an old tradition that on this day birds choose their mates, a notion which is frequently alluded to by the poets, and particularly by Chaucer, to which reference is made also in A Midsummer Night's Dream:—

"Good morrow, friends, St. Valentine is past;
Begin the wood-birds but to couple now."

Thus, the Devonshire young ladies have a fancy that on St. Valentine's Day they can, if they wish, make certain of their future. If so disposed, they go into the churchyard at midnight, with some hempseed in their hand, which, after they have walked round the church a certain number of times, they scatter on either side as they return homewards, repeating a certain charm. It is supposed that the true lover will be seen taking up the hempseed just sown, attired for the ceremony in a winding-sheet. Another species of love-divination once observed consisted in obtaining five bay leaves, four of which the anxious maiden pinned at the four corners of her pillow, and the fifth in the middle. If she was fortunate enough to dream of her lover, it was a sure sign that he would be married to her in the course of the year. Again, some young people would boil an egg hard, and, after taking out the contents, fill the shell with salt, the charm consisting in eating the shell and salt on going to bed at night without either speaking or drinking after it. A further method of divination was practised in the following way:—The lady wrote her lovers' names upon small pieces of paper, and, rolling them up in clay, put them into a tub of water. The first that rose to the surface was to be not only her Valentine, but, in all probability, her future husband.

Another time, which has been equally popular from time immemorial for such superstitious practices, is Midsummer Eve. People gathered on this night the rose, St. John's wort, trefoil, and rue, each of which was supposed to have magical properties. They set orpine in clay upon pieces of slate in their houses, under the name of a Midsummer man. As the stalk next morning was found to incline to the right or left, the anxious maiden knew whether her lover would prove true to her or not.

Hallowe'en, again, has been supposed to be the time, of all other times, when supernatural influences prevail, and on this account is regarded as a night of sure divination in love matters. All kinds of devices have, therefore, been resorted to at this season, and in the North of England many superstitions still linger on, where this festival is known as "nutcrack-night," from nuts forming a prominent feature in the evening feast. Once more, Christmas Eve is well known to love-sick swains and languishing maidens as an excellent day for obtaining a glimpse into futurity. Numerous are the spells and ceremonies by which this is attempted. Thus in some places, at "the witching hour of night," the young damsel goes into the garden and plucks twelve sage leaves, under the belief that she will see the shadowy form of her future husband approach her from the opposite end of the ground. In trying this delicate mode of divination great care must be taken not to break or damage the sage-stalk, as should this happen serious consequences might ensue. The following barbarous charm was also much practised in days gone by:—The heart was taken from a living pigeon, stuck full of pins, and laid on the hearth, and while it was burning, the form of the young person's future partner was believed to become visible to mortal eye.

Friday has been held a good day of the week for love omens, and in Norfolk the following lines are repeated on three Friday nights successively, as on the last one it is believed that the young lady will dream of her future husband:—

"To-night, to-night, is Friday night,
Lay me down in dirty white,
Dream who my husband is to be;
And lay my children by my side,
If I'm to live to be his bride."

There are numerous other modes of matrimonial divination which still find favour in the eyes of those who prefer the married state to that of virginity. Thus the seeds of butter-dock must be scattered on the ground by a young unmarried girl half an hour before sunrise on a Friday morning in a lonesome place. She must strew the seeds gradually on the grass, saying these words:—

"I sow, I sow!
Then, my own dear,
Come here, come here,
And mow, and mow."

After this she will see her future husband mowing with a scythe at a short distance from her. She must, however, display no symptoms of fear, for should she cry out in alarm he will immediately vanish. This method is said to be infallible, but it is regarded as a bold, desperate, and presumptuous undertaking. Some girls, again, make a hole in the road where four ways meet, and apply their ear to it, with the hope of learning of what trade their future husband is to be. It is unnecessary, however, to illustrate this part of our subject further, for the preceding pages amply show how varied and extensive are the omens and divinations connected with an event without which life is considered in the eyes of most persons incomplete. Although these may seem trivial and often nonsensical, yet they have often exercised an important influence over that period of anxious suspense which intervenes between courtship and marriage, often tantalising and damping in a cruel manner the hopes of many an ardent lover.

[CHAPTER IV.]
MARRIAGE.

Seasons and Days propitious to Marriage—Superstitions connected with the Bride—Meeting a Funeral—Robbing the Bride of Pins—Dancing in a Hog's Trough—The Wedding-cake—The Ring.

In selecting the time for the marriage ceremony precautions of every kind have generally been taken to avoid an unlucky month and day for the knot to be tied. Indeed, the old Roman notion that May marriages are unlucky survives to this day in England, a striking example, as Mr. Tylor has pointed out in his "Primitive Culture," of how an idea, the meaning of which has perished for ages, may continue to exist simply because it has existed. That May with us is not a month for marrying may easily be seen any year from the list of weddings in the Times newspaper, the popular belief being summed up in the familiar proverb, "Marry in May and you'll rue the day." Some of the numerous reasons assigned for the ill-luck attaching to this month are the following:—That women disobeying the rule would be childless; or if they had children, that the first-born would be an idiot, or have some physical deformity; or that the married couple would not live happily together in their new life, but soon become weary of each other's society—superstitions which still retain their hold throughout the country. In spite, however, of this absurd prejudice, it seems that in days gone by May was honoured in feudal England as the month of all months especially congenial to lovers. Most readers are no doubt acquainted with the following stanza in the "Court of Love:"—

"I had not spoke so sone the words, but she,
My soveraine, did thank me heartily,
And saide, 'Abide, ye shall dwell still with me
Till season come of May, for then truly
The King of Love and all his company
Shall holde his feste full rially and well,'
And there I bode till that the season fell."

On the other hand, June is a highly popular month for marrying, one reason perhaps being that the earth is then clothed in her summer beauty, and that this is a season of plenty. At any rate, this notion may be traced up to the time of the Romans, and thus when Ovid was anxious about the marriage of his daughter, he—

"Resolved to match the girl, and tried to find
What days unprosp'rous were, what moons were kind;
After June's sacred Ides his fancy strayed,
Good to the man and happy to the maid."

Among the other seasons admitting or prohibiting matrimony may be mentioned the following, contained in a well-known rhyme:—

"Advent marriages doth deny,
But Hilary gives thee liberty;
Septuagesima says thee nay,
Eight days from Easter says you may;
Rogation bids thee to contain,
But Trinity sets thee free again."

Equal importance has been attached by some to the day of the week on which the marriage is performed. Thus Friday, on account of its being regarded as an inauspicious and evil day for the commencement of any kind of enterprise, is generally avoided, few brides being found bold enough to run the risk of incurring bad luck from being married on a day of ill-omen. In days gone by, Sunday appears to have been a popular day for marriages; although, as Mr. Jeaffreson, in his amusing history of "Brides and Bridals," remarks, "A fashionable wedding, celebrated on the Lord's Day in London, or any part of England, would now-a-days be denounced by religious people of all Christian parties as an outrageous exhibition of impiety. But in our feudal times, and long after the Reformation, Sunday was, of all days of the week, the favourite one for marriages. Long after the theatres had been closed on Sundays, the day of rest was the chief day for weddings with Londoners of every social class." The brides of Elizabethan dramas are usually represented as being married on Sunday. Thus in the Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio, after telling his future father-in-law "that upon Sunday is the wedding-day," and laughing at Katharine's petulant exclamation, "I'll see thee hanged on Sunday first," says:—

"Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace:
We will have rings, and things, and give array;
And, kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday."

Among the Scottish people, we are informed by the Registrar-General, there is a peculiar fondness for marrying on the last day of the year. Indeed, there are more marriages in Scotland on that day than in any week of the year, excepting, of course, the week in which that day occurs. Thus, in the year 1861, the returns give the number of marriages in the eight principal towns as averaging about twenty-five a day, exclusive of Sunday, as marrying is one of the things not to be done on this day in Scotland. On the 31st of December, however, in the same towns there were between 400 and 500 marriages. Curious to say, too, in Scotland, Friday seems to be considered a lucky day for weddings; for Mr. Watson, the City Chamberlain of Glasgow, affirms that "it is a well-established fact that nine-tenths of the marriages in Glasgow are celebrated on a Friday; only a few on Tuesday and Wednesday; Saturday and Monday are still more rarely adopted, and I have never heard of such a thing in Glasgow as a marriage on Sunday."

Leaving seasons and days considered propitious for marriage, we find, in the next place, a number of superstitions associated with that prominent and all-important personage on such an occasion, the bride. Thus it is above all things necessary that the sun should shine on her—"Blest is the bride that the sun shines on!"—a notion, indeed, which, it has been suggested, had a practical application in years gone by when marriages were celebrated in the church porch. A wet day, at such a time, was a serious matter, especially as our forefathers had not the many contrivances of modern times for preservation from rain. Whereas, now-a-days, young ladies when alluding to being married speak of "going to church," formerly they spoke of "visiting the church-porch." After prevailing for centuries, this ancient usage was discountenanced, if not actually abolished, by the ecclesiastical reformers of Edward VI.'s reign, who "ordained that the performance of the binding ceremony should take place in the body of the church." Referring again to the bride, it is deemed absolutely necessary by very many that she should weep on her wedding-day, if it be only a few tears, the omission of such an act being considered ominous of her future happiness. It is, too, the height of ill-luck for either the bride or the bridegroom to meet a funeral on going to or coming from the church, for if it happen to be that of a female, it is an indication that the bride will not live long, and if it should be that of a male, then the bridegroom is doomed to an early death. In the North of England there is a strong prejudice against a marriage taking place while there is a grave open in the churchyard. In many parts of the country, also, special care is taken that the bees are informed of a wedding, and as a mark of respect to them their hives are decorated with a favour. In Sussex a bride on her return home from church is often robbed of all the pins about her dress by the single women present, from a belief that whoever possesses one of them will be married in the course of a year. Much excitement and amusement are occasionally caused by the youthful competitors for this supposed charm; and the bride herself is not unfrequently the victim of rather rough treatment. According to another piece of superstition, the bride, in removing her bridal robe and chaplet at the completion of the marriage ceremonies, must take care to throw away every pin worn on this eventful day. Evil fortune, it is affirmed, will sooner or later inevitably overtake the bride who keeps even one pin used in the marriage toilet. Woe also to the bridesmaids if they retain one of them, as their chances of marriage will thereby be materially lessened, and anyhow they must give up all hope of being wedded before the following Whitsuntide.

Again, in some parts of Yorkshire, to rub shoulders with the bride or bridegroom is considered an augury of a speedy marriage; and a piece of folk-lore prevalent in the neighbourhood of Hull is to this effect: "Be sure when you go to get married that you don't go in at one door and out at another, or you will always be unlucky." Cuthbert Bede, in "Notes and Queries," records an instance of a similar superstition that occurred at a wedding in a Worcestershire village in October, 1877. He says, "The bride and bridegroom at the conclusion of the ceremony left the church by the chancel door, instead of following the usual custom of walking down the church and through the nave door. One of the oldest inhabitants, in mentioning this to me, said that it 'betokened bad luck,' and that she had never known a like instance but once in her life when the married couple went out of the church through the chancel door, and the bride was a widow before the twelve months was out."

Alluding briefly to other superstitions associated with marriage, we are told in the North of England that she who receives from the bride a piece of cheese, cut by her before leaving the table, will be the next bride among the company. In Yorkshire, too, when a newly-married couple first enter their house, a hen is brought and made to cackle as a sign of good luck. The old Roman practice, also, of lifting the bride over the threshold of her husband's home, had its counterpart in Scotland within the present century, it being customary to lift the young wife over the doorstep, lest any witchcraft or evil eye should be cast upon and influence her. Indeed, we are informed that the same practice prevailed in the North of England some years ago—an interesting survival of the primitive superstitions of our ancestors.

Another curious custom which was once practised in different parts of the country was that of the elder sister dancing in a hog's trough in consequence of the younger sister marrying before her. "Upon one occasion," says Mr. Glyde in his "Norfolk Garland," "a brother went through the ceremony also; and the dancers performed their part so well that the trough itself was danced to pieces." It was considered the most correct thing to dance in green stockings. It was also customary in former years for elder sisters to dance barefooted at the marriage of a younger one, as otherwise they would inevitably become old maids. Hence Katharine says to her father, in allusion to Bianca:—

"She is your treasure, she must have a husband.
I must dance barefoot on her wedding-day,
And for your love to her lead apes in hell."

The last line, the meaning of which, however, is somewhat obscure, expresses a common belief as to the ultimate fate of old maids. Malone, on this passage, remarks that in Shakespeare's time "to lead apes" was one of the employments of a bear-ward, who often carried about one of those animals along with his bear.

Referring in the next place to some of the chief ceremonies associated with marriage, we may note that "the putting up of the banns" is not without its superstitions, for in the North of England it is considered highly unlucky for a young woman to be present at church when this important event takes place, any children she may hereafter have running the terrible risk of being born deaf and dumb. Thus, a Worcestershire girl, some years since, refused to attend church and hear the publication of her own banns, lest by doing so she should bring the curse of dumbness on her offspring. She stated that one of her friends had transgressed this rule "by hearing herself asked out at church," and in due course had six children, all of whom were deaf and dumb. Again, the wedding-cake, without which no wedding would be considered complete, is evidently a survival of the symbolical corn-ears originally worn by the bride, and which in after-times were made into cakes and sprinkled upon the bride's head. In course of time these cakes were by degrees converted into one large mass, enriched with almond paste; and that the ingredients of a wedding-cake in the seventeenth century did not differ materially from one at the present day may be gathered from Herrick, who says:—

"This day, my Julia, thou must make,
For mistress bride, the wedding-cake;
Knead but the dough, and it will be
To paste of almonds turned by thee;
Or kiss it thou but once or twice,
And for the bride-cake there'll be spice."

Indeed, corn in one form or another has always entered into the marriage-ceremony, a practice which, as Sir John Lubbock, in his "Origin of Civilisation," has pointed out, may be found among remote savages or semi-civilised people. It would be difficult to enumerate the many superstitions, beliefs, and usages that have at different times clustered round the wedding-cake, some of which are as popular as ever. In days gone by, either corn ears or fragments of broken biscuit or cake were dropped on the newly-married couple on their return from church, a custom which is still kept up in some country districts. In Scotland and the North of England, for instance, as soon as the bride returns to her new home, one of the oldest inhabitants, who has been stationed on the threshold in readiness, throws a plateful of shortbread over her head, taking care that it falls outside the house. This is immediately scrambled for, as it is considered most fortunate to secure a piece, however small. Thus, just a century ago, Smollett, in his "Expedition of Humphrey Clinker" (1771), described how Mrs. Tabitha Lismahago's wedding-cake was broken over her head, and its fragments distributed among the bystanders, who imagined that to eat one of the hallowed pieces would insure the unmarried eater the delight of seeing in a vision the person to be his wife or her husband. Numerous other divinations, also, have been practised by means of wedding-cake, one of the most popular being that of passing it through a wedding-ring, and placing it under the pillow to dream upon. In some parts of Lancashire and Cumberland it is customary to put a ring amongst the ingredients of the wedding-cake, and to invite the guests in turn to cut a slice. The person who is fortunate enough to hold the knife when it comes upon the hidden ring is considered to be sure of happiness during the ensuing twelve months. Again, Mr. Henderson mentions an exciting custom practised in the North at the wedding-feast. He says:—"The bride sticks her knife into the cheese, and all at table endeavour to seize it. He who succeeds without cutting his fingers in the struggle thereby insures happiness in his married life. The knife is called 'the best man's prize,' because the 'best man' generally secures it. Should he fail to do so, he will indeed be unfortunate in his matrimonial views. The knife is, at any rate, a prize for male hands only; the maidens try to possess themselves of a 'shaping' of the wedding-dress, for use in certain divinations regarding their future husbands." The custom of throwing the shoe for luck at a bridal couple we shall notice elsewhere, a practice which is perhaps the principal source of merry-making and fun at most weddings. We must not omit to allude to that indispensable little article at a marriage, the wedding-ring, concerning which so much has been written. The Puritans, it may be remembered, tried to abolish it, on account of, as they thought, its superstitious and heathen origin. Thus, Butler, in his "Hudibras," says:—

"Others were for abolishing
That tool of matrimony, a ring,
With which the unsanctified bridegroom,
Is marry'd only to a thumb."

Though, however, the ring of gold is generally looked upon as a necessity in the marriage-ceremony, yet it is not legally so, but there is a very strong prejudice against being married without it, and it would be no easy task to find a couple brave enough to act in opposition to this universal superstition. Thus, by way of example, Mr. Jeaffreson, in his "Brides and Bridals," tells us that the poor Irishman is so convinced that a marriage lacks validity unless it has been solemnised with a golden ring, that, when he is too needy to buy a circlet of the most precious metal, he hires a hoop of gold for use on his wedding-day. Not long since a tradesman, in a market town at Munster, made a considerable addition to his modest income by letting out rings of gold to persons about to marry, who restored the trinkets to their owner after being wedded at church. A case is related, on the other hand, of a party that came to the church and requested to be married with a church key. It was "a parish wedding," and the parish authorities, though willing to pay the church fees, because, as the account runs, "they were glad to get rid of the girl," had not felt disposed to provide the wedding-ring. The clerk, however, feeling some hesitation as to the substitution of the church key, stepped into a neighbouring house, and there borrowed an old curtain ring, with which the marriage was solemnised. Again, most ladies are especially particular in their notions respecting their wedding-ring, objecting under any pretence to take it off from their finger, extending, it would seem, the expression of "till death us do part," even to this pledge and token of matrimony.

In various parts of the country we find many a curious marriage custom, of which, however, we can only give one or two instances. Thus, in some parts of Kent, it was formerly customary to strew the pathway to the church of the bridal couple, not with flowers, but with emblems of the bridegroom's trade. A carpenter, for instance, walked on shavings, a paperhanger on slips of paper, a blacksmith on pieces of old iron, and so on. In some parts of Durham the bridal party was, in days gone by, generally escorted to church by men armed with guns, which they fired again and again in honour of the festive occasion. In Scotland there was an amusing custom, called "Creeling the bridegroom." A basket or creel was filled with heavy stones and fixed to the bridegroom's shoulder, and with this burden he was obliged to run about until his wife unfastened the creel.

[CHAPTER V.]
DEATH AND BURIAL.

Warnings of Death—The Howling of Dogs—A Cow in the Garden—Death-presaging Birds—Plants—The Will-o'-the-Wisp—The Sympathy between Two Personalities—Prophecy—Dying Hardly—The Last Act—Place and Position of the Grave.

The superstitions associated with the last stage of human life are most numerous; and that this should be so is not surprising when it is considered how, from the earliest time, a certain dread has been attached to death, not only on account of its awful mysteriousness, but owing to its being the crisis of an entirely new phase of the soul's existence.

Commencing then with popular omens, it may be noted that every incident out of the common course of natural events is looked upon by the superstitious as indicative of approaching death. Hence we find the credulous ever conjuring up in their minds imaginary prognostications of this sad occurrence, which, apart from the needless terror they cause, are based on no foundation of truth. Foremost among these is the howling of a dog at night, a superstition which, while not confined to our own country, appears to have been almost as well known in ancient times as at the present day. As a plea, however, for its prevalence, even among the educated, we might urge that it is not unnatural for the mind, when unstrung and overbalanced by the presence of sickness and impending death, to be over-sensitive, and to take notice of every little sound and sight which may seem to connect themselves with its anxiety. Out of the innumerable instances which are recorded in our own country respecting this popular superstition, may be mentioned one which happened a few years ago at Worthing. It appears that no slight consternation was caused by a Newfoundland dog, the property of a clergyman in the neighbourhood, lying down on the steps of a house and howling piteously, refusing to be driven away. As soon as it was known that a young lady, long an invalid, had died there, so much excitement took place that news of the occurrence reached the owner of the dog, who came to Worthing to inquire into the truth of it. Unfortunately, however, for the lovers of and believers in the marvellous, it eventually turned out that the dog had by accident been separated from his master late in the evening, and had been seen running here and there in search of him, and howling at the door of the stable where he put up his horse, and other places which he often visited in Worthing. It happened, moreover, that his master had been in the habit of visiting the particular house where the young lady had died, which at once accounted for the apparent mystery. In the same way, indeed, other similar instances of this superstition might be easily cleared up, if only properly investigated at the time of the occurrence. The howling of the dog is ascribed by some to its keen sense of the odour of approaching mortal dissolution; whereas others affirm that this animal can see the spirits which hover round the house of sickness, ready at the moment of death to bear away the soul of the departed one to its distant home. In Aryan mythology the dog is said to see ghosts, and in Germany, at the present day, a dog howling before a house portends either a death or a fire. In Wales, it is thought that horses, too, have the gift of seeing spirits. Carriage-horses, it is said, have been known to display every sign of the utmost terror, although the occupants of the carriage could see no cause for alarm. Such an occurrence is considered highly ominous, and thought to forebode that a funeral will soon pass by that way, bearing to his resting-place some person not dead at the time of the horse's fright.

Whilst speaking of animals in connection with death, it may be noted that an ox or a cow breaking into a garden is an omen of death. In illustration of this notion a correspondent of Notes and Queries relates the following narrative as written down by himself about the time to which it relates. He says, "Though I laugh at the superstition, the omen was painfully fulfilled in my case. About the middle of March, 1843, some cattle were driven close to my house, and the back door being open, three got into our little bit of garden, and trampled it. When our school-drudge came in the afternoon, and asked the cause of the confusion, she expressed great sorrow and apprehension on being told—said that it was a bad sign—that we should hear of three deaths within the next six months. Alas! in April we heard of dear J——'s murder; a fortnight after A—— died; and to-morrow, August 10th, I attend the funeral of my excellent son-in-law. I have just heard of the same omen from another quarter. But what is still more remarkable is that when I went down to Mr. M——'s burial, and was mentioning the superstition, they told me that while he was lying ill, a cow got into the front garden and was driven out with great difficulty. It is still a common saying in Scotland, when any one is dangerously ill, and not likely to recover, 'The black ox has trampled upon him.'"

Another common omen of death is the hovering of birds around a house, and their tapping against the window-pane. Amongst the death-presaging birds may be mentioned the raven, the crow, and the swallow. The crowing of the cock, also, at the dead of night is regarded as equally ominous. The appearance of a jackdaw is in some parts of the country much dreaded. Thus a correspondent of Notes and Queries tells us, that a stonemason at Clifton related to him an accident that happened to a workman at the suspension bridge over the Avon, at the time when the river was simply spanned by a single chain, placing much emphasis on the fact that a single jackdaw had been noticed by some of the workmen perched upon the centre of the chain, and had been regarded by them as a precursor of death. We must not omit the evil reputation of the owl and the magpie; and a well-known superstition current in some parts that to catch a sparrow and keep it confined in a cage is an omen of death. Once more, it is a bad sign when an invalid asks for a dish of pigeons to eat, such an occurrence being considered an omen of his approaching death. Some also affirm that if one hears the cuckoo's first note when in bed, illness or death is certain to come upon the hearer or one of his family. If any one be about to die suddenly, or lose a relation, the cuckoo will light upon a piece of touchwood, or rotten bough, and cuckoo.

Plants, in the next place, are sometimes regarded as ominous of approaching mortality. When, for example, an apple-tree or pear-tree blooms twice in the year it denotes a death in the family. If, too, green broom be picked when in bloom it is believed that the father or mother will die in the course of the year. Mrs. Latham, in her "West Sussex Superstitions," gives the following touching little anecdote:—"A poor girl, who was lingering in the last stage of consumption, but whose countenance had always lighted up with pleasure at the sight of flowers, appeared one morning so exceedingly restless and unhappy after a fresh nosegay of gay spring flowers had been laid upon her bed, that I asked her if the scent of them was disagreeable to her. 'Oh, no!' she exclaimed, 'they are very nice indeed to smell; but yet I should be very glad if you would throw away that piece of yellow broom; for they do say that death comes with it if it is brought into the house in blossom during the month of May.'" According to a Yorkshire superstition, if a child gathers the germander speedwell its mother will die during the year; and others consider it equally unlucky to bring the first snowdrop of the year into the house. To dream that a tree is uprooted in one's garden is regarded as a death-warning to the owner. Indeed plants may be said to hold an important place in the folk-lore of death, so many curious legends and quaint superstitions having clustered round them both in ancient and modern times. Thus, to quote one further instance, if yew is accidentally brought into the house at Christmas among the evergreens, it is looked upon as a sign that a death will occur in the family before the end of the year.

Among other omens of death, may be noticed the will-o'-the-wisp, which has on this account been much dreaded, its undulating movement being carefully observed, from an anxiety to ascertain in which direction it disappears, as it is supposed to be—

"The hateful messenger of heavy things,
Of death and dolour telling"

to the inhabitants of the house nearest that spot. We have heard also of an occasion in which considerable uneasiness was created by a pale light moving over the bed of a sick person, and after flickering for some time in different parts of the room to vanish through the window. It happened, however, that the mystery was cleared up soon afterwards, for, on a similar light appearing, it was found to proceed from a luminous insect, which proved to be the male glow-worm. In the same way the "corpse-candles" in Wales, also called the "fetch-lights," or "dead man's candles," are regarded as forerunners of death. Sometimes this unlucky sign appears in the form of a plain yellow candle, in the hand of a ghost, and at other times it looks like "a stately flambeau, stalking along unsupported, burning with ghastly blue flame." It is considered highly dangerous to interfere with this fatal portent, and persons who have attempted to check its course are reported to have been severely afflicted in consequence, many being actually struck down on the spot where they stood as a punishment for their audacity.

There is a popular idea prevalent in Lancashire that to build or even to rebuild a house is always fatal to one member of the family—generally to the one who may have been the principal promoter of the plans for the building or alteration. Again, we are also told how the household clock has been known to depart from its customary precision in order to warn its owner of approaching death by striking thirteen. A clergyman relates that one evening he called on an old friend more than eighty years of age, who had lost her husband about six months before. Whilst sitting with her he heard the clock strike the hour in an adjoining room, and counted it seven. Being surprised that it was no later he involuntarily took out his watch, and found that it was in reality eight o'clock. The old lady noticing this remarked, "Ah! the clock lost a stroke against my poor husband's death, and I have not altered it since."

According to another very common superstition there seems to be a kind of sympathy and harmony between two personalities, whereby dying persons themselves announce their departure to their friends in certain mysterious ways. Countless instances are on record of such supposed forebodings of death. A curious and interesting example of this species of folk-lore happened not so very long ago, in connection with the lamented death of Mr. George Smith, the eminent Assyriologist. This famous scholar died at Aleppo, on the 19th of August, 1876, at or about the hour of six in the afternoon. On the same day, and at about the same time, a friend and fellow-worker of Mr. Smith's—Dr. Delitzsch—was passing within a stone's-throw of the house in which Mr. Smith had lived whilst in London, when he suddenly heard his own name uttered aloud in a "most piercing cry," which, says The Daily News (Sept. 12th, 1876) thrilled him to the marrow. The fact impressed him so strongly that he looked at his watch, noted the hour, and, although he did not mention the circumstance at the time, recorded it in his note-book.

Again, as a further illustration, we are told how on board one of Her Majesty's ships lying off Portsmouth, the officers being one day at mess, a young lieutenant suddenly laid down his knife and fork, pushed away his plate, and turned extremely pale. He then rose from the table, covered his face with his hands, and retired. The president of the mess, supposing him to be ill, sent to make inquiries. At first he was unwilling to reply; but on being pressed he confessed that he had been seized by a sudden and irresistible impression that a brother he had in India was dead. "He died," said he, "on the 12th August, at six o'clock; I am perfectly convinced of it." No argument could overthrow his conviction, which in due course of time was verified to the letter. Events of this kind, which in the minds of many seem to point to a mysterious sympathy between two individuals, are explained by others as simply the result of "fancy and coincidence." Any one, it is argued, may fall into a brown study, and emerge from it with a stare, and the notion that he heard his name spoken. That is the part of fancy, and the simultaneous event is the part of coincidence. Against this theory it will always be argued that these coincidences are too many to be accidental, and this position, as a writer in The Daily News has shown, will generally be met by counter-efforts to weaken the evidence for each individual case, and so to reduce the cumulative evidence to nothing. Taking into consideration however, the countless instances which are on record of this kind, many of them apparently resting on evidence beyond impeachment, we must, whilst allotting to them the credence they deserve, honestly admit they are occasionally beyond the limits of human explanation.

From a very early period there has existed a belief in the existence of the power of prophecy at that period which precedes death. It probably took its origin in the assumed fact that the soul becomes divine in the same rate as the connection with the body is loosened. It has been urged in support of this theory that at the hour of death the soul is, as it were, on the confines of two worlds, and may possibly at the same moment possess a power which is both prospective and retrospective. Shakespeare in his Richard II. (Act ii., sc. 1) makes the dying Gaunt, alluding to his nephew, the young and self-willed king, exclaim:—

"Methinks I am a prophet new inspired,
And thus expiring do foretell of him."

Again in 1 Henry IV. (Act v., sc. 4), the brave Percy, when in the agonies of death, conveys the same idea in the following words:—

"O, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue."

Some have sought for the foundation of this belief in the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis:—"And Jacob called his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into his bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people." This notion has not died out, but still prevails in Lancashire and other parts of England.

Referring to death itself, there is a widespread belief that deaths mostly occur during the ebbing of the tide: a superstition to which Charles Dickens has so touchingly alluded in "David Copperfield." While the honest-hearted Mr. Peggotty sat by the bedside of poor Barkis, and watched life's flame gradually growing dimmer, he said to David Copperfield, "People can't die along the coast except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born unless it's pretty nigh in. Not properly born till flood. He's agoing out with the tide—he's agoing out with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide." And after many hours' watching, "it being low water, he went out with the tide."

Persons, too, are said to "die hard," to quote a popular phrase, or, in other words, to have a painful and prolonged death, when there are pigeons' feathers in the bed. Hence, some will not allow dying persons to lie on a feather bed at all, maintaining that it very much increases the pain, and retards the inevitable crisis of their departure. Many, on the other hand, have a superstitious feeling that it is a great misfortune, nay, even a judgment, not to die in a bed. Many are the anecdotes illustrative of the former superstition, one or two of which we will quote. Thus a Sussex nurse one day told the wife of her clergyman that "never did she see any one die so hard as old Master Short; and at last she thought (though his daughter said there were none) that there must be game-feathers in the bed. She, therefore, tried to pull it from under him, but he was a heavy man and she could not manage it alone, and there was no one with him but herself, and so she got a rope and tied it round him and pulled him by it off the bed, and he went off in a minute quite comfortable, just like a lamb." Again, one day, when an old woman near Yarmouth was speaking of the burning of game-feathers as a precaution in case of death, her neighbours said to her, "Of course we don't believe that can have anything to do with a hard death," whereupon she replied, "Then you yourself use such feathers." "Oh, no; we always burn them, unless we want them for a chair-cushion." The same notion prevails in Yorkshire with regard to cocks' feathers. According to another popular fancy a person cannot die comfortably under the cross-beam of a house, and we are told of the case of a man of whom it was said at his death, that after many hours' hard dying, being removed from the position under the cross-beam, he departed peaceably.

Again, the interval between death and burial has generally been associated with various superstitious fears and practices. Thus, as soon as the corpse is laid out there is still a widespread custom of placing a plate of salt upon the breast, the reason being no doubt to prevent the body swelling; although there is a belief that it acts as a charm against any attempt on the part of evil spirits to disturb the body. Pennant tells us that formerly in Scotland, "the corpse being stretched on a board and covered with a coarse linen wrapper, the friends laid on the breast of the deceased a wooden platter, containing a small quantity of salt and earth, separate and unmixed; the earth an emblem of the corruptible body, the salt as an emblem of the immortal spirit." Mr. Napier, in his "Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland," points out that we may find another explanation for the plate of salt on the breast in the "sin-eaters," persons who, in days gone by, when a person died, were sent for to come and eat the sins of the deceased. On their arrival their first act was to place a plate of salt and one of bread on the breast of the corpse, repeating a series of incantations, after which they devoured the contents of the plates. By this ceremony the deceased person was supposed to be relieved of such sins as would have kept his spirit hovering about his relations to their discomfort and annoyance.

It is customary, especially among the poor, for those who visit a house while the dead body is lying in it to touch the corpse, thereby showing that they owe the departed one no grudge. This practice, in all probability, originated in the belief that a corpse would bleed at the touch of the murderer, constant allusions to which we find in old authors.

The practice of watching the dead body until its burial is not yet obsolete, a custom indeed which, among the Irish, is even still occasionally the scene of the most unseemly revelries, those present oftentimes indulging in excessive drinking and riotous merry-making. In days gone by, however, this practice was attended with every mark of respect to the deceased one, the leading idea being to see that the devil did not carry off the body.

Lastly, since the formation of cemeteries, many of the quaint old funeral customs which formerly existed in many of our country villages have passed away. Now-a-days, the "last act," as the committal of the body to the grave has been termed, has been shorn of much of its pomp. Thus, in the North of England it was customary, only a few years ago, to carry "the dead with the sun" to the grave, a practice corresponding with the Highland usage of making "the deazil," or walking three times round a person, according to the course of the sun. On one occasion, in the village of Stranton, near West Hartlepool, the vicar was standing at the churchyard gate, awaiting the arrival of the funeral procession, when, much to his surprise, the entire group, who had come within a few yards of him, suddenly turned back and marched round the churchyard wall, thus traversing its west, north, and east boundaries. On inquiring the reason of this extraordinary procedure, one of the mourners quickly replied, "Why, ye wad no hae them carry the dead again the sun; the dead maun ay go wi' the sun." This is not unlike a Welsh custom mentioned by Pennant, who tells us that when a corpse was conveyed to the churchyard from any part of the town, great care was always taken that it should be carried the whole distance on the right-hand side of the road. A curious custom, which still survives at Welsh funerals, is termed "the parson's penny." After reading the burial service in the church, the clergyman stands behind a table while a psalm is being sung. In the meantime each of the mourners places a piece of money on the table for his acceptance. This ceremony is regarded as a token of respect to the deceased, although it was no doubt originally intended to compensate the clergyman for praying for the soul of the departed. In some Welsh parishes a similar custom, called "spade-money," is observed. As soon as the corpse has been committed to its resting-place, the grave-digger presents his spade as a receptacle for donations, these offerings, which often amount to a goodly sum, being regarded as his perquisites.

From time immemorial there has been a popular prejudice among the inhabitants of rural villages against "burial without the sanctuary." This does not imply in unconsecrated ground, but on the north side of the church, or in a remote corner of the churchyard. The origin of this repugnance is said to have been the notion that the northern part was that which was appropriated to the interment of unbaptised infants, excommunicated persons, or such as had laid violent hands upon themselves. Hence it was generally known as "the wrong side of the church." In many parishes, therefore, this spot remained unoccupied while the remaining portion of the churchyard was crowded. White, in his "History of Selborne," alluding to this superstition, says that as most people wished to be buried on the south side of the churchyard, it became such a mass of mortality that no person could be interred "without disturbing or displacing the bones of his ancestors." A clergyman of a rural parish in Norfolk says:—"If I were on any occasion to urge a parishioner to inter a deceased relative on the north side of the church, he would answer me with some expression of surprise, if not of offence, at the proposal, 'No, sir, it is not in the sanctuary.'"

Great attention has, also, generally been paid to the position of the grave, the popular idea being from east to west, while that from north to south has been considered not only dishonourable, but unlucky. Indeed, the famous antiquary, Thomas Hearne, was so particular on this point that he left orders for his grave to be made straight by a compass, due east and west. In Cymbeline (Act iv., sc. 2), Guiderius, speaking of the apparently dead body of Imogen disguised in man's apparel, says:—

"Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;
My father hath a reason for 't."

It is worthy of notice that the burial of the dead among the Greeks was in the line of east and west; and thus it is not to late and isolated fancy, but to the carrying on of ancient and widespread solar ideas, as Mr. Tylor has so clearly shown, that we trace the well-known legend that the body of Christ was laid towards the east, and the Christian usage of digging graves east and west. A pretty custom was once observed in many of our country villages at the funeral of a young unmarried girl, or of a bride who died in her honeymoon; a chaplet of flowers being carried before the corpse by a girl nearest in age, size, and resemblance, and afterwards hung up in the church over the accustomed seat of the deceased.

Among other customs connected with burial may be mentioned "funeral feasts," which have prevailed in this and other countries from the earliest times, and are supposed to have been borrowed from the Cœna feralis of the Romans: an offering, consisting of milk, honey, wine, aloes, and strewed flowers, to the ghost of the deceased. In a variety of forms this custom has prevailed amongst most nations, the idea being that the spirits of the dead feed on the viands set before them. In Christian times, however, these funeral offerings have passed into commemorative banquets, under which form they still exist amongst us. In the north of England the funeral feast is called "an arval," and the loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor are termed "arval bread."

The poor seem to have always been fond of inviting a large number of friends to attend a funeral. Instances are on record of a barrel of beer, two gallons of sack, and four gallons of claret being consumed at a funeral, and the cost of wine has been five times more than the cost of the coffin. In one of the parishes on the borders of Norfolk there is a tradition, says Mr. Glyde in his "Norfolk Garland," that when the warrior Sir Robert Atte Tye was buried, four dozen of wine were drunk, according to his last directions, over his grave, before the coffin was covered with earth. Many curious anecdotes might be given of funerals having been solemnised within the church-porch, and of the scruples entertained by great men as to the practice of interment in churches. A part of the churchyard, too, was occasionally left unconsecrated for the purpose of burying excommunicated persons. Among some of the superstitions associated with burial we may just note that it is considered by some unlucky to meet a funeral; and that, according to another notion, the ghost of the last person buried keeps watch over the churchyard till another is buried, to whom he delivers his charge.

[CHAPTER VI.]
THE HUMAN BODY.

Superstitions about Deformity, Moles, &c.—Tingling of the Ear—The Nose—The Eye—The Teeth—The Hair—The Hand—Dead Man's Hand—The Feet.

In the preceding pages we have given a brief survey of that widespread folk-lore with which the life of man has been invested, stage by stage, from the cradle to the grave. In like manner the popular imagination has, in most countries from the earliest times, woven round the human body a thick network of superstitions, many of which, while of the nature of omens, are supposed to indicate certain facts, such as the person's character, the events connected with his life, and to give that insight into his future career which eager curiosity would strive to ascertain. Thus, according to an old prejudice, which is not quite extinct, those who are defective or deformed are marked by nature as prone to mischief, in accordance with which notion Shakespeare makes Margaret, speaking of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in King Richard III. (Act i., sc. 3), say:—

"Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rotting hog
Thou that was seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell."

Moles, too, have generally been thought to denote good or ill-luck from their position on the body. Thus one on the throat is a sign of luck, but one on the left side of the forehead near the hair is just the reverse. Again, a mole on either the chin, ear, or neck is an indication of riches, but one on the breast signifies poverty. Indeed, if we are to believe the "Greenwich Fortune-teller," a popular chap-book in former years, omens to be drawn from moles are almost unlimited.

Referring, however, more especially to the folk-lore associated with the different parts of the human body, this, as we have already stated, is very extensive, being in many cases the legacy bequeathed to us by our ancestors. Commencing, then, with the ear, there is a well-known superstition that a tingling of the right one is lucky, denoting that a friend is speaking well of one; a tingling of the left implying the opposite. This notion differs according to the locality, as in some places it is the tingling of the left ear which denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear the enemy. Shakespeare, in Much Ado about Nothing (Act iii., sc. 1), makes Beatrice say to Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her, "What fire is in mine ears?" in allusion, it is generally supposed, to this popular fancy, which is old as the time of Pliny, who says, "When our ears tingle some one is talking of us in our absence." Sir Thomas Browne also ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian angels, who touch the right or left ear according as the conversation is favourable or not to the person. The Scotch peasantry have an omen called the "death-bell"—a tingling in the ears which is believed to announce some friend's death. Hogg alludes to this superstition in his "Mountain Bard":—

"O lady, 'tis dark, an' I heard the death-bell,
An' I darena gae yonder for gowd nor fee,"

and gives also an amusing anecdote illustrative of it:—"Our two servant-girls agreed to go on an errand of their own, one night after supper, to a considerable distance, from which I strove to persuade them, but could not prevail; so, after going to the apartment where I slept, I took a drinking-glass, and coming close to the back of the door made two or three sweeps round the lip of the glass with my finger, which caused a loud shrill sound, and then overheard the following dialogue:—

"B. 'Ah, mercy! the dead-bell went through my head just now with such a knell as I never heard.'

"I. 'I heard it too.'

"B. 'Did you indeed? That is remarkable. I never knew of two hearing it at the same time before.'

"I. 'We will not go to Midgehope to-night.'

"B. 'I would not go for all the world! I shall warrant it is my poor brother Wat. Who knows what these wild Irish may have done to him?'"

The itching of the nose, like that of the ears, is not without its signification, denoting that a stranger will certainly appear before many hours have passed by, in allusion to which Dekker, in his "Honest Whore," says:—"We shall ha' guests to-day; my nose itcheth so." In the north of England, however, if the nose itches it is reckoned a sign that the person will either be crossed, vexed, or kissed by a fool; whereas an old writer tells us that "when a man's nose itcheth it is a signe he shall drink wine." Many omens, too, are gathered from bleeding of the nose. Thus Grose says, "One drop of blood from the nose commonly foretells death or a very severe fit of sickness; three drops are still more ominous;" and according to another notion one drop from the left nostril is a sign of good luck, and vice versâ. Bleeding of the nose seems also to have been regarded as a sign of love, if we may judge from a passage in Boulster's "Lectures," published early in the seventeenth century:—"'Did my nose ever bleed when I was in your company?' and, poor wretch, just as she spake this, to show her true heart, her nose fell a-bleeding." Again, that bleeding of the nose was looked upon as ominous in days gone by, we may gather from Launcelot's exclamation in the Merchant of Venice (Act ii., sc. 5), "It was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o'clock"—a superstition to which many of our old writers refer. Among further superstitions connected with the nose we may mention one in Cornwall, known as "the blue vein," an illustration of which occurs in Mr. Hunt's "Popular Romances of the West of England," who relates the following little anecdote:—"A fond mother was paying more than ordinary attention to a fine healthy-looking child, a boy about three years old. The poor woman's breast was heaving with emotion, and she struggled to repress her sighs. Upon inquiring if anything was really wrong, she said, 'The old lady of the house had just told her that the child could not live long because he had a blue vein across his nose.'" This piece of folk-lore, which caused the anxious mother such distress, is not confined to the West of England, but crops up here and there throughout the country. While speaking of the nose, we may just note that it is the subject of various proverbs. Thus "to put the nose out of joint" means to supplant one in another's favour, and the popular one of "paying through the nose," implying extortion, may, it has been suggested, have originated in a poll-tax levied by Odin, which was called in Sweden a nose-tax, and was a penny per nose or poll. Once more, we have the term "nose of wax" applied to a person who is very accommodating, and one may occasionally hear the phrase "wipe the nose" used in the sense of affront.

Leaving the nose, however, we find similar odd fancies attached to the eye. In many places we are told that "it's a good thing to have meeting eyebrows, as such a person will never know trouble," although, curious to say, on the Continent quite a different significance is attributed to this peculiarity. In Greece, for instance, it is held as an omen that the man is a vampire, and in Denmark and Germany it is said to indicate that he is a werewolf. In China, also, there is a proverb that "people whose eyebrows meet can never expect to attain to the dignity of a minister of state." There can be no doubt that, according to the general idea, meeting eyebrows are not considered lucky:—

"Trust not the man whose eyebrows meet,
For in his heart you'll find deceit."

Thus, Charles Kingsley, in "Two Years Ago," speaks of this idea in the following passage:—"Tom began carefully scrutinising Mrs. Harvey's face. It had been very handsome. It was still very clever, but the eyebrows clashed together downwards above her nose, and rising higher at the outward corners, indicated, as surely as the restless down-drop eye, a character self-conscious, furtive, capable of great inconsistencies, possibly of great deceit."

Again, the itching of the right eye is considered a lucky omen, an idea that is very old, and may be traced as far back as the time of Theocritus, who says:—

"My right eye itches now, and I shall see my love."

According to the antiquary Grose, however, who collected together so many of the superstitions prevalent in his day, "When the right eye itches, the party affected will shortly cry; if the left, they will laugh." The power of fascination has generally been considered to be a peculiar quality of the eye, a notion by no means obsolete, and numerous charms have been resorted to for counteracting its influence. In our [chapter on "Birth and Infancy"] we have already spoken of the danger to which young children are said to be subject from the malevolent power of some evil eye, and of the pernicious effects resulting from it. Shakespeare gives several references to it, one of which occurs in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Act v., sc. 5), where Pistol says of Falstaff:—

"Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth."

And once more, in Titus Andronicus (Act ii., sc. 1), Aaron speaks of Tamora as

"——fetter'd in amorous chains—
And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes,
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus."

It was not very long ago that a curious case of this superstition was brought before the guardians of the Shaftesbury Union, in which an applicant for relief stated his inability to work because he had been "overlooked" by his sister-in-law. Although his wife had resorted for help to a wise-woman, yet she was unable to remove the spell under which he lay, and thus the unfortunate man, incapable of labour, applied for relief, which he did not obtain.

In the next place, some of the superstitions connected with the teeth are quaint, and afford opportunities to the credulous for drawing omens of various kinds. Thus, to dream about teeth is held to be a warning that sorrow of some kind is at hand; and it is even unluckier still to dream of one's teeth falling out. It is also frequently the custom, for the sake of luck, to throw a tooth when extracted into the fire, a practice which, as we have already seen, is frequently most scrupulously kept up in the case of young children, to make sure of the remainder of their teeth coming properly. Furthermore, to have teeth wide apart is a sign of prosperity, and is said to indicate one's future happiness in life. As an instance of this piece of folk-lore we may quote the following, narrated by a correspondent in Notes and Queries:—"A young lady the other day, in reply to an observation of mine, 'What a lucky girl you are!' replied, 'So they used to say I should be when at school.' 'Why?' 'Because my teeth were set so far apart; it was a sure sign I should be lucky and travel.'" Trivial as many of these superstitions may seem, yet they are interesting, inasmuch as they show how minutely the imagination has at different times surrounded the human body with countless items of odd notions, some of which in all probability originated from practical experience, while others have been the result of a thousand circumstances, to ascertain the history of which would be a matter of long and elaborate research.

Passing on to the hair, there is a popular notion that sudden fright or violent distress will, to use Sir Walter Scott's words, "blanch at once the hair." Thus, in Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV. (Act ii., sc. 4), Falstaff, in his speech to Prince Henry, says:—

"Thy father's beard is turned white with the news."

Although this has been styled "a whimsical notion," yet in its support various instances of its occurrence have been from time to time recorded. The hair of Ludwig of Bavaria, for example, it is said, became almost suddenly white as snow on his learning the innocence of his wife, whom he had caused to be put to death on a suspicion of infidelity; and the same thing, we are told, happened to Charles I. in a single night, when he attempted to escape from Carisbrooke Castle. A similar story is told of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, when her flight from France was checked at Varennes. According to another notion, excessive fear has occasionally caused the hair to stand on end, a belief which Shakespeare has recorded. In Hamlet (Act iii., sc. 4), in that famous passage where the Queen is at a loss to understand her son's mysterious conduct and strange appearance, during his conversation with the ghost which is hidden to her eyes, she says:—

"And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end."

Once more, too, in that graphic scene in the Tempest (Act i., sc. 2), where Ariel describes the shipwreck, he says:—

"All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me; the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring—then like reeds, not hair—
Was the first man that leap'd."

The sudden loss of hair is considered unlucky, being said to prognosticate the loss of children, health, or property; whereas many consider it imprudent to throw it away, or to leave the smallest scrap lying about. One reason assigned for this notion is that if hair is left about, birds might build their nests with it, a fatal thing for the person from whose head it has fallen. Thus, should a magpie use it for any such purpose—by no means an unlikely circumstance—the person's death will be sure to happen "within a year and a day." Some say, again, that hair should never be burnt, but only buried, a superstition founded on a tradition that at the resurrection its owner will come in search of it. On the other hand, it is customary with some persons to throw a piece of their hair into the fire, drawing various omens from the way it burns. Should it gradually smoulder away, it is an omen of death; but its burning brightly is a sign of longevity, and the brighter the flame the longer the life. In Devonshire, too, if the hair grows down on the forehead and retreats up the head above the temples, it is considered an indication that the person will have a long life. There is a very prevalent idea that persons who have much hair or down on their arms are, to quote the common expression, "born to be rich," although the exception, in this as in many other similar cases, rather proves the rule; but abundance of hair on the head has been supposed to denote a lack of brains, from whence arose an odd proverb, "Bush natural, more hair than wit." Once more, Judas is said to have had red hair, and hence, from time immemorial, there has been a strong antipathy to it. Shakespeare, in As You Like It (Act iii., sc. 4), alludes to this belief, when he makes Rosalind say of Orlando:—

"His very hair is of the dissembling colour."

To which Celia replies:—

"Something browner than Judas's."

It has been conjectured, however, that the odium attached to red hair took its origin in this country from the aversion felt to the red-haired Danes. One reason, perhaps, more than another why this dislike to it arose, originated in the circumstance that the colour was thought ugly and unfashionable, and the antipathy to it, therefore, would naturally be increased by this opinion. Thus, in course of time, a red beard was also held in contempt, and was regarded as an infallible token of a vile disposition. Yellow hair, too, was formerly esteemed a deformity, and in ancient tapestries both Cain and Judas are represented with yellow beards, in allusion to which, in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Act i., sc. 4), Simple, when interrogated, says of his master, "He hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard—a Cain-coloured beard." While alluding to beards, we may note that in former years they gave rise to various customs, many of which, however, have long ago fallen into disuse. Thus, dyeing beards was a common practice, and our readers may recollect how Bottom, in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act i., sc. 2), is perplexed as to what beard he should wear in performing his part before the Duke. He says, "I will discharge it either in your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow." It was evidently quite as much the habit for gentlemen to dye their beards in Shakespeare's day as it is said to be for ladies to dye their locks now-a-days. When beards, too, were the fashion, to mutilate or cut off one was considered an irreparable outrage.

Pursuing our subject, we find that the cheek is not without its quota of folk-lore; for, like the ear, nose, and eye, it is considered ominous when one's cheek itches. According to Grose, "If the right cheek burns, some one is speaking to the person's advantage; if the left, to their disadvantage." One may still occasionally hear the following charm uttered by a person whose cheek suddenly burns:—

"Right cheek! left cheek! why do you burn?
Cursed be she that doth me any harm;
If she be a maid, let her be staid;
If she be a widow, long let her mourn;
But if it be my own true love—burn, cheek, burn."

Again, the hand has been honoured with a very extensive folk-lore, and the following extract from an old writer shows that nearly every peculiarity of the hand has been made emblematical of some personal trait of character. Thus, we are told:—"A great thick hand signifies one not only strong, but stout; a little slender hand, one not only weak, but timorous; a long hand and long fingers betoken a man not only apt for mechanical artifice, but liberally ingenious. Those short, on the contrary, note a fool, and fit for nothing; a hard brawny hand signifies one dull and rude; a soft hand, one witty, but effeminate; a hairy hand, one luxurious. Long joints signify generosity; yet, if they be thick withal, one not so ingenious. The often clapping and folding of the hands note covetousness; and their much moving in speech, loquacity. Short and fat fingers mark a man out as intemperate and silly; but long and lean, as witty. If his fingers crook upward, that shows him liberal; if downward, niggardly. Long nails and crooked signify one to be brutish, ravenous, and unchaste; very short nails, pale and sharp, show him subtle and beguiling." Among other omens, we are told that the itching of the right hand signifies that it will shortly receive money, whereas if the left hand be the one to itch, it is a sign that money will before very many days have to be paid away. In Suffolk the peasants have the following rhyme on the subject:—

"If your hand itches,
You're going to take riches;
Rub it on wood,
Sure to come good;
Rub it on iron,
Sure to come flying;
Rub it on brass,
Sure to come to pass;
Rub it on steel,
Sure to come a deal;
Rub it on tin,
Sure to come agin."

A moist hand is said to denote an amorous constitution, and in 2 Henry IV. (Act i., sc. 2), the Lord Chief Justice enumerates a dry hand among the characteristics of age and debility.

Palmistry, or divination by means of the hands, a species of fortune-telling still much practised, we have already described in [another chapter]. A superstition, however, which we must not omit to mention, is the practice of rubbing with a dead hand for the purpose of taking away disease, instances of which, even now-a-days, are of occasional occurrence. Mr. Henderson mentions a case that happened about the year 1853. The wife of a pitman at Castle Eden Colliery, who was suffering from a wen in the neck, went alone, according to advice given her by a "wise woman," and lay all night in the out-house, with the hand of a corpse on her wen. She had been assured that the hand of a suicide was an infallible cure. The shock, at any rate, to her nervous system from that terrible night was so great that she did not rally for some months, and eventually she died from the wen. As a further specimen of this incredible superstition, we may quote the following case, which happened some years ago in an Eastern county. A little girl of about eight years of age had from birth been troubled with scrofulous disease, and had been reared with great difficulty. Her friends consulted the "wise man" of the neighbourhood, who told the mother that if she took the girl and rubbed her naked body all over with the hand of a dead man she would be cured. The experiment was tried, and the poor little girl was nearly killed with fright, and, of course, made no progress whatever towards health.

Many of our readers are, no doubt, acquainted with the famous "dead man's hand," which was formerly kept at Bryn Hall, in Lancashire. It is said to have been the hand of Father Arrowsmith, a priest who, according to some accounts, was put to death for his religion in the time of William III. Preserved with great care in a white silken bag, this hand was resorted to by many diseased persons, and wonderful cures are reported to have been effected by this saintly relic. Thus, we are told of a woman who, afflicted with the small-pox, had this dead hand in bed with her every night for six weeks; and of a poor lad who was rubbed with it for the cure of scrofulous sores. It is, indeed, generally supposed that practices of this kind are rare and of exceptional occurrence, but they are far more common than might be imagined, although not recorded in newspapers. This is, however, in a great measure owing to the fact that those who believe in and have recourse to such rites observe secresy, for fear of meeting with ridicule from others.

The nails, also, as we have mentioned in our [chapter on Childhood], have their folk-lore, the little specks which are seen on them being regarded as ominous. Many have their particular days for cutting the nails. Of the numerous rhymes on the subject, we may quote the following as a specimen, from which it will be seen that every day has its peculiar virtue:—

"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.

Another article of dress that has its superstitions is the apron, which some women turn before the new moon, to insure good luck for the ensuing month. In Yorkshire, when a married woman's apron falls off, it is a sign that something is coming to vex her; when, however, the apron of an unmarried girl drops down, she is frequently the object of laughter, as there is considered no surer sign than that she is thinking about her sweetheart. Again, if a young woman's petticoats are longer than her dress, this is a proof that her mother does not love her so much as her father, a notion which extends as far as Scotland. This piece of folk-lore may have originated in the mother not attending so much to the child's dress as was her duty, whereas, however much the father may love his child, he may at the same time be perfectly ignorant of the rights and wrongs of female attire: an excuse which does not hold good in the case of the mother. Some of the descriptions of plants in use among the rural peasantry refer to the petticoat. Thus, the poppy is said to have a red petticoat and a green gown; the daffodil, a yellow petticoat and green gown, and so on; these fancies being the subject of many of our old nursery rhymes, as, for instance:—

"Daffadown-dilly is come up to town,
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown."

Passing on in the next place to stockings, it is lucky, as with other articles of dress, to put one wrong-side out, but unlucky to turn it on discovering one's mistake. Some, too, consider it a matter of importance as to which foot they put the stocking on first when dressing themselves in the morning—the luck of the day being supposed in a great measure to depend on this circumstance—as to clothe the left foot before the right one is a sign of misfortune. "Flinging the stocking" was an old marriage custom, being really a kind of divination, which Misson, in his "Travels through England," thus describes:—"The young men, it seems, took the bride's stockings, and the girls those of the bridegroom, each of whom, sitting at the foot of the bed, threw the stocking over their heads, endeavouring to make it fall upon that of the bride or her spouse; if the bridegroom's stocking, thrown by the girls, fell upon the bridegroom's head, it was a sign that they themselves would soon be married; and similar luck was derived from the falling of the bride's stockings, thrown by the young men."

There is a superstitious notion in some places that when the bride retires to rest on her wedding-night, her bridesmaids should lay her stockings across, as this act is supposed to guarantee her future prosperity in the marriage state. Another use to which the stocking has been put is its being hung up to receive presents at Christmas-time, a custom which, as Mr. Henderson points out, the Pilgrim Fathers carried to America, and bequeathed to their descendants.

It is curious to find even the garter an object of superstition, being employed by young women in their love divinations on Midsummer Eve, a period, it must be remembered, considered most propitious for such ceremonies. Their mode of procedure is this:—The maiden anxious to have a peep of her future husband must sleep in a county different from that in which she usually resides, and on going to bed must take care to knit the left garter about the right stocking, repeating the following incantation, and at every pause knitting a knot:—

"This knot I knit
To know the thing I know not yet;
That I may see
The man that shall my husband be;
How he goes, and what he wears,
And what he does all days and years."

On retiring to rest the wished-for one will appear in her dreams, wearing the insignia of his trade or profession.

Again, as a popular object of superstition the shoe is unrivalled, and antiquaries are still undecided as to why our forefathers invested this matter-of-fact article of dress with such mysterious qualities, selecting it as the symbol of good fortune, one of the well-known uses in which it has been employed being the throwing of it for luck, constant allusions to which practice occur in our old writers. Thus, Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Honest Man's Fortune, refer to it:—

"Captain, your shoes are old; pray put 'em off,
And let one fling 'em after us."

And Ben Jonson, in his Masque of the Gipsies, represents one of the gipsies as saying:—

"Hurle after an old shoe,
I'll be merry what e'er I doe."

This custom, which was once so prevalent, has not yet died out, for in Norfolk, whenever servants are going after new situations, a shoe is thrown after them, with the wish that they may succeed in what they are going about. Some years ago, when vessels engaged in the Greenland whale fishery left Whitby, in Yorkshire, the wives and friends of the sailors threw old shoes at the ships as they passed the pier-head. Indeed, this practice is frequently observed in towns on the sea-coast, and a correspondent of Notes and Queries informs us that one day, when at Swansea, he received a shoe on his shoulder which was intended for a young sailor leaving his home to embark upon a trading voyage. Tennyson has not omitted to speak of this piece of superstition:—

"For this thou shalt from all things seek
Marrow of mirth and laughter;
And wheresoe'er thou move, good luck
Shall throw her old shoe after."

As an emblem of good luck, the shoe is thrown with much enthusiasm after a bridal couple. Various explanations have been given of this popular custom. Some think that it was originally intended as a sham assault on the bridegroom for carrying off the bride; and hence a survival of the old ceremony of opposition to the capture of a bride. Others again are of opinion that the shoe was in former times a symbol of the exercise of dominion and authority over her by her father or guardian; the receipt of the shoe by the bridegroom, even if accidental, being an omen that the authority was transferred to him. Thus, in the Bible, the receiving of a shoe was an evidence and symbol of asserting or accepting dominion or ownership; whereas the giving back of the shoe was the symbol of resigning it. Another reason for throwing the shoe is given in the following old rhyme:—

"When Britons bold
Wedded of old,
Sandals were backward thrown,
The pair to tell
That, ill or well,
The act was all their own."

Throwing the shoe after the wedded pair was, also, no doubt intended as an augury of long life to the bride. In Yorkshire the ceremony of shoe-throwing is termed "thrashing," and the older the shoe the greater the luck; and in some parts of Kent the mode of procedure is somewhat peculiar. After the departure of the bride and bridegroom the single ladies are drawn up in one row, and the bachelors in another. When thus arranged, an old shoe is thrown as far as possible, which the fair sex run for: the winner being considered to have the best chance of marriage. She then throws the shoe at the gentlemen, when the first who gets it is believed to have the same chance of matrimony. A somewhat similar custom prevails in Germany, where the bride's shoe is thrown among the guests at the wedding, the person who succeeds in catching it being supposed to have every prospect of a speedy marriage.

Many auguries are still gathered from the shoe. Thus young girls on going to bed at night place their shoes at right angles to one another, in the form of the letter T, repeating this rhyme:—

"Hoping this night my true love to see,
I place my shoes in the form of a T."

As in the case of the stocking, great importance is attached by many superstitious persons as to which shoe they put on first, in allusion to which Butler, in his "Hudibras," says:—

"Augustus, having b' oversight
Put on his left shoe 'fore his right,
Had like to have been slain that day
By soldiers mutin'ing for pay."

An old writer speaking of Jewish customs tells us that "some of them observe, in dressing themselves in the morning, to put on the right stocking and right shoe first without tying it. Then afterwards to put on the left shoe, and so return to the right; that so they may begin and end with the right one, which they account to be the most fortunate." A Suffolk doggrel respecting the "wear of shoes" teaches us the following:—

"Tip at the toe: live to see woe;
Wear at the side: live to be a bride;
Wear at the ball: live to spend all;
Wear at the heel: live to save a deal."

Among some of the many charms in which the shoe has been found efficacious, may be mentioned one practised in the North of England, where the peasantry, to cure cramp, are in the habit of laying their shoes across to avert it. Mrs. Latham, in her "West Sussex Superstitions," published in the "Folk-lore Record," tells us of an old woman who was at a complete loss to understand why her "rheumatics was so uncommon bad, for she had put her shoes in the form of a cross every night by the side of her head, ever since she felt the first twinge." In the same county, a cure for ague consists in wearing a leaf of tansy in the shoe.

It is curious that the shoe should have entered into the superstitions associated with death. According to an Aryan tradition, the greater part of the way from the land of the living to that of death lay through morasses, and vast moors overgrown with furze and thorns. That the dead might not pass over them barefoot, a pair of shoes was laid with them in the grave. Hence a funeral is still called in the Henneberg district "dead-shoe," and in Scandinavia the shoe itself is known as "hel-shoe." There are countless other items of folk-lore connected with the shoe: thus in days gone by the phrase, "Over shoes, over boots" was equivalent to the popular phrase, "In for a penny, in for a pound," an allusion to which we find in Taylor's "Workes" (1630):—

"Where true courage roots,
The proverb says, once over shoes, o'er boots."

Again, "to stand in another man's shoe" is a popular expression for occupying the place or laying claim to the honours of another. "Looking for dead men's shoes" is still an every-day phrase denoting those who are continually expecting some advantage which will accrue to them on the death of another. The shoe-horn, too, from its convenient use in drawing on a tight shoe, was formerly applied in a jocular metaphor to subservient and tractable assistants. Thus, for instance, Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida (Act v., sc. 1) makes Thersites in his railing mood give this name to Menelaus, whom he calls "a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's (Agamemnon's) leg." It was also employed as a contemptuous phrase for danglers after young women.

A further article of dress that has had much honour conferred upon it is the glove, holding as it does a conspicuous place in many of our old customs and ceremonies. Thus in days gone by it was given, by way of delivery or investiture, in sales or conveyances of lands and goods. It was also employed as the token of a challenge to fight, a symbolical staking, perhaps of the prowess of the hand to which the glove belonged. Hence to hang up a glove in church was a public challenge, very much as a notice affixed to a church-door is a public notice. Apropos of this custom, a story is given in the life of the Rev. Bernard Gilpin, of the diocese of Durham, who died in 1583. It appears that he observed a glove hanging high up in his church, and ascertaining that it was designed as a challenge to any one who should dare to displace it, he desired his sexton to do so. "Not I, sir, I dare do no such thing," he replied. Whereupon the parson called for a long staff, and taking it down himself, put it in his pocket. Preaching afterwards on the subject, he denounced this unseemly practice, saying, "Behold, I have taken it down myself," and producing the glove, he exhibited it to the whole congregation as a spectacle of honour. This custom, we are told, does not appear to have been much older in this country than the thirteenth century, for Matthew Paris, in writing of the year 1245, speaks of it expressly as French. Noblemen wore their ladies' gloves in front of their hats, a practice mentioned by Drayton as having been in vogue at the battle of Agincourt:—

"The noble youth, the common rank above,
On their courveting coursers mounted fair,
One wore his mistress' garter, one her glove,
And he her colours whom he most did love;
There was not one but did some favour wear;
And each one took it on his happy speed,
To make it famous by some knightly deed."

The gift of a pair of gloves was at one time the ordinary perquisite of those who performed some small service; and in process of time, to make the reward of greater value, the glove was "lined" with money; hence the term "glove-money." Relics of the old custom still survive in the presentation of gloves to those who attend weddings and funerals. It is difficult, however, to discover the connection between gloves and a stolen kiss. Our readers, for example, may recollect how, in Sir Walter Scott's "Fair Maid of Perth," Catharine steals from her chamber on St. Valentine's morn, and catching Henry Smith asleep, gives him a kiss; then we have the following:—"Come into the booth with me, my son, and I will furnish thee with a fitting theme. Thou knowest the maiden who ventures to kiss a sleeping man, wins of him a pair of gloves." Gloves are still given to a judge at a maiden assize, a custom which, it has been suggested, originated in a Saxon law, which forbade the judges to wear gloves while sitting on the Bench. Hence, to give a pair of gloves to a judge was tantamount to saying that he need not trouble to come to the Bench, but might wear gloves. Again, in bygone times gloves were worn as a mark of distinction by sovereigns, ecclesiastical dignitaries, and others; their workmanship being excessively costly, richly embroidered as they were and decorated with jewels. "The association of gloves with ecclesiastical dignity survived," says Mr. Leadam in the Antiquary, "the Reformation in England; for although they ceased to be worn in the services of the Church, yet as late as the reign of Charles II. bishops upon their consecration were accustomed to present gloves to the archbishop, and to all who came to their consecration banquet. The lavender gloves with golden fringes which do often adorn their portraits, may still remind our modern prelates of the ancient glories of their predecessors." It was also customary to hang a pair of white gloves on the pews of unmarried villagers who had died in the flower of their youth, and at several towns in England it has been customary from time immemorial to announce a fair by hoisting a huge glove upon a pole—a practice which exists at Macclesfield, Portsmouth, Southampton, and Chester; the glove being taken down at the conclusion of the fair. Hone, in his description of Exeter Lammas Fair, says:—"The charter for this fair is perpetuated by a glove of immense size, stuffed and carried through the city on a very long pole, decorated with ribbons, flowers, &c., and attended with music, parish beadles, and the nobility. It is afterwards placed on the top of the Guildhall, and then the fair commences; on the taking down of the glove the fair terminates." Mr. Leadam also quotes a passage from the "Speculum Saxonicum" which throws light on the origin of this custom:—"No one is allowed to set up a market or a mint, without the consent of the ordinary or judge of that place; the king ought also to send a glove as a sign of his consent to the same." The glove, therefore, was the king's glove, the earliest form of royal charter, the original sign-manual. Among other items of folk-lore connected with this useful article of dress, we may mention that the term "right as my glove" is a phrase, according to Sir Walter Scott, derived from the practice of pledging the glove as the sign of irrefragable faith. Gloves, too, were in olden times fashionable new year's gifts, having been far more expensive than now-a-days. When Sir Thomas More was Lord Chancellor, he happened to determine a case in favour of a lady named Croaker, who, as a mark of her gratitude, sent him a new year's gift in the shape of a pair of gloves with forty angels in them. But Sir Thomas returned the money with the following letter:—"Mistress, since it were against good manners to refuse your new year's gift, I am content to take your gloves, but as for the lining I utterly refuse it." In the time of Queen Elizabeth, the rural bridegroom wore gloves in his hat as a sign of good husbandry; and on the "Border" to bite the glove was considered a pledge of deadly vengeance, in allusion to which Sir Walter Scott, in his "Lay of the Last Minstrel," says:—

"Stern Rutherford right little said,
But bit his glove and shook his head."

The ring, apart from its eventful history, has from the most remote period been surrounded, both in this and other countries, not only with a most extensive legendary lore, but with a vast array of superstitions, a detailed account of which would be impossible in a small volume like the present one; so we must confine ourselves to some of the most popular.

In the first place, then, certain mysterious virtues have been supposed to reside in rings, not so much on account of their shape as from the materials of which they have been composed. Thus, they have been much worn as talismans or charms, being thought to be infallible preservatives against unseen dangers of every kind. Referring to some of these, we find, for instance, that the turquoise ring was believed to possess special properties, a superstition to which Dr. Donne alludes:—

"A compassionate turquoise, that doth tell,
By looking pale, the wearer is not well."

Fenton, too, in his "Secret Wonders of Nature," describes the stone:—"The turkeys doth move when there is any peril prepared to him that weareth it." The turquoise ring of Shylock, which, we are told in the Merchant of Venice (Act iii., sc. 1), he would not part with for a "wilderness of monkeys," was, no doubt, valued for its secret virtues.

The carbuncle, again, amongst other properties, was said to give out a natural light, to which it has been supposed Shakespeare alludes in Titus Andronicus (Act ii., sc. 3), where, speaking of the ring on the finger of Bassianus, he says:—

"Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,
Which, like a taper in some monument,
Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
And shows the ragged entrails of the pit."

A piece of popular superstition makes it unlucky to wear an opal ring, although this lovely stone has always been an object of peculiar admiration from the beautiful variety of colours which it displays, and in the Middle Ages was even thought to possess the united virtues of all the gems with whose distinctive colours it was emblazoned. The diamond was believed to counteract poison, a notion which prevailed to a comparatively late period; though, according to another belief, it was considered the most dangerous of poisons, and as such we find it enumerated among the poisons administered to Sir Thomas Overbury, when a prisoner in the Tower. An emerald ring was thought to insure purity of thought; and a toadstone ring was worn as an amulet to preserve new-born children and their mothers from fairies.

Among the omens associated with rings, we may briefly note that to lose a ring which has been given as a pledge of affection is unlucky; as also is the breaking of a ring on the finger; while further superstitions relating to the wedding-ring have been noticed at length in our [chapter on marriage]. In days gone by, too, "medicated rings" were held in great repute, and were much used for the cure of diseases, instances of which we find among the remedies still in use for cramp, epilepsy, and fits. Silver seems to have been considered highly efficacious; and rings made of lead, mixed with quicksilver, were worn as charms against headaches and other complaints. Dactylomancy, or divination by rings, is not quite forgotten among eager aspirants after matrimony, one mode being to suspend a ring by a thread or hair within a glass tumbler, notice being taken as to how many times it strikes the sides of the glass without being touched. Once more, there is an old piece of folk-lore on the colours of stones in "keepsake rings":—

"Oh, green is forsaken,
And yellow is forsworn,
But blue is the prettiest colour that's worn."

Passing from the ring to another article of dress—perhaps the most insignificant—namely, the pin, we nevertheless find it invested with all kinds of curious superstitions. Thus, it is said that on seeing a pin, one should always pick it up for the sake of good luck, as those who omit to do so run into imminent danger of being overtaken by misfortune, a notion embodied in the following rhyme:—

"See a pin and pick it up,
All the day you'll have good luck;
See a pin and let it lie,
All the day you'll have to cry."

Why, however, North-country people are so persistent in their refusal to give one another a pin, it is not easy to discover. When asked for a pin, they invariably reply, "You may take one; but, mind, I do not give it." One of the most popular species of enchantment to which pins have been applied is that sometimes employed in counteracting the evil effects of witchcraft. One mode is by "pin-sticking," a case of which recently occurred in the parish of Honiton Clyst, in Devonshire. A landlord having lost one of his tenants, certain repairs and improvements were found necessary to prepare for the next. In carrying out the work a chimney had to be explored, when, in the course of the operation, there was found carefully secreted a pig's heart stuck all over with thin prickles, evidently a substitute for pins. This is supposed to have been done by the direction of some "wise" or cunning person, as a means of taking revenge on the witch to whose incantations the party considered some mischief due, in the belief that the heart of the ill-wisher would be pierced in like manner, until it eventually became as pulseless as that of the pig.

It appears, too, that pins were largely used in a particular species of sorcery. Whenever, for instance, some malevolent individual wished to carry out her ill-natured designs, she made a clay image of the person she intended to harm, baptised the said image with the name of the party whom it was meant to represent, and stuck it full of pins or burnt it. Where the pins were placed the person whom it represented was afflicted with pain, and as the figure wasted, so he was said to waste away. Shakespeare alludes to this superstition, and in Richard III. (Act iii., sc. 4) makes the Duke of Gloucester say to Hastings:—

"Then be your eyes the witness of this ill,
See how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, withered up!
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch
Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me."

Pins, too, have been in extensive demand for divination, and here and there throughout the country we find "wishing wells," into which if the passers-by only drop a crooked pin and breathe their wish, it is said they may rest assured of its fulfilment at some future date.

So much, then, for our illustrations of the folk-lore of dress, a subject which, interesting though it is, we have now discussed at sufficient length.

[CHAPTER VIII.]
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS.

Thirteen at Table—Salt-spilling—The Knife—Bread, and other Articles of Food—Wishing Bones—Tea-leaves—Singing before Breakfast—Shaking Hands across the Table.

It is frequently found that even strong-minded persons are not exempt from the prejudice against sitting down to dinner when there are only thirteen present. Many amusing anecdotes are recorded of the devices resorted to for avoiding the consequences supposed to be incurred by the neglect of this superstition—the notion being that one of the thirteen, generally the youngest, will die within the next twelve months. To avoid, therefore, any such contingency, many persons, should they be disappointed in one of their guests, have the empty place filled by a child, and should one not always be forthcoming, no slight inconvenience is occasionally produced. Not very long ago a case was recorded in which a lady, not being able at the last moment to make up the number fourteen, had her favourite cat seated at the table, hoping thereby to break the fatal spell attaching to the unlucky number thirteen.

The origin popularly assigned to this widespread superstition is the fact that thirteen was the number at the Last Supper, Judas being the thirteenth. A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine, however, writing at the close of the last century, says that it is "founded on the calculations adhered to by the insurance offices, which presume that out of thirteen persons, taken indiscriminately, one will die within a year." But this is not the probable origin, that which connects it with the Last Supper being no doubt the correct one. Some, says Lord Lyttelton, in Notes and Queries, have carried the superstition "to the extent of disliking the number thirteen at all times; but the commoner form limits it to Friday—not that there is any ground for fact in this, for the Last Supper was on the fifth, not the sixth day of the week. Sailors are held somewhat superstitious, and I knew an eminent naval officer who actually would walk out of the room when the conjunction happened on a Friday, after the death of the wife and eldest daughter, both of which events were preceded by the said conjunction." Among other instances of this piece of superstition, we may quote the following, related by Addison in the Spectator:—"I remember," he says, "I was one in a mixed assembly that was full of wine and mirth, when on a sudden an old woman unluckily observed that there were thirteen of us in company. This remark struck a panic terror into several who were present, insomuch that one or two of the ladies were going to leave the room; but a friend of mine, taking notice that one of our female companions was likely to become a mother, affirmed there were fourteen in the room, and that instead of portending that one in the company should die, it plainly foretold that one of them should be born. Had not my friend found this expedient to break the omen, I question not but half the women in the company should have fallen sick that very night." Again, we may give another anecdote recorded by Rachel, the celebrated tragédienne. On her return from Egypt, in the spring of 1857, she installed herself in a villa in the neighbourhood of Montpellier. There she received a visit from the poet Ponsard and Arséne Houssaye, the latter of whom was making a tour as inspector of the Departmental Museums. "Do you recollect the dinner we had at the house of Victor Hugo, at the close of the repetition of L'Angelo?" she said to the former. "You remember there were thirteen of us. There was Hugo and his wife, you and your wife, Rebecca and I, Girardin and his wife, and some others. Well! where to-day are the thirteen? Victor Hugo and his wife are in Jersey; your wife is dead; Madame de Girardin is dead; my poor Rebecca is dead; Gerard de Nerval, Oradie, Alfred de Musset are dead. I—say no more. There remain but Girardin and you. Adieu! my friends. Never laugh at thirteen at a table!" Anecdotes, indeed, relating to this superstition are without number, and form many an amusing episode in the lives of noted characters. It may be mentioned here that the number thirteen is considered ominous in other ways. Fuller, by way of example, tells us how a covetous courtier complained to King Edward VI. that Christ College, Cambridge, was a superstitious foundation, consisting of a master and twelve fellows, in imitation of Christ and His twelve Apostles. He, therefore, advised the king to take away one or two fellowships, so as to dissolve that unlucky number. "Oh, no," replied the king, "I have a better way than that to mar their conceit; I will add a thirteenth fellowship to them," which he accordingly did.

Another equally popular superstition is the ill-luck supposed to attach to salt-spilling: one notion being that to upset the salt-cellar while in the act of handing it to any one is a sign of an impending quarrel between the parties. It is also said to indicate sorrow or trouble to the person spilling it, and to counteract the evil consequences of this unlucky act one should fling some salt over the shoulder. Gay speaks of this popular fancy in the fable of the "Farmer's Wife and the Raven":—

"The salt was spilt, to me it fell,
Then to contribute to my loss,
My knife and fork were laid across."

Indeed constant allusions are found to this widespread superstition both in our old and modern writers. Gayton, describing two friends, says:—

"I have two friends of either sex, which do
Eat little salt, or none, yet are friends too,
Of both which persons I can truly tell,
They are of patience most invincible
Whom out of temper no mischance at all
Can put—no, if towards them the salt should fall."

This piece of folk-lore dates back up to the time of the Romans, and at the present day is not limited to our own country. It has been suggested that it may have originated from the circumstance that salt was formerly used in sacrifices, and that to spill it when once placed on the head of the victim was regarded as a bad omen. Bailey, however, assigns a very different reason, telling us that salt was considered by the ancients incorruptible, and on this account was made the symbol of friendship. If it, therefore, was spilt, the persons between whom it happened thought their friendship would not be of long duration.

Some people dislike even so much as to put salt on another person's plate, considering this act equivalent to wishing one's neighbour misfortune. Hence there is a well-known couplet:—