The Myths and Fables of To-Day

Or, if you sing before breakfast, you will cry before supper.

Pull out one gray hair, and ten will grow in its place.

Should you happen to let drop your scissors, or other sharp instrument, and they should stick upright in the floor, it is a sign that you will soon see a stranger.[5 - See the ominous import of this farther on.]

Dropping the dishcloth has the same significance.

Two cowlicks, growing on the same person’s head, denote that he will eat his bread in two kingdoms – that is, be a traveller in foreign parts.

Should a cow swallow her cud, the animal will die, unless another cud be immediately given her.

Hard-hack[6 - The white and purple spiræa.] was thus named by the early colonists, who declared that the tough stalk turned the edge of the mower’s scythe.

If you see a white horse, you will immediately after see a red-haired woman.

Bubbles gathering on top of a cup of coffee or chocolate indicate, if they cluster at the middle, or “form an island” in prophetic parlance, money coming to you. If, however, the bubbles gather at the sides of the cup, you will not get the money.

Two chairs, placed by accident back to back, are a sign of a stranger.

Coming in at one door, and immediately going out at another, has the same meaning.

A tea-stem floating in the tea-cup – a common thing before the day of tea-strainers – also foreshadows the coming of a stranger. Old people say “you must butter his head and throw him under the table, if the charm is to work.” A tea-leaf means the same thing, its length denoting whether the stranger will be short or tall.

To let fall your fork is a sure sign that you are going to have a caller on that very evening, or, as the girls declare, have “a beau.” A very estimable lady said when telling me this, that when she was a young girl she never had that accident happen to her that she did not immediately get ready for a caller; and she added that seldom, or never, was this sign known to fail.

If a young girl has the nosebleed, it is a sign that she is in love.[7 - For the ill omens of nosebleed, see Chapter ix.]

If your nose itches you will either

“See a stranger,
Kiss a fool,
Or be in danger.”

If your left hand itches, you will shortly receive money; if it is the right hand, get ready to shake hands with a stranger.

A ringing or “dumb-bell” in the ear denotes that you may expect startling news of some sort.

A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon.

Four persons meeting in a crowded place and shaking hands cross-wise, is a sign that one of the party will be married within the year.

Should you meet a person on the stairs, one or the other must go back, or some misfortune will happen to both.

If you should fail to fold up your napkin after a meal at which you are a guest, you will not again be invited to that table.

Think of the devil and he is at your elbow. The point of this robust saying is now much softened into “think of some one and he is at your elbow”; but it seems at first to have had reference to an enemy or to one you would rather avoid. The saying is quite common to-day.

A very old rhyme about the way in which one wears out a shoe, runs in this way: —

“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.”

Even the days of the week possess peculiar significance to the future welfare of the newborn infant: —

“Sunday’s child is full of grace,
Monday’s child is fair of 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.”

This saying is familiar to every one: —

“Whistling girls and crowing hens
Always come to no good ends.”

Or, as they say it in the Old Country: —

“A whistling woman and crowing hen,
Are neither fit for God nor men.”

An old woman, skilled in such matters, declares that when vagrant cats begin to collect around the back-yards, “it’s a sure sign the winter’s broken.”

Whistling to keep one’s courage up, or for a wind, are rather in the nature of an invocation to some occult power than a sign. Sailors, it is well known, have a superstitious fear of whistling at sea, believing it will bring on a storm.

Yawning is said to be catching. Well, if it is not catching, it comes so near to being so, that most persons accept it as a fact; and laugh as we may, daily experience goes to confirm it as such, and must continue to do so until some more satisfactory explanation is found than we yet know of.

V

CHARMS TO GOOD LUCK

“The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm.”

Of the things closely associated in the popular mind with good or bad luck, what in short one may or may not do to obtain the favors or turn aside the frowns of fortune, the list is a long one. We say “God bless me!” when we sneeze, as an invocation to good luck. Then, for instance, it is considered lucky to find a cast-off horseshoe, or a four-leaved clover, or to see the new moon over the right shoulder, or to have a black cat in the house, especially one that comes to you of its own accord. Then there also is the lucky pocket-piece, which the owner will seldom part with, although I once heard a man loudly lamenting that he had “sold his luck” by doing so. There also is the lucky-bone of a haddock,[8 - It was commonly believed that the haddock bore the mark of St. Peter’s thumb, ever since that saint took the tribute penny out of a fish of that species.] the wishing-bone of a chicken, the lucky base-ball bat, and, what is still more strange, the lucky spider, if one happens to be found on one’s clothes, – though this will hardly prevent, we imagine, all womankind from screaming out to the nearest person to come and brush off the hateful little creature. Many will not kill a spider on account of this belief, which is supposed to be derived from the romantic story of King Robert Bruce and the spider.

The familiar saying, “There’s luck in odd numbers,” lingers in song and story. Does not Rory O’More say so? Odd numbers or combinations of odd numbers are almost invariably chosen in buying lottery tickets. Moreover, they have received the highest official sanction for a very long time. In the “Art of Navigation,” printed in the year 1705, the following rule is laid down for firing salutes by ships of the royal navy: “to salute with an odd number of guns, the which are to be answered with fit correspondency. And the number of odd guns is so punctually observed, that whenever they are given even ’tis received for an infallible sign that either the captain or some noted officer is dead in the voyage.”

The above rule or custom has held good to this day. In the United States the prescribed salute to the President is twenty-one guns; seventeen to the Vice-President, and so on in descending scale, according to rank, in the several branches of the civil, military, and naval service. Medicines are often taken an odd number of times, though not invariably, as they once were. A hen is always set on an odd number of eggs, although I could never find any one who could give any other reason than custom for it. What Biddy does when she “steals her own nest” is not ascertained.

It appears from such data as we have been able to gather that the number Three and its multiple Nine were formerly held to be indispensable to the successful working of the magician’s arts. In “Macbeth,” the weird sisters mutter the dark incantation: —

“Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again to make up nine! —
Peace! – the charm’s wound up.”