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Myths and Fables of To-day

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<h2 class="nobreak chap2">IV SIGNS OF ALL SORTS</h2> <blockquote class="b1"> “Authorized by her grandam.”—<cite>Macbeth.</cite> </blockquote> If you sneeze before breakfast, you will have company before dinner. If you pick the common red field lily, it will make you freckled. A spark in the candle denotes a letter in the post office for you. To hand a cup with two spoons in it to any one, is a sign of a coming wedding in the family. If a cat is allowed to get into bed with an infant, the child will be strangled by the animal sucking its breath, or by lying across its chest. If my right ear burns, some one is talking about me, hence the familiar saying, “I’ll make48 his ears tingle for him.” Pliny records this omen. Also in “Much Ado About Nothing,” Beatrice exclaims, “What fire is in mine ears!” When the right ear itches or burns, the person so affected will shortly cry; when it is the left, he will laugh. One version runs in this wise:— <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “Left or right Good at night.” </div> </div> Late blossoming of vines or fruit trees will be followed by much sickness. This probably rests upon the theory that a mild autumn will be a sickly autumn, which is the same thing as saying that unseasonable weather is pretty sure to be unwholesome weather. The same prediction is expressed by the old saying that “A green Christmas makes a fat church-yard.” Both predictions agree with the observations of medical science. A spoon in the saucer and another in the cup denote that the person using them will be a spendthrift, and probably come to want; but two49 spoons to one dish of ice-cream denote foresight and true thrift. <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “Sing before you eat, Cry before you sleep.” </div> </div> 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 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-hack6 was thus named by the early colonists,50 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,51 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 If your nose itches you will either <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “See a stranger, Kiss a fool, Or be in danger.” </div> </div> 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 that52 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:— <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “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.” </div> </div> Even the days of the week possess peculiar significance to the future welfare of the newborn infant:— 53 <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “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.” </div> </div> This saying is familiar to every one:— <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “Whistling girls and crowing hens Always come to no good ends.” </div> </div> Or, as they say it in the Old Country:— <div class="center-container"><div class="poem"> “A whistling woman and crowing hen, Are neither fit for God nor men.” </div> </div> 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. 54 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. <hr /> 55 <div class="figcenter newpage" style="width: 579px;"><ANTIMG id="if_illo_064" src="images/illo_064.jpg" width-obs="579" height-obs="254" alt="" /> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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