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Read Ebook: Current Superstitions Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk by Newell William Wells Commentator Bergen Fanny D Fanny Dickerson Editor
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Ebook has 275 lines and 67034 words, and 6 pages
FORTUNE.
FRIENDSHIP.
MYTHOLOGY.
Old Gran'f'ther Graybeard, without tooths or tongue, If you'll give me a little finger I'll give you a thumb. Thumb'll go away and little finger'll come.
PUNISHMENT.
Believed by most schoolboys there at that time.
SPORT.
VARIOUS.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.
BEAUTY.
DIMPLE.
EARS.
EYES AND EYEBROWS.
FINGER-NAILS.
Friends, Foes, Money, Beaux.
An almost identical variant is found in Prince Edward Island.
FOOT.
FOREHEAD.
HAIR.
HAND.
MOLES.
NOSE.
TEETH.
PROJECTS.
Love divinations or love charms, I have found, are popularly known as "projects" in parts of New England and on Mt. Desert. On Prince Edward Island and in various parts of the Canadian provinces the practice of such divinations is usually spoken of as "trying tricks." If a number of young people are together, one will say, "Let's try tricks." In the Middle and Western United States the usual colloquial expression for these love divinations is "trying fortunes." One girl will say to another at some appropriate time, "Let's try our fortunes."
APPLES.
Whoever my true love may be, Come and eat this apple with me,
APPLE-SEEDS.
Some change the latter lines of this formula into
Thirteen they quarrel, Fourteen they part, Fifteen they die with a broken heart.
If you love me, live and fly; If you do not, lie and die.
BABIES.
BED.
BIBLE.
BIRDS.
Hail! Hail! Lonely, lonesome turkey-buzzard: Hail to the East, hail to the West, Hail to the one that I love best. Let me know by the flap of your wing Whether he loves me or not.
In Mt. Desert, Maine, and Prince Edward Island the same project is tried on hearing the first robin.
BUTTONS.
Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief.
Or,
Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief.
Or,
FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER.
COUNTING.
DAISY PETALS.
He loves me, he loves me not.
In Ohio and other Western States where the ox-eye daisy is not common, children use instead the bloom of the despised dog-fennel.
DOORWAY.
Shortest to marry, Longest to tarry.
EGGS.
To be done by two girls in silence, going backward as they retire.
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