Part 10

14. The nose falling a-bleeding appears, by the following passage from an old play, to have been an omen of bad luck:

“How superstitiously we mind our evils! The throwing down of salt, or crossing of a hare, Bleeding at nose, the stumbling of a horse, Or singing of a cricket, are of power To daunt whole man in us.” (See 27 and 40.)

15. Washing the hands, says Grose, in the same basin, or with the same water, that another person has washed in, is extremely unlucky, as the parties will infallibly quarrel.

16. Candle omens are very numerous. Melton, in his “Astrologaster,” says: “If a candle burne blue, it is a signe that there is a spirit in the house, or not farre from it.” A collection of tallow, says Grose, rising up against the wick of a candle, is styled a winding sheet, and deemed an omen of death in the family.

A spark at the candle, says the same author, denotes that the party opposite to it will shortly receive a letter. A kind of fungus in the candle, observes the same writer, predicts the visit of a stranger from the part of the country nearest the object. Others say it implies the arrival of a parcel. (See 59.)

Dr. Goldsmith, in his “Vicar of Wakefield,” speaking of the waking dreams of his hero’s daughters, says: “The girls had their omens too; they saw rings in the candles.”

17. In the “Secret Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbell,” published in London, 1732, the author says: “I have seen people who, after writing a letter, have prognosticated to themselves the ill success of it, if by any accident it happened to fall to the ground; others have seemed as impatient and exclaiming against their want of thought, if through haste or forgetfulness they have chanced to hold it before the fire to dry; but the mistake of a word in it is a sure omen that whatever requests it carries shall be refused.”

18. If two spoons are accidentally placed in a cup or saucer at table, it signifies a wedding will soon take place in the family.

19. To have a picture drop out of its frame, or to have a precious stone or any ornament drop from its setting while wearing or using it, is a bad omen.

Stow, in his Chronicle, relates that the silver cross which was wont to be carried before Wolsey fell out of its socket, and was like to have knocked out the brains of one of his servants. A very little while after came in a messenger, and arrested the cardinal before he could get out of the house.

20. The removal of a long-worn ring from the finger was thought unlucky in Elizabeth’s time; for the Queen, in her last illness (says Baker), commanded the ring to be filed off her finger, wherewith she was so solemnly at first inaugurated into the kingdom, and since that time had never taken it off; it being grown into the flesh of the finger in such a manner that it could not be drawn off without filing.

21. There is an omen called “Setting the New Year in,”--that if the kindly office is performed by some one with dark hair, good fortune will smile on the household; while it augurs ill if a light-haired person is the first to enter the house in the New Year.

22. It is a very ancient superstition that all sudden pains of the body, and other sensations which could not naturally be accounted for, were presages of somewhat that was shortly to happen. Shakspeare alludes to this in the following lines from Macbeth:

“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.”

23. In olden times, the cat sneezing appears to have been considered as a lucky omen to a bride who was to be married the next day.

24. Small spiders, termed money spinners, are held by many to prognosticate good luck, if they are not destroyed or injured, or removed from the person on whom they are first observed. In the “Secret Memoirs” of Mr. Duncan Campbell, in the chapter of omens, we read that “others have thought themselves secure of receiving money, if by chance a little spider fell upon their clothes.” (See 33.)

25. It is extremely unlucky, says Grose, to kill a lady-bug, a swallow, robin redbreast, or wren. There is a particular distich, he adds, in favor of the robin and wren:

“A robin and a wren Are God Almighty’s cock and hen.”

Persons killing any of the above-named birds or insects, or destroying their nests, will infallibly, within the course of the year, break a bone, or meet with some other dreadful misfortune. On the contrary, it is deemed lucky to have swallows build their nests in the eaves of a house, or in the chimneys.

In an old pastoral published in London, 1770, the following occurs:

“I found a robin’s nest within our shed, And in the barn a wren had young ones bred. I never take away their nest, nor try To catch the old ones, lest a friend should die. Dick took a wren’s nest from his cottage side, And ere a twelvemonth past his mother dy’d.”

26. It is deemed very unlucky to hear a screech-owl at night. “If an owl,” says Bourne, “which is reckoned a most abominable and unlucky bird, send forth its hoarse and dismal voice, it is the omen of the approach of some terrible thing--that some dire calamity and some great misfortune is at hand.” (See 56.)

This omen occurs in Chaucer:

“The jelous swan, ayenst hys deth that singeth, The oule eke, that of deth the bode bringeth.”

The following lines occur in the old pastoral before quoted in 25:

“Within my cot, where quiet gave me rest, Let the dread screech-owl build her hated nest, And from my window o’er the country send Her midnight screams to bode my latter end.”

27. It has always been considered a very bad omen to have a hare (see 14), sow, or weasel cross your path when going on a journey or to business. Melton, in his “Astrologaster,” says, that “it is a very unfortunate thing for a man to meete early in the morning an ill-favored man or woman, a rough-footed hen, a shag-haired dog, or a black cat.” Shaw, in his “History of Money,” tells us that the ancient Scots much regarded omens in their expeditions; an armed man or a wolf meeting them was a good omen; if a woman barefoot crossed the road before them, they seized her and fetched blood from her forehead; if a deer, fox, hare, or any kind of game appeared, and they did not kill it, it was an unlucky omen. We gather from a remarkable book, entitled “The School-master,” published in London, 1583, that in the ages of chivalry it was thought unlucky to meet with a priest, if a man was going forth to war or a tournament.

The following superstitions among the Malabrians are related in Phillips’s account of them, published in 1717: “It is interpreted as a very bad sign if a blind man, a Bramin, or a washerwoman meets one on the way; as also when one meets a man with an empty panel, or when one sees an oil mill, or if a man meets us with his head uncovered, or when one hears a weeping voice, or sees a cat or fox crossing the way, or a dog running on his right hand, or when a poor man or a widow meets us on our way, or when we are called back.” (See 37.)