Part 11

Gaule, in his “Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel’d,” holds it as a vain observation “to bode good or bad luck from the rising up on the right or left side (see 12); from lifting the left leg over the threshold, at first going out of doors; from the meeting of a beggar or a priest the first in a morning; the meeting of a virgin or a harlot first; the running in of a child between two friends; the justling one another at unawares; one treading upon another’s toes; to meet one fasting that is lame or defective in any member; to wash in the same water with another.” (See 15.)

28. To walk under a ladder portends disappointment.

29. To comb your hair after dark is also a sign of disappointment.

30. If a young lady loses her garter, it presages that she has an inconstant lover; therefore, O lady, when thou hast this ill augury, look about thee, and become the happy possessor of two strings to thy bow, or, what is the same thing, two beaus to thy string.

N. B.--Rich or very good-looking young ladies may treat the above with disdain.

31. If you sing before breakfast, it denotes that you will cry before supper.

32. To drop a dish-cloth, duster, or any cleaning cloth, signifies the arrival of one or more visitors.

33. If a spider, in weaving his web in some high place, comes downward before your face, you may look for money from some unexpected source. (See 24.)

34. If you make a rhyme involuntarily, before speaking again make a wish, and it will be fulfilled.

35. When you sleep in a strange bed, remember your dream and tell it before breakfast. Observing these precautions, the dream will probably come to pass.

36. To break a needle while making a garment, is a sign that the owner will live to wear it out.

37. If you return after starting on a journey, it signifies bad luck. (See 27.)

38. To remove a cat, with a family when changing residence, will bring bad luck.

39. If a vacant rocking-chair is rocked violently, the next person who sits in it will be in danger of being ill within the year.

40. It is a lucky sign to have crickets in the house. Grose says it is held extremely unlucky to kill a cricket, perhaps from the idea of its being a breach of hospitality, this insect taking refuge in houses. The voice of a cricket, says the “Spectator,” has struck more terror than the roaring of a lion.

The following line occurs in Dryden’s and Lee’s “Œdipus:”

“Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death.”

Melton says that “it is a signe of death to some in that house where crickets have been many yeares, if on a sudden they forsake the chimney.” (See 14.)

41. It is said that a married person will not get rich until the wedding clothes are worn out. It is also said to be a sign that one will fail to get rich who tries to see to work between daylight and dark.

42. It is a bad omen to postpone a marriage after the time positively appointed.

43. If your right ear burns or itches, it is a sign that some absent person is speaking well of you; your left ear burning, signifies that you are being spoken ill of.

44. The superstition has become almost universal, that the ticking of a little insect called the “death-watch,” presages the death of some one in the house.

“How many people have I seen in the most terrible palpitations, for months together, expecting every hour the approach of some calamity, only by a little worm, which breeds in an old wainscot, and, endeavoring to eat its way out, makes a noise like the movement of a watch!”--Secret Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbell, 1732.

The following witty account of this superstition, by Dean Swift, furnishes us with a charm to avert the omen:

----“A wood-worm That lies in old wood, like a hare in her form, With teeth or with claws it will bite, or will scratch, And chambermaids christen this worm a death-watch, Because, like a watch it always cries click; Then woe be to those in the house who are sick; For as sure as a gun they will give up the ghost, If the maggot cries click, when it scratches the post. But a kettle of boiling hot water injected Infallibly cures the timber affected; The omen is broken, the danger is over, The maggot will die, and the sick will recover.”

45. If a knife, scissors, or any sharp-pointed instrument is dropped, and stands, sticking in the floor, company may be expected.

46. The right hand itching is a sign that the person will shake hands with a stranger; the left hand itching is a sign that money will be received soon.

47. If you sing during any meal, it is a sign you will soon be disappointed.