“ In modern folk-belief the influence of the sun is less directly apparent. The custom of saluting the rising orb, with which the day was once begun, or of ascending high places where the benediction of the luminary could be obtained, and the direct reverence to solar rays belonging to all primitive life, survives only in the vague symbolism which, until very lately, has caused churches to be built on hills. But a single essential feature of sun-worship still survives, not only among ignorant and isolated peasants, but in the households and among the matrons of educated English-speaking folk. ”

“ Women, on the contrary, will remember that the moon should be first seen not “full face,” but “over the the right shoulder;” they will be aware that with such vision may be united a wish, to which jesting fancy assigns a probability of accomplishment. But these, also, will be surprised by the discovery that lunar divination is maintained with profound seriousness, and that the honor paid to the orb is nothing else than a continued worship, still connected with material blessings expected from its bounty. ”

“ The folk-lorist who chances to have a pet superstition or two of his own that he never fails to observe, has an open-sesame to beliefs of this sort held by any one with whom he comes in contact. The fact that I have (I blush to confess it) a preference for putting on my right shoe before the left has, I dare say, been the providential means of bringing to me hundreds of bits of folk-lore. Many times has the exposure of this weakness instantly opened up an opportunity for asking questions about kindred customs and superstitions. ”

“ The association of white with the dead, as the hue of mourning, is ancient; it appears to me that the idea of ritual purity, expressed by the color, is at the bottom of the custom. In Hellenic times white continued to be the hue most [16] closely associated with the dead, albeit black, as the sign of melancholy, was also introduced. The character of funeral rites, from Western Europe to Japan, exhibits a similarity which, in my judgment, is to be explained only on the supposition of very early and long continued historical contact,—a contact otherwise demonstrable. ”

“ It is therefore natural that the volume of superstition associated with the end of life should only be paralleled by that connected with the marriage relation. A vast number of actions and experiences still pass as the “signs” of approaching departure. As in omens generally, the prevailing principle is usually the effect of association of ideas; the shock to the nerves consequent on the imagination of the occurrence is, in the popular fancy, inseparable from belief in its reality. ”

“ The mythology of the ancient worship has perished, but the notion which inspired the ritual practice has survived; sun-worship is thus shown to have been characteristic of our forefathers, as indeed, in all probability, it was an original feature of primitive human life. In this case, also, could we go back a little way in time, we should probably find a conception of the sun as a personal being united with usages arising from contemplation of this path.
It is always found that especial conservatism attaches to customs and ideas associated with death ”

“ On the other hand, a world-old custom, which may be set down as human and universal, dictated, and among all nomadic peoples continues to dictate, the abandonment of any habitation in which a death has occurred. The obvious motive is expressed in a surviving superstition that a second decease is likely to follow a first. Death, naturally impersonated and identified with the spirit of the departed, will return to the place where he has once made himself at home, and in which he has proprietary rights. ”

“ In Hellenic antiquity, the dark of the moon is mentioned as the suitable time for magical operations; for such, no doubt, as were concerned with a forwarding of life. Our collection exhibits the full survival of the usage and theory. It is the new moon to which is dedicated the money that under its expanding influence will be sure to multiply; it is at such time that the seed is to be put into the ground. ”

“ In the usages of mothers and nurses, it is interesting to observe with what persistence survives the conception that the initial action of the series determines the character of events sequent in order. It is still a universal practice to consecrate every baby by a rite not ecclesiastical. The infant, on his first journey, must be taken to a height symbolic of his future fortune, an elevation believed to secure the prosperity of his whole subsequent career. It would be of interest to learn what analogies the practice has among races in a primitive condition of culture. ”

“ If the popular mind, to-day, and in a country particularly accessible to the influences of modern culture, worships the personified moon, it may be considered as certain that antiquity did the like. Mythology is woven out of so many strands that goddesses like Artemis and Diana may have been much more than lunar personifications ”

“ According to natural processes of thought, it was inevitable that during the time when it so rapidly increases, and becomes dominant in the sky, the principle of growth should appear to prevail; and on the other hand, that the time of lunar diminution should be the season of decay. Hence the conclusion, probably prevalent in all times and countries, that designs and undertakings which expect increase should belong to the new moon, and that only operations which aim at the annihilation of existence should be carried on during the waning quarter. ”

“ It is possible to fall back on the consideration that, after all, such resolution matters not very much, since in any case the survival of the belief indicates its humanity, and for the purpose of the study of human nature borrowed superstitions may be cited as confidently as if original in the soil to which they have emigrated, and where they have indissolubly intertwined themselves with thought and habit. ”

“ I do not think the objection is a natural conservatism, or dislike of doing something to which one is unaccustomed. The ill omen does not appear to have been feared for the young as well as for the old, even in provincial localities, when for the first time portraiture by daguerreotypy or more recently by photography was introduced. It has long been known that among primitive peoples there is a decided prejudice against portraiture. The notion seems to be that the individual may lose his vigor, if not his life, by allowing a copy of himself to be made in any way. ”

“ Here, again, the prognostics in question are respected only by women, and at the present time, with but a light admixture of genuine credulity, unless among people of secluded districts, retaining old-world notions. Foolish as are these ideas of sequence, they indicate a habit of association anciently prevalent, which in early times had the most serious consequences.
The gathering of expectations relating to “Wishes” shows that the name and idea of folk-lore must not be limited to primitive beliefs, or to the ideas of uneducated persons. ”

“ Nevertheless, even primitive man has a passion for originality, a desire to obtain peculiarly intimate relations with nature, which may be to the advantage of his own people; probably from this consideration certain American tribes have reversed the ceremonial order, so far at least as to make their processional movements in the opposite direction; but our modern customs or household life show, among the ancestors of English folk, that the sun-wise circuit entered not only into the religious life, but also mingled with and directed the most ordinary actions. ”

“ To the watcher it is the rapid growth of the lunar crescent that is the most distinctive feature of differences between the nights, an alteration which could not but be supposed to exercise control over human and animal life. ”

“ Here the law seems to be that the lower culture has relatively little effect on the higher with which it is in contact, while the superior civilization speedily influences an inferior one. Nor is the effect confined to the higher classes of any given society; beginning with these, the new knowledge descends through all ranks, and everywhere carries its transforming influence. ”

“ Each puts one egg to roast, and when her egg begins to sweat (it will sweat blood) , she is to rise and turn it. At this time the one whom that projector is to marry will come in through a door or window (all of which must be left open throughout) and take her vacant chair. If she is to die before she marries, two black dogs will enter, bearing a coffin, which they will deposit on her chair.
Quaker Neck, Kent Co., Md.
228. Boil an egg hard, take out the yolk, and fill its place with salt. Eat it before going to bed. The one you dream of as bringing you water is your future husband. ”

“ An old superstition pertaining to clothing is, that before putting on new clothes a sum of money must be placed in the right-hand pocket, which will insure its always being full. If by mistake, however, it be put in the left hand pocket, the wearer will never have a penny so long as the clothes last. ”

“ The dead is no more to be received among the living, bringing with him, as he does, a claim on other lives; by many methods, by concealment, placation, substitution, ritual exile, he must be banned to the place where only on occasions he may be sought and consulted. One of these methods of avoidance is the habit of making the return of the funeral procession so intricate that the spirit may be deceived in its attempt to retrace the route ”

“ I know positively that in many parts of the United States and in Prince Edward Island gardens and fields are often planted after direct reference to the almanac in regard to the moon’s changes. Metropolitan dwellers have small knowledge of what an important book the almanac is to many country people. ”

“ Ringing in the ears is a sign of death.
General.
1214. Ringing in the ears means death before the week ends. Of this ringing the term “death-bell” is used. It may be said by a country woman: “Oh! I have heard a death-bell!” or, “What a death-bell in my ear! You will hear of a death before the week is out.” In case of a sudden death, such a person might say: “I am not surprised; I heard a death-bell on such a day.”
Northern Ohio.
1215. The term “death-bell” is also a popular one in
Prince Edward Island. ”

“ Eastern Massachusetts.
307. I wind, I wind, my true love to find,
The color of his hair, the clothes he’ll wear,
The day he is married to me.
Throw a ball of yarn into a barn, old house, or cellar, and wind, repeating the above lines, and the true love will appear and wind with you. To be tried at twelve o’clock at night, on Halloween.
Maine. [56]
308. Shortly before midnight a pure white bowl is procured, that has never been touched by any lips save those of a new-born infant. If it is a woman whose fortune is to be tried (and it generally is) the child must be a male. ”

“ At first sight, it may be thought that extreme folly is their salient quality. Yet if we take a wide view the case is reversed; we are surprised, not at the unintelligibility of popular belief, but at its simplicity, and at the frequency with which we can discern the natural process of unsystematic conjecture. ”

“ One saucer contains a gold ring, one soapsuds, one is empty. Repeat twice (making nine in all) . If one touches the ring, she will marry an unmarried man; if the suds, she will marry a widower; if the empty one, she will be an old maid. The one touched two out of three times is the fate.
Central Maine.
266. If a piece of wedding-cake is passed through a ring and put in the left stocking, then placed under the pillow and slept on three nights running, you will dream of your lover, or he or she will come to you. ”

“ Cut corn in the decrease of the moon, else it will spoil.
Spread manure when the horns of the moon are down.
Lay the first or lower rail of a fence when the horns of the moon are up. Put in the stakes and finish the fence when the horns are down.
Roof buildings when the horns of the moon are down, else the shingles will curl up at the edges and the nails will draw out.
Lay a board on the grass; if the horns of the moon are up, the grass will not be killed; if they are down, it will.
Cut your hair on the first Friday after the new moon.
Never cut your hair in the decrease of the moon. ”

“ The little girl who without any direct instruction imagines that the light of the heaven gleams through the orifices we call stars, who sees celestial beings in meteor form winging their way across the skies, or who is surrounded by the benevolent spirits which her discriminating education, banishing the terrors of the supernatural world, has permitted to exist for her comprehension, illustrates that readiness of fancy and control of vision by expectation which belongs to humanity in the reverse degree of the reflective habit. ”