“ When the relatives of a person in ill health are troubled with "broken dreams," out of which they start in terror, it is considered that they are a sure indication that the patient will die. The same event is frequently predicted when bees forsake a hive, or crickets the hearth. ”

“ Our marriageable females are not devoid of that curiosity which attaches to their sex. They are sometimes anxious to ascertain the intentions of their admirers, and various modes of prying into the future are resorted to in order to acquire the desired information. ”

“ Most of our peasantry retain a firm belief in the appearance of ghosts and apparitions. They even consider it possible for some persons, born at particular hours, to see their own spirits. When this is the case, it is considered certain that those persons will soon die. ”

“ The caution that we must avoid passing under a ladder, lest we should come to be hanged, has probably descended to us from early practice at Lancaster; but no conjecture can be hazarded as to the origin of the superstition which asserts that when an ass brays it betokens the death of a weaver or an Irishman. ”

“ Twilight and midnight are favourable times, and so is daybreak during the winter season. Hence we are told that if a person sits in the church porch from eleven o'clock to one, on St Mark's Eve, he will see the spirits of those who are doomed to die during the next year pass by and enter the church. ”

“ A flat hand, or a dimpled chin, is supposed to indicate an open liberal disposition; whilst crooked fingers and hooked nails betoken avarice and covetousness in the persons who are so unfortunate as to possess such peculiarities. ”

“ The person who takes the last piece of bread from a plate during any meal is favoured with a double omen; for he or she will either be blessed with a handsome partner, or die unmarried. Good fortune is supposed to be indicated by specks on the nails ”

“ The same misfortune is predicted when horses are restive at a funeral. If a dove fly into a house where any one is dead, or on the point of dying, the person at whose feet the bird falls will die next. Deaths, or accidents, always happen in threes ”