II
THE FOLK-LORE OF
CHILDHOOD
“Why this is the best fooling when all is done.” —Twelfth Night.
The trite saying that “children and fools are soothsayers” goes straight to the heart of those familiar superstitions with which the folk-lore of childhood abounds. We, the children of a larger growth, often call to mind with what avidity we listened in our childhood’s days to the nursery tales of giants, dwarfs, ghosts, fairies, and the like creations of pure fancy. We still remember how instantly all the emotions of our childish nature were excited by the recital of these marvels – told us, too, with such an air of truth, that never for a moment did we doubt them. Oh, how we hated Blue Beard, and how we adored Jack the Giant-Killer! Are we not treated, just as soon as we are out of the cradle, as if superstition was the first law of nature? What is the wonder, then, that the effects of these early impressions are not easily got rid of, or the impressions themselves soon, if ever, forgotten? “Brownie” is put into the arms of toddling infants before they can articulate two words plainly. Just as soon as the child is able to prattle a little, it is taught the familiar nursery rhyme of
“Bye, bye, Baby Bunting,
Papa’s gone a-hunting,”
drawn from ancient folk-lore, with which the rabbit and hare are so intimately associated. After the innocent face rhymes, found with little variation, in no less than four different languages, giving names to each of the chubby little features, —
“Eyes winker, Tom Tinker,” etc.
come the well-known button rhymes, like this:
“Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief;”
or this one, told centuries ago to children across the water: —
“A tinker, a tailor,
A soldier or sailor,
A rich man, a poor man,
A priest or a parson,
A ploughman or a thief.”
The virgin soil being thus artfully prepared to receive superstition, the boy or girl goes forth among playmates similarly equipped, with them to practice various forms of conjuration in their innocent sports, without in the least knowing what they are doing. Here are a few of them: —
Making a cross upon the ground before your opponent, at the same time muttering “criss-cross,” when playing at marbles, to make him miss his shot, as I have often seen done in my schoolboy days. This is merely a relic of that superstition attached to making the sign of the cross, as a charm against the power of evil spirits.
The innocent sounding words “criss-cross” we believe originally to have been Christ’s Cross.
Children of both sexes count apple seeds by means of the pretty jingling rhymes, so like to the German flower oracle, often employed by children of a larger growth. It has been set to music.
“One I love,
Two I love.
Three I love, I say,
Four I love with all my heart,
Five I cast away;
Six he loves,
Seven she loves,
Eight both love;
Nine he comes,
Ten he tarries,
Eleven he courts,
Twelve he marries.”
Holding the pretty field buttercup under another’s chin, in order to see if he or she loves butter, is a good form of divination. So is the practice of blowing off the fluffy dandelion top, after the flower has gone to seed, to determine the hour, as that flower always opens at about five in the morning, and shuts at about eight in the evening, thus making it stand in the room of a clock for shepherds. This plant has also been called the rustic oracle. To find the time of day, as many puffs as it takes to blow away the downy seed balls gives the answer. The same method of divination is employed by children to find out if their mothers want them; or to waft a message to some loved one; or to know if such or such a person is thinking of them; and whether he or she lives north, east, south, or west.
To the same general purport is the invocation:
“Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day.”
We understand that the equally familiar form, —
“Snail, snail, put out your horn,”
is repeated in China as well as in this country, though sometimes altered to
“Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I’ll beat you black as a coal.”
One equally familiar form of childish invocation appears in the pretty little lady-bird rhyme, so often repeated by the young: —
“Lady-bird, lady-bird,
Fly away home,
Your house is on fire,
Your children will burn.”
A favorite way, with boys, of choosing sides for a game of ball is by measuring the stick. To do this, the leader of one side first heaves the stick in the air, skilfully catching it, as it falls, at a point as near a hand’s-breadth to the end as possible, as his opponent must then measure the stick with him, alternately hand-over-hand, from the point where it is caught. The one securing enough of the last of the stick for a hold, has the first choice. This is determination by lot.
Still another form of invocation, formerly much used to clinch a bargain between boys, when “swapping” jack-knives or marbles, runs to this effect: —
“Chip, chop, chay,
Give a thing, give a thing,
Never take it back again.”
The process of counting a person out in the familiar phrase as being “it,” is fairly traced back to the ancient custom of designating a criminal from among his fellows by lot. The form that we know the best in New England, a sort of barbaric doggerel, according to Mr. Burton, is still current in Cornwall, England, and goes in this wise: —
“Ena, mena, bora, mi:
Kisca, lara, mova, di:
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread,
Stick, stock, stone dead.”
The resemblance between the foregoing, and what is current among playfellows on this side of the water easily suggests that the boys of the “good Old Colony times,” so often referred to with a sigh of regret, brought their games and pastimes along with them. As now remembered, the doggerel charm runs as follows: —
“Eny, meny, mony might,
Huska, lina, bony tight,
Huldy, guldy, boo!”
In getting ready for a game of “tag,” “I spy,” or “hide and seek,” the one to whom this last magic word falls becomes the victim or is said to be “it.” So in like manner the rhymed formula, following, is employed in counting a child “out”: —
“One-ery, two-ery, ickery Ann,
Fillicy, fallicy, Nicholas, John,
Queever, quaver, English knaver,
Stinckelum, stanckelum, Jericho, buck.”
A more simple counting-out rhyme is this:
“One, two, three,
Out goes he (or she).”
“Tit, tat, toe,” is still another form, repeated with variations according to locality.
These few examples may serve to show that what the performers themselves regard only as a simple expedient in the arranging of their games, if they ever give the matter a thought, is really a survival of the belief in the efficacy of certain magical words, turned into rhyme, to propitiate success. If this idea had not been instilled into our children by long custom and habit, it is not believed that they would continue to repeat such unmeaning drivel. Yet, as childish as it may seem, it advances us one step in solving the intricate problem in hand; for here, too, “the child is father to the man.”
III
WEATHER LORE
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” —Shakespeare.
There is a certain class of so-called signs, that from long use have become so embedded in the every-day life of the people as to pass current with some as mere whimsical fancies, with others as possessing a real significance. At any rate, they crop out everywhere in the course of common conversation. Most of them have been handed down from former generations, while not a few exhale the strong aroma of the native soil itself.
Of this class of familiar signs or omens, affecting only the smaller and more casual happenings one may encounter from day to day, or from hour to hour, those only will be noticed which seem based on actual superstition. Many current weather proverbs accord so exactly with the observations of science as to exclude them from any such classification. They are simply the homely records of a simple folk, drawn from long experience of nature in all her moods. As even the prophecies of the Weather Bureau itself often fail of fulfilment, it is not to be wondered at if weather proverbs sometimes prove no better guide, especially when we consider that “all signs fail in a dry time.”
The following are a few examples selected from among some hundreds: —
When a cat races playfully about the house, it is a sign that the wind will rise.
It is a sign of rain if the cat washes her head behind her ears; of bad weather when Puss sits with her tail to the fire.
Spiders crawling on the wall denote rain.
If a dog is seen eating green grass it is a sign of coming wet weather.
Hang up a snake skin for rain.
If the grass should be thickly dotted in the morning with cobwebs of the ground spider, glistening with dew, expect rain. Some say it portends the exact opposite. This puts us in mind of Cato’s quaint saying that “two auguries cannot confront each other without laughing.”
If the kettle should boil dry, it is a sure sign of rain. Very earnestly said a certain respectable, middle-aged housewife to me: “Why, sir, sometimes you put twice as much water in the kettle without its boiling away.”
If the cattle go under trees when the weather looks threatening, there will be a shower. If they continue feeding, it will probably be a steady downpour.
A threatened storm will not begin, or the wind go down, until the turning of the tide to flood. Not only the people living along shore, but all sailors believe this.
Closely related to the above is the belief that a sick person will not die until ebb tide. When that goes out, the life goes with it. I have often heard this said in some seaports in Maine.
These popular notions, concerning the influence of the tides, be it said, have come down to us from a remote antiquity. The Pythagorean philosopher, indeed, stoutly affirmed that the ebbing and flowing of the sea was nothing less than the respiration of the world itself, which was supposed to be a living monster, alternately drawing in water, instead of air, and heaving it out again.
Again, an old salt, who had perhaps heard of Galileo’s theory, once tried to illustrate to me the movement of the tides by comparing it to that of a man turning over in bed, and dragging the bedclothes with him, his notion being that as the world turned round, the waters of the ocean were acted upon in a like manner.
To resume the catalogue: —
A bee was never caught in the rain – that is, if the bee scents rain, it keeps near the hive. If, on the contrary, it flies far, the day will be fair. The ancients believed this industrious little creature possessed of almost human intelligence.
When the squirrels lay in a greater store of nuts than usual, expect a cold winter.
If the November goose-bone be thick, so will the winter weather be unusually severe. This prediction appears as regularly as the return of the seasons.
Many meteors falling presage much snow.
“If it rains before seven,
It will clear before eleven.”
“You can tell before two.
What it’s going to do.”
There will be as many snow-storms in a winter as there are days remaining in the month after the first fall of snow.
Children are told, of the falling snow, that the old woman, up in the sky, is shaking her feather-bed.
High tides on the coast of Maine are considered a sign of rain.
When the muskrat builds his nest higher than usual, it is a sign of a wet spring, as this means high water in the ponds and streams.
“A winter fog
Will kill a dog,”
which is as much as to say that a thaw, with its usual accompaniments of fog and rain, is invariably productive of much sickness.
Winter thunder is to old folks death, and to young folks plunder.
“Sound, travelling far and wide,
A stormy day will betide.”
Do business with men when the wind is northwest – that signifies that a clear sky and bracing air are most conducive to alertness and energy; yet Hamlet says: “I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
That was certainly a pretty conceit, no matter if it has been lost sight of, that the sun always dances upon Easter morning.
One of the oldest of weather rhymes runs in this wise: —
“Evening gray and morning red,
Brings down rain on the traveller’s head;
Evening red and morning gray,
Sends the traveller on his way.”
Science having finally accepted what vulgar philosophy so long maintained, namely that the moon exerts an undoubted influence upon the tides of the sea, all the various popular beliefs concerning her influence upon the weather that have been wafted to us over, we know not how many centuries, find ready credence. If the mysterious luminary could perform one miracle, why not others? Thus reasoned the ignorant multitude.
The popular fallacy that the moon is made of “greene cheese,” as sung by Heywood, and repeated by that mad wag Butler, in “Hudibras,” may be considered obsolete, we suppose, but in our youth we have often heard this said, and, it is to be feared, half believed it.
Cutting the hair on the waxing of the moon, under the delusion that it will then grow better, is another such.
As preposterous as it may seem, our worthy ancestors, or some of them at least, firmly believed that the Man in the Moon was veritable flesh and blood.
In “Curious Myths,” Mr. Baring-Gould refers the genesis of this belief to the Book of Numbers.3
An old Scotch rhyme runs thus: —
“A Saturday’s change and a Sunday’s prime,
Was nivver gude mune in nae man’s time.”
If the horns of the new moon are but slightly tipped downward, moderate rains may be looked for; if much tipped, expect a downpour. On the other hand, if the horns are evenly balanced, it is a sure sign of dry weather. Some one says in “Adam Bede,” “There’s no likelihood of a drop now an’ the moon lies like a boat there.” The popular notion throughout New England is that when the new moon is turned downward, it cannot hold water. Hence the familiar sayings of a wet or a dry moon.
If the Stormy Petrel (Mother Cary’s Chicken) is seen following in the wake of a ship at sea, all sailors know that a storm is brewing, and that it is time to make all snug on board. As touching this superstition, I find the following entry in the Rev. Richard Mather’s Journal: “This day, and two days before, we saw following ye ship a little bird, like a swallow, called a Petterill, which they say doth follow ships against foule weather.”
Therefore, in honest Jack’s eyes, to shoot one of these little wanderers of the deep, not only would invite calamity, but would instantly bring down a storm of indignation on the offender’s head. And why, indeed, should this state of mind in poor Jack be wondered at, when he hears so much about kraaken, mermaids, sea-serpents, and the like chimera, and when those who walk the quarter-deck readily lend themselves to the fostering of his delusions?
A mare’s tail in the morning is another sure presage of foul weather. This consists in a long, low-hanging streak of murky vapor, stretching across a wide space in the heavens, and looking for all the world like the trailing smoke of some ocean steamer, as is sometimes seen long before the steamer heaves in sight. The mare’s tail is really the black signal of the advancing storm, drawn with a smutty hand across the fair face of the heavens. Hence the legend, —
“Mackerel sky and mare’s tails
Make lofty ships carry low sails.”
If the hedgehog comes out of his hole on Candlemas Day,4 and sees his shadow, he goes back to sleep again, knowing that the winter is only half over. Hence the familiar prediction: —
“If Candlemas day is fair and clear,
There’ll be two winters in the year.”
The same thing is said of the bear, in Germany, as of the hedgehog or woodchuck.
The Germans say that the badger peeps out of his hole on Candlemas Day, and if he finds snow on the ground, he walks abroad; but if the sun is shining, he draws back into his hole again. At any rate, the habits of this predatory little beast are considered next to infallible by most country-folk in New England.
A similar prediction carries this form: On Candlemas Day just so far as the sun shines in, just so far will the snow blow in.
“As far as the sun shines in on Candlemas Day
So far will the snow blow in before May:
As far as the snow blows in on Candlemas Day
So far will the sun shine in before May.”
From these time-honored prophecies is deduced the familiar warning: —
“Just half your wood and half your hay
Should be remaining on Candlemas Day.”
An old Californian predicted a dry season for the year 1899, because he had noticed that the rattlesnakes would not bite of late, a never failing sign of drought which few, we fancy, would feel inclined to put to the test.
An unusually cold winter is indicated by the greater thickness of apple skins, corn husks, and the like.
The direction from which the wind is blowing usually indicates what the weather will be for the day, – wet or dry, hot or cold, – but here is a rhymed prediction which puts all such prophecies to shame: —
“The West wind always brings wet weather
The East wind wet and cold together,
The South wind surely brings us rain,
The North wind blows it back again.
If the sun in red should set,
The next day surely will be wet;
If the sun should set in gray,
The next will be a rainy day.”
This falls more strictly in line with many of the so-called signs which, like the old woman’s indigo, if good would either sink or swim, she really didn’t know which; or like the predictions of the old almanac makers, who so shrewdly foretold rain in April, and snow in December.
IV
SIGNS OF ALL SORTS
“Authorized by her grandam.” —Macbeth.
If you sneeze before breakfast, you will have company before dinner.
If you pick the common red field lily, it will make you freckled.
A spark in the candle denotes a letter in the post office for you.
To hand a cup with two spoons in it to any one, is a sign of a coming wedding in the family.
If a cat is allowed to get into bed with an infant, the child will be strangled by the animal sucking its breath, or by lying across its chest.
If my right ear burns, some one is talking about me, hence the familiar saying, “I’ll make his ears tingle for him.” Pliny records this omen. Also in “Much Ado About Nothing,” Beatrice exclaims, “What fire is in mine ears!”
When the right ear itches or burns, the person so affected will shortly cry; when it is the left, he will laugh. One version runs in this wise: —
“Left or right
Good at night.”
Late blossoming of vines or fruit trees will be followed by much sickness. This probably rests upon the theory that a mild autumn will be a sickly autumn, which is the same thing as saying that unseasonable weather is pretty sure to be unwholesome weather. The same prediction is expressed by the old saying that “A green Christmas makes a fat church-yard.” Both predictions agree with the observations of medical science.
A spoon in the saucer and another in the cup denote that the person using them will be a spendthrift, and probably come to want; but two spoons to one dish of ice-cream denote foresight and true thrift.
“Sing before you eat,
Cry before you sleep.”
Or, if you sing before breakfast, you will cry before supper.
Pull out one gray hair, and ten will grow in its place.
Should you happen to let drop your scissors, or other sharp instrument, and they should stick upright in the floor, it is a sign that you will soon see a stranger.5
Dropping the dishcloth has the same significance.
Two cowlicks, growing on the same person’s head, denote that he will eat his bread in two kingdoms – that is, be a traveller in foreign parts.
Should a cow swallow her cud, the animal will die, unless another cud be immediately given her.
Hard-hack6 was thus named by the early colonists, who declared that the tough stalk turned the edge of the mower’s scythe.
If you see a white horse, you will immediately after see a red-haired woman.
Bubbles gathering on top of a cup of coffee or chocolate indicate, if they cluster at the middle, or “form an island” in prophetic parlance, money coming to you. If, however, the bubbles gather at the sides of the cup, you will not get the money.
Two chairs, placed by accident back to back, are a sign of a stranger.
Coming in at one door, and immediately going out at another, has the same meaning.
A tea-stem floating in the tea-cup – a common thing before the day of tea-strainers – also foreshadows the coming of a stranger. Old people say “you must butter his head and throw him under the table, if the charm is to work.” A tea-leaf means the same thing, its length denoting whether the stranger will be short or tall.
To let fall your fork is a sure sign that you are going to have a caller on that very evening, or, as the girls declare, have “a beau.” A very estimable lady said when telling me this, that when she was a young girl she never had that accident happen to her that she did not immediately get ready for a caller; and she added that seldom, or never, was this sign known to fail.
If a young girl has the nosebleed, it is a sign that she is in love.7
If your nose itches you will either
“See a stranger,
Kiss a fool,
Or be in danger.”
If your left hand itches, you will shortly receive money; if it is the right hand, get ready to shake hands with a stranger.
A ringing or “dumb-bell” in the ear denotes that you may expect startling news of some sort.
A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon.
Four persons meeting in a crowded place and shaking hands cross-wise, is a sign that one of the party will be married within the year.
Should you meet a person on the stairs, one or the other must go back, or some misfortune will happen to both.
If you should fail to fold up your napkin after a meal at which you are a guest, you will not again be invited to that table.
Think of the devil and he is at your elbow. The point of this robust saying is now much softened into “think of some one and he is at your elbow”; but it seems at first to have had reference to an enemy or to one you would rather avoid. The saying is quite common to-day.
A very old rhyme about the way in which one wears out a shoe, runs in this way: —
“Tip at the toe, live to see woe,
Wear at the side, live to be a bride,
Wear at the ball, live to spend all,
Wear at the heel, live to save a deal.”
Even the days of the week possess peculiar significance to the future welfare of the newborn infant: —
“Sunday’s child is full of grace,
Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is solemn and sad,
Wednesday’s child is merry and glad;
Thursday’s child is inclined to thieving,
Friday’s child is free in giving:
Saturday’s child works hard for his living.”
This saying is familiar to every one: —
“Whistling girls and crowing hens
Always come to no good ends.”
Or, as they say it in the Old Country: —
“A whistling woman and crowing hen,
Are neither fit for God nor men.”
An old woman, skilled in such matters, declares that when vagrant cats begin to collect around the back-yards, “it’s a sure sign the winter’s broken.”
Whistling to keep one’s courage up, or for a wind, are rather in the nature of an invocation to some occult power than a sign. Sailors, it is well known, have a superstitious fear of whistling at sea, believing it will bring on a storm.
Yawning is said to be catching. Well, if it is not catching, it comes so near to being so, that most persons accept it as a fact; and laugh as we may, daily experience goes to confirm it as such, and must continue to do so until some more satisfactory explanation is found than we yet know of.