Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore
1. The bairn that is born on fair Sunday Is bonny and loving, and blithe and gay. Monday's bairn is fair in the face, Tuesday's bairn is full of grace, Wednesday's bairn is loving and giving, Thursday's bairn works hard for a living, Friday's bairn is a child of woe, Saturday'...
1271. If a child in eating an apple merely girdles it and leaves the apple good at stem and below, it indicates that he will be a poor man; the saying is, "a poor man's core."
4. Chapter 4Love divinations or love charms, I have found, are popularly known as "projects" in parts of New England and on Mt. Desert. On Prince Edward Island and in various parts of the C...
23. Chapter 23space-limits of these notes will allow, to undertake to show the origin and meaning of the superstitions in regard to the sun and sunwise movement. While the origin and meaning...
14. Chapter 14961. Women "cruising," _i.e._, visiting about on "pot-days," especially Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, when people have their best dinner (usually pork and cabbage) in the po...
6. Chapter 6330. The mother-in-law's test of the incoming daughter-in-law is to place a broom on the floor. If the daughter removes it and places it on one side, she will be a good housewif...
8. Chapter 8582. If you dream the first night you are in a strange bed, your dream will come true. If the dream was of a sweetheart, you will be married. _Trinity Bay and Bay Roberts, N.F._
9. Chapter 9617. As with the superstitious generally, Friday is a very unlucky day. Housekeepers will prefer paying a quarter's rent extra to going into a house on that day. It is, of cours...
12. Chapter 12819. A man who "stuck a nail in his foot" was told by a neighbor to pull it out, grease it, and hang it up in the "chimbly," otherwise he might have lockjaw. _New Brunswick._
17. Chapter 171159. To open an umbrella in the house is a sign of ill luck. An action of this sort seriously disturbed a friend of the informant, an American girl of good family. "I would nev...
15. Chapter 15New moon, true moon, tell unto, me Who my true love is to be; The color of his hair, the clothes he is to wear, And when he'll be married to me. _Mansfield, O._
2. Chapter 260. A child to whom is told any story which he considers remarkable will usually reply by an expression of skepticism, such as: "Really and truly?" "Honestly?" "Earnest, now?" o...
13. Chapter 13884. Split a bean and put one half on the wart, one half in the ground, and at the end of the week dig up the latter; place on the wart with the other half; bury again, and this...
1. Chapter 11. The bairn that is born on fair Sunday Is bonny and loving, and blithe and gay. Monday's bairn is fair in the face, Tuesday's bairn is full of grace, Wednesday's bairn is lovi...
5. Chapter 5Any of the projects quoted in the last chapter are perhaps more likely to be practised on Halloween than at other times. However, as girls do amuse themselves by such fortune-se...
11. Chapter 11748. If the dish-cloth on falling to the floor spreads out, the visitor will be a lady; if it falls in a heap, it will be a gentleman. _Cape Breton and Central Maine._
3. Chapter 3144. If you cannot touch the tips of your little finger and first finger together behind the two middle fingers, on both hands, then you will not marry the man you want to marry...
18. Chapter 181241. In old colonial burying-grounds--in Plymouth, Concord, Cambridge, and Rutland, Mass.--the graves are so placed that the headstones face west, that is, the body lies with t...
7. Chapter 7434. If a speck of carbon comes on the wick when burning, and you wish for something, wet your finger and touch the speck. If it sticks to your finger, you will get the wish, an...
22. Chapter 22phases of the moon in the management of every-day affairs among the Pennsylvania Germans, the following list of their beliefs is appended. All are from Buffalo Valley, Central P...
10. Chapter 10715. A mass of bubbles floating on a cup of coffee signifies that money is coming to one. If he can take up the bubbles on his spoon, it indicates that he will get the money, bu...
16. Chapter 161142. If you wish to secure lightness, you must always stir cake and eggs a certain way, that is, the way the sun goes. _Kittery, Me., Nashua, N.H., Eastern Massachusetts, and S...
21. Chapter 21belong with the collection of animal and plant lore for which the writer has much material accumulated. In general such topics, including a very large number of saliva charms an...
20. Chapter 20omens to be derived from dreams may be obtained from the fact that dream books are still enough in demand to warrant their publication. I have seen but one such volume. That was...