Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/162

156 woman, he will often turn back. They say in Thüringen that if you are about any weighty affair, and are interrupted by an old woman, you should not go on with it, for it could not prosper. In Norway, if a man goes out to make a bargain, and an old woman is the first person he meets, he will have no luck.

Another saying of Pythagoras was this: “If you stumble at the threshold in going out, you should turn back.” In the Highlands of Scotland and among the Saxons of Transylvania it is deemed unlucky to stumble on the threshold in going out on a journey. Amongst the Malays, if a person stumbles on leaving the steps of a house on particular business, it is unlucky, and the business is abandoned for the time. In Sumatra, if a Batta stumbles in leaving the house, it bodes ill-luck, and he thinks it better to abandon the journey and stay at home.

Again, Pythagoras said: “If a weasel cross your path, turn back.” This was a common rule in Greece. In the “Characters” of Theophrastus the Superstitious Man would not go on if a weasel crossed his path; he waited till some one else had traversed the road, or until he had thrown three stones across it. The Zulus think that if a weasel crosses their path they will get no food at the place