Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/399

 Collectanea. 345

The snow won't stay after Candlemas Day.

In the quarter from which the wind blows on Candlemas Day it will remain until May.

If the wind is in the east at noon on St. Benedict's Day (March 2ist), it will neither chop nor change till the end of May.

The first person of the opposite sex you meet on New Year's Day will rule you throughout the year.

It is customary in some parts to make up the fire both on Christmas Eve and on New Year's Eve, and keep it burning through the night.

It is bad luck to throw soap suds out of the house on Holy Thursday.

If you hang clothes out to dry on Holy Thursday there will be a death in the family, and the corpse will be laid out in some of the clothes. °

If you open an umbrella in the house and hold it over your head, there will be a death in the house before the year is out.

If you drop your umbrella you must not pick it up yourself, but ask some other person to do so, or you will meet with a disappointment.

To drop a spoon means disappointment.

It is lucky to tread on any piece of iron with your right foot.

It is good luck for a stranger to poke the house fire.*^

If a fire burns hollow or burns brightly on only one side of the grate, there will be a wedding in the family.

A bride should never see her reflection in a looking-glass after being fully dressed for her wedding.

If you have a pin out of a bride's veil you will soon be a bride yourself. '^

It is good luck to give a crooked pin.

The gift of a brooch breaks love between friends.

It is very unlucky for hvo people to pour out tea from the same teapot at one meal ; to look in the oven when anything is baking ; or to get over a stile at the same time (1887).

® Cf. Yorkshire, infra.

^Cf. Burne, Shropshire Folklore, p. 217.

'' Cf. The Folk-Lore Record, vol. i., p. 33 (West Sussex).