Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/108

 96 Co/lcctanea.

the cause of the fear, and burning it near the person that has been frightened. There is another herb, lubcyk, an iris root, that can be made into a love-potion, half of which is to be drunk by either party, preferably in tea. At the Vilno fair, on the fourth of March, women sell herbs for these purposes, but they will never sell to any one who they consider is not buying in all seriousness. It is believed that if an unhappy lover throws a red string behind him, without looking, he will immediately forget his trouble. On St. Andrew's Eve, the girls of the village may find out the future, whom they are going to marry, and who of them is going to be married first, by each placing a bread pellet in the room, and then waiting to see which the dog will eat first, or by .pouring candle-wax into cold water, and then interpreting the shadow cast on the wall by the mass, or by placing a basin of water with a piece of wood across it, called most, beneath the bed, unknown to the occupant, who is destined to marry the man who, in her dreams that night, occupies a boat with her.

To meet a Russian priest or pop ^^ jg most unlucky, and it is customary to spit three times to avert the evil. This naturally is resented, and at various times lawsuits have been brought against Catholics for spitting openly before a passing priest in the streets.

Characteristic of the country are the wide marshes, broken here and there by lakes. Between the great stretches of virgin forest, where the ground rises slightly, it is barren and sandy. Clumps of juniper bushes grow here and there, and the soil will only bring forth so scanty a crop of rye that the peasants may be obliged to mix pounded birch-bark with their flour. The peasants themselves are a hardy good-looking race, yet distinctly Slavonic. Fair hair and blue eyes are most admired, and their fair complexions distinguish them from both Poles and Russians. Generally bare-footed, or with the old-fashioned shoes of birch, lime, or willow bark, the men work in the fields during summer, wearing trousers of undyed linen, coloured sash, loose shirt, and home-plaited hat of straw ; in winter, top-boots if they can be afforded, small cloth cap, and a big sheep-skin coat. The women always wear gaily coloured and knotted kerchiefs on their heads,

^^ Fop is considered in Russia to be a slang term for Svias'^einiik, Ijut in Polish there is no other.