Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/276

 24S Colkctaneci.

spot where your head generally reposes, in the shape of a T, and when in bed repeat the following quartrain : —

" I've put my shoes in the form of a T Hoping my true love to see, Let him l^e young, or let him be old. Let him come and visit me."

A vision of a future husband can also be obtained by sowing hemp seed, and saying : —

" Hemp seed sow, Hemp seed grow, For my true love to come and mow."

Then haste must be made to the house, to escape the reaper's sickle ; but, looking back, a vision of the future husband will be seen mowing the hemp seed.

The Jersey people are great tea drinkers, and it is therefore not surprising to find that some people profess to be able to tell fortunes from an inspection of the arrangement of tea-leaves in the bottom of the cup.

A?nulets. — A horse-shoe nailed against the door in any part of the house keeps away evil spirits. Care must be taken while pre- paring to nail the shoe, for, should it fall, the spell is broken.

Christening beliefs. — If a baby cries at its baptism it is a sign that it will be cross and peevish all its life. It is most unlucky to cover up a baby's face when taking it to the church to be christened.

Marriage custom. — During the seventeenth century it was the custom for a newly-married couple to go to their parish churchy garbed in their wedding garments, on the Sunday following their nuptials, so as to enable the congregation to " Faire leurs regards" (The Register of St. Lawrence Church, 1685).

Folk-medicine. — The late Colonel le Cornu informed the mem- bers of the Societe Jersiaise that the following cure for rickets and rupture is still practised in Jersey. A young ash-tree is split longitudinally for about five feet, and the fissure is held wide open. The child patient, having been stripped, is passed three times through this fissure, head foremost, and the wounded tree is then bound together with a pack thread. As the bark of the tree heals, so the child recovers.