Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/370

 362 in falling through the water, and when it had all settled in the bottom of the tub, the old nurse proceeded to read its surface. I don't know whether there was originally one especial story of the "willow pattern" description, but I do know that the many I have heard all bore a family likeness. There was always a castle with a tower here, and a narrow window there, and a knight riding to the door to deliver a beautiful lady who was imprisoned there. And of course the lady was the round-eyed child who was listening with bated breath, and who was eventually to marry said knight. (If anyone likes to try the experiment, he will find that the lead falls in wriggles like snakes, with no possible pretensions to any shape or form.)

There was also something we did with salt, earth, and water, which I have quite forgotten.

Then there was bobbing for apples, which sometimes consisted in an apple being put at the bottom of a tub of water, to be fetched up by the teeth; and sometimes by suspending a piece of wood from a hook, with an apple at one end and a candle at the other. The wood was set revolving, and the victim, with open mouth, endeavoured to get a bite from the apple; he sometimes bit the candle instead.

Then you go out to the garden blindfolded, and each pull up a cabbage. If the cabbage was well grown the girl was to have a handsome husband, but woe betide the unlucky damsel who got one with a crooked stalk ; her husband would be a stingy old man.

Then comes nut-burning, as an antidote to all this boisterous fun. You put two nuts on the bar and name them, but must not mention the names or all luck will vanish. If one hops off, then that pair will not marry ; if one burns to a cinder and not the other, it is a case of unrequited love; but if both burn away steadily, they will marry and live happy ever after.

County Dublin.—You must always bow when you meet a sweep, or even see one in the distance. If you don't, you will never have any luck.

You must bow when you see a magpie; if it flies off, turn and bow in that direction, and say, "How do you do?" This will avert all ill-luck.