Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/204

196 if it contains a kernel; but if it is a blind nut, then a spinster or bachelor life awaits its possessor. The same is done also with a dish of mashed potato and cabbage. With regard to the last-named vegetable, the girls are led out blindfold to the cabbage garden and pull cabbages, judging by those pulled of the appearance of their future husbands. If one is pulled with a double head a widower may be expected. Later in the night the lads steal all the cabbages they can, and break them in pieces by throwing them on the roads, which are sometimes found covered with the débris of broken cabbage in the morning.

The girls also look out secretly for a briar-thorn which has grown over into the ground, forming a loop. In the evening, late, this must be crept through three times in the devil's name, the briar cut and placed under the pillow without speaking a word, and the dream to follow will be of the future husband.

Another plan is to throw a clew, or ball of worsted, down a lime-kiln in the evening, in the devil's name, retaining the end in the hand. This is rewound, saying, "Who holds my clew?" and the name (if any) given from the depths of the kiln will be that of the future husband. An experiment well suited for practical joking, as more than one story current testifies.

The boys gather ten ivy leaves, without speaking, and throw away the tenth. They must not be brought into the house until bedtime, when they are placed in the right sock, and this, again, under the pillow, saying these words only:—

Sometimes yarrow leaves are used instead of ivy.

Others take a rake, and go round a rick nine times,