Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/143

 Some Mountain Superstitions of the South. 131

��SOME MOUNTAIN SUPERSTITIONS OF THE SOUTH.

It would be interesting to know where superstition began, and more interesting to know where lies the exact boundary line between it and science, truth, philosophy. Man's wisdom will probably never make a dot there.

In many instances the difference between superstition and sound sense is about the same as that which Bishop Warburton defined between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, " Orthodoxy is my doxy ; hetero- doxy is another man's doxy."

Although so great a man as Edmund Burke says that supersti- tion is the religion of feeble minds, a very ordinary person may be allowed to suggest that it would be difficult sometimes to prove whose is the feeble mind ; and certainly conviction would be seldom secured by admission of guilt.

Burke suggests degrees of folly in superstitions, and says if a prudent man were called to pass judgment upon them, "perhaps he would think the superstition which builds to be more tolerable than that which demolishes — that which adorns a country, than that which plunders — that which disposes to mistaken beneficence, than that which stimulates to real injustice — that which leads a man to refuse to himself lawful pleasures, than that which snatches from others the scanty subsistence of their self-denial."

I think it a sufficient classification to say that superstitions are three in kind, — useful, vicious, innoxious ; as, for instance, such as built the pyramids, such as burned the witches, and such as suggests to a person the desirability of seeing the new moon over his right shoulder.

Our Southern mountain superstitions are in the main compara- tively harmless. Many of them are amusing to a degree, and a few, unfortunately, are capable of leading on to the gravest conse- quences.

Following are a few of widest acceptation : —

If a whip-poor-will alights upon your doorstep and sings, it is likely to bring bad luck. You should throw fire at it, and it will not return.

When you hear the first whip-poor-will in springtime, you should lie down upon the ground, roll over three times, then reach over your left shoulder and pick up the first thing that your hand rests upon. Put this under your pillow at night, go to sleep lying on your right side, and whatever you dream will surely come to pass.

It betokens bad luck to hear the first cooing of a dove in spring,

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