Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/272

 even consider it possible for some persons, born at particular hours, to see their own spirits. When this is the case, it is considered certain that those persons will soon die. There are, however, certain evenings in the year, and particular hours of those evenings, when spirits are more frequently abroad. Twilight and midnight are favourable times, and so is daybreak during the winter season. Hence we are told that if a person sits in the church porch from eleven o'clock to one, on St Mark's Eve, he will see the spirits of those who are doomed to die during the next year pass by and enter the church. If his own spirit be amongst them it will turn round and look him in the face; and should he fall asleep in the porch he may assure himself that he will be one of the first victims.

The caution that we must avoid passing under a ladder, lest we should come to be hanged, has probably descended to us from early practice at Lancaster; but no conjecture can be hazarded as to the origin of the superstition which asserts that when an ass brays it betokens the death of a weaver or an Irishman. Undue levity is frequently checked by the remark, that "if you sing before breakfast, you will cry before supper." A flat hand, or a dimpled chin, is supposed to indicate an open liberal disposition; whilst crooked fingers and hooked nails betoken avarice and covetousness in the persons who are so unfortunate as to possess such peculiarities. Should the sun shine through the fruit trees on Christmas-day, it is an indication that there will be a plentiful supply of fruit during the next season; the same is inferred as to grain, if, after dull weather, the sun bursts out upon the farmer as he is sowing his seed. In the rite of confirmation, those upon whom the bishop lays his right hand consider themselves most fortunate, since they are thereby