Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/364

356 If you put on crape when you are not in mourning death will soon follow.

A black cat is an omen of evil. (To have a black cat is lucky: if it come to you, it is exceedingly so. Lincolnshire.—W. H. J.)

Try that wine, it's from the cask where the black cat sat, i. e., the best wine. Has this any bearing on "Old Tom"?

If your left eye itches, you will be merry; if your right, you will cry before long: if your left palm itches, you are to receive money; if your right, you will have to pay: if your left ear sings, you will hear good new; if your right, bad.

There are a great many curious superstitions in regard to the selecting of lucky numbers in the lotteries, such as, "When any great one dies," e. g., the Emperor, Archbishop of Vienna, &c., "all the old women put in the following numbers:

or—

They take a glass jar, and place in it numbers 1 to 90, written on very small and very thin squares of paper. A garden spider is then put into the jar, the top covered with perforated paper, and the whole set over-night in a dark place. Next morning, some of the paper squares will be found drawn up into the web which the spider has con- structed during the night; the numbers on such squares are noted, and deemed the lucky numbers to put into the lottery.

If you break a lizard's tail off, the tail will wriggle about till sunset. (If a snake be cut in two pieces, you must be very careful not to allow the pieces to join; if you do, they will grow together again. On a relation's lawn, the gardener has been seen to observe this most scrupulously. Holderness.—W. H. J.)

Menses a cure for corns.

Water customs at Eastertide:

Easter Monday. Amongst the better classes, the boys sprinkle the girls with rose-water, and receive from them eggs (hard-boiled and