Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/81

Rh behind him till he reached the glebe-kitchen, where he fell in a faint, and no one ever afterwards would not persuade him that he had not seen the devil in St. Declan's Cell.

Fortune-telling in London.—Helen Evans, 69, Cable Street, St. George's, was charged with fortune-telling. Mary Start, a married woman, said on the 30th November she went to the prisoner's house to have her fortune told. The prisoner produced a pack of cards, and witness, at the request of the prisoner, shuffled and cut them. The prisoner turned up the cards and said, "Your husband has left you four months." Witness said, "Not four months." And she said, "Between three and four." She also said witness's husband had gone away with a fair woman who had had two children; one was alive, and one dead. Her husband would come back, but would not live with her. She also said witness would be a widow and a wife in twelve months. She would be married to a fair gentleman with plenty of money. She asked if witness would like to see her husband. On witness replying in the affirmative, the prisoner produced six small packets of herbs and said she was to burn them, and while burning them to repeat a verse. Her husband would then come back. She was to have herbs at twelve o'clock, mid -day, and was also to repeat a verse of poetry, which the prisoner recited as she sewed her stays. The accused then told witness that her charge would be a shilling, and witness paid her that amount. The prisoner said she generally charged threepence for the herbs, but as witness had a lot of trouble she would give them to her.—Mary Thomas said she went to Cable Street to have her fortune told. A pack of cards was shuffled and cut. The prisoner then told witness that her husband had left her, but had not gone away with another woman; also that she would be a widow within twelve months, and that she would marry a man with a dark moustache who had plenty of money. She then gave witness some herbs, which she said would fetch her husband back, provided she repeated the following verse: —