Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/78

 UNSPOKEN.

BY REV WALTER GREGOR.

performing certain ceremonies, the performer had to keep complete silence, to make the ceremony effective. The ceremonies were generally performed at stated times, mostly after sunset in the twilight "atween the sin (sun) and the sky." "When the ceremony had to be performed with water, the water was commonly drawn from a ford, or from below a bridge, a spot, where "the dead an' the livin' cross," and up the stream. The ceremonies, so far as my knowledge goes, were employed but for two purposes—Divination, and the cure of disease. The water, drawn in silence, was usually designated "unspoken water." The word "unspoken" was employed at times to designate other substances gathered in silence, and used in the cure of disease, as, e.g., "unspoken nettles."

Examples of silence in ceremonies of Divination are first given, and then of the cure of disease. Evidence of the same custom is adduced from other countries, and then reference is made to the custom among the Greeks and Romans, among whom it was very prevalent, as their literature shows.

DIVINATION BY THE BIBLE.

The girl who was desirous to see her future husband had to read, after supper, the third verse of the seventeenth chapter of Job: "Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me; "wash the supper dishes, place below her pillow the Bible open at the passage read, with a pin stuck into the verse, and go to bed without uttering a single word, after reading the verse. The future husband appeared in a dream.