Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/55

 Rh The person who sees a swallow or stork before St. George's Day will live as many years as the bird flaps its wings.

Procure the wing of a bat caught before St. George's Day and wrap up money in it; then you will never be without cash.

On the night following St. George's Day one can listen to the conversation of the witches and overhear their secrets about good and bad herbs.

All the medicines gathered before St. George's Day are very powerful.

Christmas Eve.—Roman Catholics fast on this day—eating no meat, using instead fish and vermicelli with crushed poppy seed and honey. Those who stand on "Lucy's chair" during midnight mass can tell who is a witch and who is not. St. Lucy's Day is December 13th, and on that day some begin to make a small chair, or stool, working at it, on each following day, so as to get it ready by Christmas Eve. The maker then takes it to midnight mass, and sits upon it in order to discover who are witches in the parish. All those who turn their backs to the altar whilst he (or she) sits on the stool, are witches. "Lucy's chair" is also said of anything that is being made very slowly. On this day, too, the farmer's wife and servants wrap their heads up in cloaks, and, armed with big brushes (a sort of brush tied athwart the end of a pole), go round and catch the hens and touch their hinder parts, believing that it will cause them to lay more eggs. The twelve days following St. Lucy's are called Lucy's Kalendar, and are very carefully observed. If the first, second, third, &c., be raining, windy, foggy, &c., so will the first, second, third, &c., months of the next year be.

Christmas Day.—Every hour of this day is significant and pregnant with good or evil. It seems as if on this day every good angel descended from heaven to scatter blessings, and every