Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/38

 2 they divided on the road, or all took one side. Thence she drew auguries of prosperous or evil fortune. If she found a crow's feather in the fields she stuck it erect in the grass, and wished a wish. Old pieces of iron she carefully threw over her left shoulder, and when this is done in London streets it must be performed with caution, for it is unlucky to hit a citizen in the eye. She kissed her hand to the new moon. If there were three candles alight, she blew one out, not from motives of economy, but because three lighted candles arow are unlucky. She was perturbed by winding-sheets in a candle; she tried to count nine stars on nine consecutive nights—a thing difficult to do in this cloudy climate; spilt salt greatly exercised her mind, though, unlike another Folk-lorist, she did not spill the claret over it. She was retentive of old superstitions, and to new ones her intellect was as hospitable as the Pantheon of the Romans. One could not have a better example of the early mental habit which finds omens in all things, as in the flight of birds, especially magpies—in fact she was a survival or proof of how, in the midst of an incredulous civilisation, the instinct of superstition may linger in full force. We can all observe this ancient and long-enduring vein of human nature, which would survive religion if religion perished, and if all priesthoods fell, and all temples, would suffice to build up altars and rituals anew. Our congress, therefore, may help to suggest to people that they are living among mental phenomena well worth noting, and, in some cases, well worth recording. We can tell the world that it has in itself and around it the materials of a study at least as interesting as botany or geology. The materials of geology or botany we must seek in fields, and mountains, and road-metal; the materials of Folk-lore, of popular and primeval belief, we can find wherever there are human beings. It is also our part to show the conclusions, as wide as human fate and human fortunes, to which our perusal of the facts may guide us. And thus we may win a few new disciples to Folk-lore, and, I sincerely trust, a few more subscribers