The young women of some districts in the North of England have a method of divination by kale or broth, which is used for the purpose of learning who are to be their future husbands. The plan followed is this. The maiden at bedtime stands on something on which she never stood before, holding a pot of cold kale in her hand, and repeating the following lines. She then drinks nine times, goes to bed backwards, and of course dreams of her partner:
On Valentine's day take two bay leaves, sprinkle them with rose-water, and lay them across your pillow in the evening. When you go to bed, put on a clean nightgown turned wrong side outwards, and, lying down, say these words softly to yourself:
After this go to sleep as soon as you can, and you will see in a dream your future husband. Schoolboys have several kinds of divination-verses on going to bed, now repeated "more in mock than mark," but no doubt originating in serious belief—
The positions they occupy in the bed are suggestive of the following fortunes:
|