The most prevalent of all the superstitious practices and charms for divining future events are the ceremonies connected with love-divination. Many of them are still in use, secretly practised by the country maiden who is pining for a sweetheart, or having one, doubts if he will prove constant; or if she is so fortunate as to possess several admirers, she wonders which to select, and seeks this aid to help her in her choice. Fortune-telling by means of plants is mostly done by children, and is indeed little more than a game. The plant most commonly employed for this purpose is the rye-grass, called aye-no-bent (Glo.), what’s your sweetheart (Sus.), and tinker-tailor grass (Som. Dev.). The alternate seeds are picked off one by one from the bottom upwards, to the words: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, each seed representing the occupation named at the moment it is plucked. The list is repeated over and over again till there is only one seed left standing at the top, and this is the calling of the future husband of the girl who is trying to read her fate. The same game is also played with the leaves of the pick-folly (Nhp.), the lady’s smock, and with the fruit-stones left on a plate after eating a helping of pie. The date of future marriage is foretold by plucking off the petals of a field daisy one by one to the words: This year, next year, sometime, never. In Shropshire, children playing with a cowslip-ball toss it up and say: Tissy-ball, tissy-ball, tell me true, How many years have I to go through? Then, if they catch it as it comes down they count it for a year, and so, on and on, as the ball is tossed up and caught again. A love-divination game played by school-children in Berkshire villages has been described to me thus: write out your own name in full, and below it the name of your chosen sweetheart. Then cross out every letter of the alphabet common to both names, and count over the remaining letters by repeating: Friendship, courtship, marriage, through each name taken separately, and the result will show the future relationship between the two. Just lately, a young woman I know well was feeling thoroughly depressed about her lover, for in spite of his long-standing devotion, he yet seemed in no hurry to ‘get settled’; when a friend of hers suggested putting the matter to the test of this charm, which they used to work on their slates in school, and exhibit over their shoulders to little boys behind, when the teacher was not looking that way. Both names ran out with ‘marriage’, and sure enough, within a very short time the young man announced that he was looking out for a cottage with a view to the wedding this autumn! The common yarrow foretells constancy in courtship. Take one of the serrated leaves of the plant, and with it tickle the inside of the nostrils, repeating at the same time the following lines: Yarroway, yarroway, bear a white blow, If my love love me my nose will bleed now (e.An.). If blood follows this charm success in love is certain. Similarly apple-pips may be consulted on this point. The name of the possible lover must be whispered, or thought of in silence, and then the pip placed in the fire, or on the hot bars of the grate, and these lines repeated: If you love me, pop and fly, If you hate me, burn and die. This is also done with nuts, and with peas. In some parts of the country the ceremony is only efficacious if performed on St. Mark’s Eve, April 24, or Hallowe’en, Oct. 31. Apple-pips are also used as a charm to tell in what direction the future wife or husband lies. The pips are pressed between the finger and thumb until they fly, the following verse being repeated meanwhile: Pippin, pippin, paradise, Tell me where my love lies; East, west, north, south, Kirby, Kendal, Cockermouth (Lan.). The potency of the even-ash, i.e. an ash-leaf with an even number of leaflets, shows itself thus; the young girl who finds one repeats the words: This even-ash I hold in my han’, The first I meet is my true man. She then asks the first male person she meets on the road what his Christian name is, and this will be the name of her future husband (Irel. Dev.). It is considered as lucky to find an even-ash as to find a four-leaved clover, for: Even-ash and four-leaved clover, See your true love ere the day’s over (Nhb. Shr. Dev. Cor.). If you find nine peas in a pod, and place the pod over the door, the first person who comes in will bear the Christian name of your future partner in life (Shr. Ken.), cp.:

Other ways of discovering the name of the lover are: Cut through the stem of a bracken fern, and the veins will show the initial letter (Nrf.); examine the veins on the back of your left hand, and note the letter they form; on May morning, take a small white slug termed a drutheen (Irel.), place it on a slate covered with flour or fine dust, and the track it pursues in the dust will form the initial letter of the name of the prospective husband; place a key at random in a Bible, and note the letter to which it points (Oxf.); take an apple, pare it whole, and holding the paring in your right hand, stand in the middle of the room repeating the following lines:

Then turn round three times, and cast the paring over your left shoulder, and it will form the first letter of the future husband’s surname. A form of this divination trick was to my knowledge practised by some of the kindergarten children at the Oxford High School in 1910. A method whereby Berkshire damsels of to-day seek to discover the name of a future husband is this: Split open an unused envelope, and write three names of young men you know, or would like to know, one in each of three corners, leaving one corner a blank. Place a piece of wedding-cake in the middle of the envelope, and fasten it up firmly, and then lay it under your pillow for three successive nights. Each morning tear off a corner, and the name left on the fourth morning will be the name of the destined husband, or if it is the blank corner which remains, then you will die an old maid. The future husband’s occupation may be revealed on New Year’s Eve by pouring some melted lead into a glass of water, and observing what form the drops assume. If they resemble scissors, they point to a tailor; if they depict a hammer, then they foretell a carpenter, and so on (Lan.). Another similar custom, belonging to Midsummer Day, is recorded as known in Cornwall: Get a glass of water, throw into it the white of a freshly-broken egg, and then put the glass to stand in the sunshine. You will soon see by careful observation, the ropes and yards of a vessel if your husband is to be a sailor, or a plough and team if he is to be a farmer. If when you first hear the cuckoo you take off your left shoe and stocking, you will find inside the latter a hair of the same colour as that of the person you will marry (Shr.), cp. ‘Then doff’d my shoe, and by my troth, I swear, Therein I spy’d this yellow frizled hair,’ Gay, Thursday, or The Spell. Charms for procuring a vision of the beloved are: on St. Thomas’ Eve, Dec. 20, peel a large red onion, stick nine pins into it and say: Good St. Thomas, do me right, Send me my true love this night, In his clothes and his array, Which he weareth every day, and then place the onion under your pillow; on All Saints’ Eve go into the garden alone at midnight, and while the clock is striking twelve pluck nine sage-leaves, one at every stroke up to the ninth, when you will see the face of the future husband, or if not, you will see a coffin (Shr.); gather twelve sage-leaves at noon, keep them in a saucer till midnight, then drop them one by one from your chamber window into the street, simultaneously with each stroke of the hour, the future husband will then either be seen, or else his step will be heard in the street below (Yks.); on Midsummer Eve walk through the garden with a rake over your left shoulder, and throw hempseed over your right, repeating the while: Hempseed I set, hempseed I sow, The man that is my true love Come after me and mow. The future husband will then appear following with a scythe. This charm with variations in the words used, and performed at different seasons, is widespread throughout the country, cp.:

Get up at midnight on All Saints’ Eve and stand before a looking-glass, combing your hair with one hand, and eating an apple held in the other, and as the clock strikes twelve you will see in the glass the face of the man you will marry looking over your left shoulder (Shr. Wor.). I can remember a schoolfellow of mine performing this ceremony, but in her case the prophecy proved a false one, for according to her description, the chief feature of the man in the vision was his moustache, and the man she ultimately married had none, for he was a clean-shaven clergyman. Perhaps the reason why the charm failed was because she had no apple to eat! On the Eve of St. Mark (Yks.), or of St. Agnes, Jan. 20 (Lan.), place on the floor a lighted pigtail, a small farthing candle, which must have been previously stolen, or else the charm will not work. Then sit down in silence and watch it till it begins to burn blue, when the future husband will appear and walk across the room. The following is a very simple plan: Spread bread and cheese on the table, and sit down to it alone, observing strict silence. As the clock strikes twelve your future lover will appear and join you at your frugal meal (Cor.). On St. Agnes’ Fast, Jan. 21, you can procure a sight of your future husband thus: Eat nothing all day till bedtime, then boil an egg hard, extract the yolk, fill up the cavity with salt, and eat the egg, shell and all, then walk backwards to bed, repeating these lines: Sweet St. Agnes, work thy fast; If ever I be to marry man, Or man be to marry me, I hope him this night to see (Nhb.). Some say that the same result may be effected by eating a raw red herring, bones and all, before going to bed; or by placing the shoes, on going to bed, at right angles to each other in the shape of a T, saying the while: I place my shoes in form of a T, Hoping my true love to see; Not dressed in his best array, But in the clothes he wears every day (Nhb. Dev.). Another more elaborate ceremony is the preparation of the dumb-cake on St. Mark’s or sometimes on St. Agnes’ Eve (n.Cy. Nhb. Yks. Nhp. Nrf.); or, as in Oxfordshire, on Christmas Eve, under the commonplace name of dough-cake. The cake must be prepared fasting, and in silence. When ready it must be placed in a pan on the coals to bake, and at midnight the future husband will come in, turn the cake, and go out again. In order to dream of the future husband: on a Friday night, when you go to bed, draw your left stocking into your right and say: This is the blessed Friday night; I draw my left stocking into my right, To dream of the living, not of the dead, To dream of the young man I am to wed (Shr.), then go to sleep without uttering another word; read the verse: ‘Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?’ Job xvii. 3, after supper, then wash up the supper dishes and go to bed without speaking a word, placing the Bible under your pillow with a pin stuck through the verse previously read (ne.Sc.); or place a Bible under your pillow with a crooked sixpence over the verses: ‘And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or return from following after thee....’ Ruth i. 16,17 (Lan.); take a blade-bone of mutton, stick it full of pins, go upstairs to bed walking backwards, and place the bone under your pillow (Yks.); get a piece of wedding-cake, carry it upstairs backwards, tie it in your left stocking with your right garter, place it under your pillow, and get into bed backwards, keeping strict silence all the while (Cor.). In its simplest form of sleeping with what Addison calls ‘an handsome slice of bride-cake ... placed very conveniently under’ the pillow, this is perhaps the most widely practised of all the dream-charms. Gather on a Friday at midnight nine leaves of the she-holly, Ilex aquifolium, tie them with nine knots inside a three-cornered handkerchief, and place them under the pillow (Nhb.). A way of finding out if you will ever be married or not, is to go into the farmyard at night and tap smartly at the door of the fowl-house. If a hen first cackles, you will never marry, but if a cock crows first then you will marry before the end of the coming year (Dev.). The merry-thought of a fowl is frequently used to ascertain which of two young people will be the first to enter the married state. In some places the shorter piece of the broken bone denotes the nearer marriage, elsewhere the longer piece is the coveted portion. In Northumberland scadded [scalded] peas were formerly eaten out of a large bowl, and the person who obtained the last pea was supposed to be the first married.

Beside these ceremonies—of which the above are a mere handful among the hosts of examples of this popular form of divination which might be quoted—there are the more serious and solemn practices for discovering approaching death, such as watching the kirk on St. Mark’s Eve (Dur. Yks.). The watcher took up his post at midnight in the church porch, and between then and one o’clock he would see pass into the church one by one the figures of all the persons in the parish who would die within the coming year. According to some, all the parishioners would be seen to defile into the church, and then those destined to live through the year would pass out thence, while the doomed would remain behind and never be seen again. Another St. Mark’s Eve custom was the caff-riddling (Yks.), a mode of divination by means of a riddle and chaff. The inquirer repaired at midnight to the barn, and leaving the doors wide open, he there riddled the contents of his sieve, and watched for portents. If a funeral procession passed by, or shapes of men carrying a coffin, then the watcher would die within a year, but if nothing appeared he was destined to live. St. Mark’s Eve was also the night for ash-riddling (n.Cy.). The ashes were riddled on the hearth, and left there untouched when the family retired to rest, the idea being, that if any of the inmates of the house were fated to die within the year, the print of his or her shoe would be found impressed in the soft ashes.

The ancient form of divination by ‘riddle and shears’ was used for the discovery of theft. A sieve was held in a pair of shears, whilst the names of suspected persons were uttered. At the mention of the culprit’s name, the sieve was supposed to turn round. Similar to this are the investigations made with ‘Bible and key’, though the details of the performance vary slightly in different parts of the country. In Devonshire the trial was conducted thus: the name of the suspected person was written on a piece of paper and placed within the leaves of a Bible, together with the front-door key, the wards of which must rest on the eighteenth verse of Psalm 1: ‘When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him.’ The left garters of two persons were then tied round the Bible, and these two persons placed their right forefingers under the bow of the key, repeating at the same time the above-mentioned verse. If the Bible moved, the suspected person was condemned as guilty, if it remained stationary, he was adjudged innocent.