Domestic folk-loreThiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
Domestic folk-lore
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Folklore; Superstition
"Cut them on Monday, you cut them for health;
Cut them on Tuesday, you cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Wednesday, you cut them for news;
Cut them on Thursday, a new pair of shoes;
Cut them on Friday, you cut them for sorrow;
Cut them on Saturday, see your true love to-morrow;
Cut them on Sunday, the devil will be with you all the week."
This old rhyming-saw differs in various localities, although in the
main points it is the same; as by general consent both Friday and
Sunday are regarded as most inauspicious days for cutting both the
nails and hair.
Once more, to sit cross-legged is said to produce good
fortune; and occasionally at a card-table one may find some
superstitiously-inclined person sitting in this attitude with a
view of securing good luck. Sir Thomas Browne, on the contrary,
tells us that in days gone to "sit cross-legged, or with the fingers
pectinated" or shut together, was accounted a sign of bad luck: a
superstition alluded to by Pliny. Referring to the feet, we cannot
do more than just allude to two or three items of folk-lore with
which they are connected. Thus, a flat-footed person is generally
considered to have a bad temper, a notion indeed which daily
experience often proves to be incorrect. The itching of the foot has
been supposed to indicate that its owner will shortly undertake a
strange journey; while that unpleasant sensation popularly styled
"the foot going to sleep," is often charmed away by crossing the
foot with saliva. When the division between the toes is incomplete,
and they are partially joined, they are called "twin toes," and are
said to bring good luck. This section of our "Domestic Folk-lore"
might have been prolonged to an almost indefinite extent had space
permitted, but as the preceding pages amply bear witness to the
prevalence of such ideas, we will proceed to discuss another, and, it
is to be hoped, not less interesting class of superstitions.
CHAPTER VII.
ARTICLES OF DRESS.
New Clothes at Easter and Whitsuntide--Wearing of Clothes--The
Clothes of the Dead--The Apron, Stockings, Garters, &c.--The
Shoe--The Glove--The Ring--Pins.
One would scarcely expect to find a host of odd fancies attached to
such matter-of-fact necessities as articles of dress, but yet they
hold a prominent place in our domestic folk-lore. However trivial at
first sight these may seem, they are nevertheless interesting, in
so far as they illustrate certain features of our social history,
and show from another point of view how superstition is interwoven
with all that appertains to human life. Beginning, then, with a
well-known piece of folk-lore, most persons wear new clothes on
Easter-Day, mindful of the old admonition:--
"At Easter let your clothes be new,
Or else be sure you will it rue"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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