Some of the most famous divinations about marriage are practised with hazel-nuts on Allhallowe’en. In Indo-European tradition the hazel was sacred to love; and when Loki in the form of a falcon rescued Idhunn, the goddess of youthful life, from the power of the frost-giants, he carried her off in his beak in the shape of a hazel-nut.[15] So in Denmark, as in ancient Rome, nuts are scattered at a marriage. In northern divinations on Allhallowe’en nuts are placed on the bars of a grate by pairs, which have first been named after a pair of lovers, and according to the result, their combustion, explosion, and the like, the wise divine the fortune of the lovers. Graydon has beautifully versified this superstition:— These glowing nuts are emblems true Of what in human life we view; The ill-matched couple fret and fume, And thus in strife themselves consume; Or from each other wildly start, And with a noise for ever part. But see the happy, happy pair, Of genuine love and truth sincere; With mutual fondness, while they burn, Still to each other kindly turn; And as the vital sparks decay, Together gently sink away; Till, life’s fierce ordeal being past, Their mingled ashes rest at last.[16] Nevertheless modes of love-divination for this special evening, which is as propitious to lovers as Valentine’s Day, may be found in Brand, and other collectors of these old customs. Peas are also sacred to Freya, almost vying with the mistletoe in alleged virtue for lovers. In one district of Bohemia the girls go into a field of peas, and make there a garland of five or seven kinds of flowers (the goddess of love delights in uneven numbers), all of different hues. This garland they must sleep upon, lying with their right ear upon it, and then they hear a voice from underground, which tells what manner of men they will have for husbands. Sweet-peas would doubtless prove very effectual in this kind of divination, and there need be no difficulty in finding them of different hues. If Hertfordshire girls are lucky enough to find a pod containing nine peas, they lay it under a gate, and believe they will have for husband the first man that passes through. On the Borders unlucky lads and lasses in courtship are rubbed down with pea straw by friends of the opposite sex. These beliefs connected with peas are very widespread. Touchstone, it will be remembered, gave two peas to Jane Smile, saying, “with weeping tears, ‘Wear these for my sake.’”[17]