One way of interrogating fate in love affairs is to slice an apple in two with a sharp knife; if this can be done without cutting a seed the wish of the heart will be fulfilled. Of yore, in many lands the apple was ever sacred to love, wisdom, and divination. Once in Germany a well-formed child became, through bewitchment, sorely crooked and cramped; by the advice of a monk the mother cut an apple in three pieces and made the child eat them, whereupon it became as before. In Illzach, in Alsace, there is a custom called "Andresle." On Saint Andrew's Eve a girl must take from a widow, and without returning thanks for it, an apple. As in Hungary she cuts it in two and must eat one half of it before midnight, and the other half after it; then in sleep she will see her future husband. And there is yet another love-spell of the split apple given by Scheible ("Die gute alte Zeit," Stuttgart, 1847, p. 297) which runs as follows:-- "On Friday early as may be, Take the fairest apple from a tree, Then in thy blood on paper white Thy own name and thy true love's write, That apple thou in two shalt cut, And for its cure that paper put, With two sharp pins of myrtle wood Join the halves till it seem good, In the oven let it dry, And wrapped in leaves of myrtle lie, Under the pillow of thy dear, Yet let it be unknown to her; And if it a secret be She soon will show her love for thee." Similar apple sorceries were known to the Norsemen. Because the apple was so nearly connected with love and luxury--"Geschlechtsliebe und Zeugungslust"--those who were initiated in the mysteries and vowed to chastity were forbidden to eat it. And for the same reason apples, hares, and Cupids, or "Amorets," were often depicted together. In Genesis, as in the Canticles of Solomon, apples, or at least the fruit from which the modern apple inherited its traditions are a symbol of sexual love. In Florence women wishing for children go to a priest and get from him a blessed apple, over which they pronounce an incantation to Santa Anna--la San' Na--who was the Lucina of the Latins. CHAPTER IX. THE RENDEZVOUS OR MEETINGS OF WITCHES, SORCERERS, AND VILAS.--A CONTINUATION OF SOUTH SLAVONIAN GYPSY-LORE.