Two children which cannot yet talk must never be suffered to kiss each other, or both will be backward in speech. A book laid under the child’s pillow will make it an apt scholar; and the water in which a puppy dog has been washed, if used for the bath, will cure all skin diseases. Whoever steps over a child as it lies on the ground will cause it to die within a month. Other prognostics of death are to rock an empty cradle, to make the baby dance in its bath, or to measure it with a yard measure before it can walk. CHAPTER XVI. THE SAXONS: DEATH AND BURIAL. In olden times, when the Almighty used still to show himself on earth, the people say that every one knew beforehand exactly the day and hour of his death. Thus one day the Creator in the course of his wanderings came across a peasant who was mending his garden paling in a careless, slovenly manner. “Why workest thou so carelessly?” asked the Lord, and received this answer: “Why should I make it any better? I have got only one year left to live, and it will last till then.” Hearing which God grew angry, and said, “Henceforward no man shall know the day or hour of his death; thou art the last one who has known it.” And since that time we are all kept in ignorance of our death-hour; therefore should every man live as though he were to die in the next hour, and work as if he were to live forever. Death to the Saxon peasant appears in the light of a treacherous enemy who must be met with open resistance, and may either be conquered by courageous opposition or conciliated with a bribe. “He has put off death with a slice of bread” is said of a man who has survived some great danger. When the first signs of an approaching illness declare themselves in a man, all his friends are strenuous in advising him to hold out against it—not to let himself go, but to grapple with this foe which has seized him unawares. Even though all the symptoms of typhus-fever be already upon him, though his head be burning like fire and his limbs heavy as lead, he is yet exhorted to bear up against it, and on no account to lie down, for that would be a concession to the enemy. In this way many a man goes about with death upon his face, determined not to give in, till at last he drops down senseless in the field or yard where he has been working. Even then his family are not disposed to let him rest. With well-meant but mistaken kindness they endeavor to rouse him by shouting in his ear. He must be made to wake up and walk about, or it will be all over with him; and not for the world would they send for a doctor, who can only be regarded as an omen of approaching death.[19] Some old woman, versed in magic formulas and learned in the decoction of herbs and potions, is hastily summoned to the bedside, and the unfortunate man would probably be left to perish without intelligent advice, unless the pastor, hearing of his illness, takes upon himself to send for the nearest physician.