On a Friday morning in the year 1600, says an old legend, a ship set sail from a Northern port, having on board a young man and a maiden of rare beauty, whose strange actions and demeanor seemed to betoken that they were supernatural beings. The vessel never reached port, but one stormy night a phantom ship was seen, enveloped in an uncanny light; and on its deck stood the youth and his sweetheart, a weird vision, as the spectral craft moved along over the stormy sea against the wind.[439] In Hesse Frau Hölle, the modern Freyja, is the special guardian and protectress of newly married people, and so tenacious has been this old belief in the minds of the Hessian peasants that the day of Venus is still in high favor among them as the most propitious for weddings.[440] In some places it is unlucky to receive any news, whether good or bad, on a Friday; and, according to a Shropshire saying, “if you hear anything new on a Friday, it gives you another wrinkle on your face, and adds another year to your age.”[441] Indeed, the term “Friday-faced” was used to denote a gloomy or dejected visage, as in the following quotation:— Marry, out upon him! what a friday-fac’d slave it is! I think in my conscience his face never keeps holiday.[442] In Servia children born on Friday are thought to be invulnerable to the assaults of the whole army of hags and sorcerers. In Germany Friday is reckoned the most fateful of all the week-days, whether for good or evil. The beliefs vary in different portions of the empire, but there is a universal prejudice against setting out on a journey, moving into a new house, or changing servants on this day. In eastern Prussia, whoever bakes on a Friday will get but little bread; but Sunday baptisms are thought to offset the unlucky auspices of children born on Friday. The North German farmers consider Friday the best day on which to begin gathering the harvest.[443] In olden times Friday was the most favorable day for courtship and weddings in Germany, and, unless a bride first entered her new home on that day, domestic strife was likely to ensue. If she wished to tame a bad-tempered husband, her first care was to prepare for him a soup made with the rain-water of a Friday’s shower. The magic charm of words wherewith cattle were freed from the mange was spoken on a Friday morning; and a hare which had been shot on the first Friday in March was of great therapeutic value, especially its eyes, which were dried and carried about as a sovereign remedy for defective vision. Only on a Friday did the church-bells strike the hour for the release of bewitched spirits, and the delivery of enchanted souls from their spells.[444]