Shrove Tuesday, or Fasten's Eve, is a day observed in many lands. In olden times, after the people had made confession at this season, they were permitted to indulge in festive amusements, although not allowed to partake of any repast beyond the usual substitutes for flesh; and hence arose the custom of eating pancakes and fritters, and partaking of brose, in Scotland, at this time. The brose was then made of oatmeal and butter, with a ring in it. The bicker of brose being set in the middle of a table, the unmarried members of the family, and invited friends who had not entered the matrimonial state, seated themselves around and partook of the repast. They took spoonful about till the ring was found, and then it was put into a second dish of brose, and again into a third, and he or she who found the ring twice left the table, assured of being married before another Fasten's Eve. At a later hour of the evening, pancakes, sometimes called "sauty bannocks," were made, and through their magical virtues future husbands and wives were discovered. A large cake or bannock was prepared, in which a ring or other small article was put, and the young person whose lot it was to secure the piece of cake or bannock with the concealed article was looked upon as being as lucky as the individual who picked the ring twice out of the brose. While all this was going on, unbounded mirth prevailed, and before the company broke up, dreaming cakes or bannocks were prepared, that every one might take one and place it under his or her pillow. To make the cakes of any avail, the baker had to remain mute when preparing them, and the receivers had, immediately after obtaining them, to slip off quietly to bed, when, if all the preliminaries had been duly observed, the sleeper's future companion in life appeared in a vision or dream of the night.