To secure luck at cards or to change your luck, when it is going against you, you must walk three times around your chair or else blow upon the cards with your breath. Beyond reasonable doubt you will be a winner. Not so very long ago, it was the custom for women to offer to sit cross-legged in order to procure luck at cards for their friends. I have seen players spit on their hands for the same purpose. Sitting cross-legged, with the fingers interlaced, was formerly considered the correct magical posture. The hair will grow better if cut on the waxing of the moon. This notion is probably based on the symbolism of the moon’s waxing and waning, as associated with growing and declining nature. A Newfoundland fisherman to-day spits on the first piece of silver given him for luck. In the Old Country this was also a common practice among the lower class of hucksters, upon receiving the price of the first goods sold on that day, which they call “hansell.”[10] Boxers often spit into their hands before engaging in a set-to, as also did the schoolboys of my own age, who thought it a charm to prevent the master’s ferule from hurting them as much as it otherwise would, but later found out their mistake. In some country districts the belief still holds that if a live frog can be passed through a sick cow the animal will get well, but the frog must be alive and kicking, or the charm will not work. Salt was formerly the first thing taken into a new house, in the belief that the occupants would never want for bread in that house. “Happy is the corpse that the rain rains on.” This is a sort of corollary to the belief, that it is a fortunate sign if the sun shines on a newly wedded couple. The long established custom of laying the head of the dead to the east is probably a survival of the ancient sun-worship. It is traced back to the Phœnicians. In Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline” we find this reference to it:-- “We must lay his head to the east: My father hath reason for’t.” We are reminded that ropes are coiled, cranks turned, and eggs beaten with the sun. One writer upon Folk-lore[11] remarks that passing the bottle at table from right to left, instead of being merely proper form, really comes from this ancient superstition.