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answer. ."* A note in the margin, with the signature of W. K., tells us, "this way of choosing Valentines by making little furrows in the ashes, and imposing such and such names on such line or furrow is practised in Kent and many other parts.-W. K."

Leeks and Ramsons.—In the West of England the following rhymes preserve a popular belief, which, without being actually a superstition, is very much akin to it. "Eate leekes in Lide, and ramsins in May,

And all the yeare after physitians may play."+

Lide is a word used in the West for March; and ramsins, or as it is more generally written, ramsons, is a species of wild garlic.

Wind. "On Malvern Hills, in Worcestershire, and thereabouts, when they fanne their corne and wante wind, they cry youle! youle! youle!' to invite it, which word, no doubt, is a corruption of Eolus, the God of the winds."+

Teeth.-"When children shale (i. e. shed) their teeth, the women use to wrap or put salt about the tooth, and so throw it into a good fire. The above-mentioned Cramer saith that in Germany in his native country, some women will bid their children to take the tooth which is fallen or taken out, and goe into a dark corner of the house or parlour, and cast the same into it, thereby saying these words:

'Mouse, here I give thee a tooth of bone,

But give thou me an iron one.'§

(or iron tooth) believing that another good tooth will grow in its place."

*

Aubrey's Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme, MS. folio 111.
Idem, folio 105.

Idem, folio 110; but I have already shown that youle has nothing at all to do with Eolus.

§ Idem, folio 104,

304

In the

church-door, as well as a picture within, both confirmative of the fact. ting implicit faith in these testimonials, as after all they We have the greater reason for putdo not vouch for any very singular miracle. following age Saint Vigor did as much, or more; he, who was also a bishop of Bayeux, delivered the country from a serpent whose breath alone poisoned men and animals. Pluquet with his usual proneness to spoiling a good story by explanation wishes to allegorize this into ́an emblem of the triumph of Christianity Paganism.

over

Divination.-" When I was (before the Civil Warres) the mayd-servants were wont a boy, in North Wilts, at night, after supper, to make smoothe the ashes on the hearth, and then to make streakes on it with a stick; such a streak signified particularly to her that made it, such an unmarried man, such a one such a mayd. The like for the men. Then the men and the mayds were to choose by this kind of way their husbands and wifes; or by this divination to know when they should marry. The maydes, I remember, were very fond of this kind of magic, which is clearly a branch of geomantie. Now the rule of geomantie is that you are not to go about your divination but with a great deal of seriousness, and also prayers; and to be performed in a very private place, or on the sea-shore.

"Another remainder of geomancy, to divine whether such a one will return this night or no, is by the sheath of a knife, which one holds at the great end with his two forefingers, and says, 'he comes;' then slips down his upper finger under his lower, and then the lower under that, and says, he comes not' and sic deinceps till he is come to the bottome of his sheath, which gives the

answer. ."* A note in the margin, with the signature of W. K., tells us, "this way of choosing Valentines by making little furrows in the ashes, and imposing such and such names on such line or furrow is practised in Kent and many other parts.-W. K."

Leeks and Ramsons.-In the West of England the following rhymes preserve a popular belief, which, without being actually a superstition, is very much akin to it. "Eate leekes in Lide, and ramsins in May,

And all the yeare after physitians may play."

Lide is a word used in the West for March; and ramsins, or as it is more generally written, ramsons, is a species

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two were ever found to agree in their reckoning. So at least say the people, and it was to illustrate their superstition in regard to numbers that I have dwelt upon the legend.

In the Isle of Man the superstition is reversed. There within Peel Castle is a vault in which are thirteen pillars supporting the church above, and the people firmly believe that the stranger who visits this cavern out of curiosity, and omits to count the pillars, will do something to occasion his being confined there.*

In regard to the qualities inherent in odd and even numbers, there seems to be some difference of opinion amongst the learned in such high mysteries. Pliny assures us that odd numbers were more effectual than even, and were a thing of the greatest consequence to be observed in fevers.† Philo Judæus, who flourished at Alexandria in the time of Caligula, tells us that nature delights in a septenary; the planets, he says, are seven; the Bear is composed of seven stars; the changes of the moon take place once in a se'nnight, that is to say, in each week she accomplishes a full quarter; children born at seven months are prosperous, while those who come into the world at eight are unlucky; the third septenary, i. e., twenty-one, is the termination of a man's growth; and many other instances he adduces of the virtue residing in

* See Waldron's Isle of Man, p. 19 12mo. 1731.

"Cur impares numeros ad omnia vehementiores credimus ; idque in febribus dierum observatione intelligitur ?" C. Plinii Sec. Nat. Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 5. So far from doubting the truth of the dogma put thus interrogatively, Pliny uses it in confirmation of other matters, saying, "libet hanc partem singulorum quoque conscientia coarguere." It was a fact too generally known and admitted to be called in question, and might therefore be safely appealed to in corroboration of other less demonstrated opinions.

the number seven; but as those already given are quite as cogent as the remainder, it is unnecessary to repeat them.*

The Romans found as many and as valid reasons for admiring the number three, as Philo did for his eulogies on seven; indeed, they are much after the same fashion of logic; as, for instance-Jove's thunder was three-forked; Neptune's trident was three-pronged; Pluto's house-dog, Cerberus, was three-headed; the Furies were three; and Diana was of a threefold nature, being Diana upon earth, Hecate in the shades below, and Luna in the sky above. Nothing can be more convincing.

Pythagoras formed a whole system of philosophy upon numbers, and even went so far as to declare that, according to the odd or even numbers in a man's name, blindness, lameness, or any such casualties, will fall upon his left or right side.† But it is not often that the philosophy of numbers, as it was expressed both by the Greeks and Romans, is so intelligible as this; at times they dived into depths, or soared up into heights, whither it is no easy affair to follow them ; as when they tell us that the soul is united to the body by the force of numbers, and that so long as the numbers remain the union con

* 66

Χαίρει δε ἡ φύσις εβδομαδι άε.” Philonis Judæi Opera, vol. i. p. 45. London. 1742. But the most sensible part of Philo's observations is on the Creation. He says, that it is idle to talk of the world having been made in seven days, according to our ideas of the words, as time could not exist till after the world was created. When however, he adds, that the phrase is to be understood as meaning a perfect senary he is not quite intelligible. Those who wish to grapple with this mystery will find it fully discussed by our author in the Sacrorum Legum Allegor. lib. i.

"E Pythagoræ inventis non temerè fallere, impositivorum nominum imparem vocalium numerum clauditates, oculive orbitatem, ac similes casus, dextris assignare partibus, parem lævis." C. Plinii Sec. Nat. Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 6.

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