IV._AND V.--Two of the most interesting and most accessible lists of projects and Halloween observances are Gay's well-known Shepherds Week and Burns's Halloween.
No. 170.--It is an interesting psychological fact that projects are in the great majority of cases tried by girls and young women rather than by boys and young men.
No. 174.--Here, as in many other cases, it is assumed that young men and women are accustomed to indulge in promiscuous kissing. The use of the word gentleman sufficiently indicates the level of society from which this project was obtained. Gentleman in this sense signifies any male human being over sixteen. It is often used more specifically to mean sweetheart, as "Mary and her gentleman were at the policemen's ball."
No. 184.--On Biblical divination see Brand's Popular Antiquities (Bonn's ed.), iii. 337, 338.
No. 186.--This custom of divining the color of the hair of one's future wife or husband, which is probably very old, yet survives in many places, but with interesting modifications as to the bird which gives the signal to try the divination. In Westphalia it is at sight of the first swallow that the peasant looks to see if there be a hair under his foot. According to Gay, in England it is the cuckoo.
"When first the year I heard the cuckoo sing, And call with welcome note the budding spring, I straightway set a running with such haste Deborah that won the smock scarce ran so fast; Till spent for lack of breath, quite weary grown, Upon a rising bank I sat adown, There doffed my shoe; and by my troth I swear, Therein I spied this yellow frizzled hair, As like to Lubberkin's in curl and hue As if upon his comely pate it grew."
Nos. 187-193.--These practices, and others like No. 453 and the asseverations, Nos. 60-67, shade off insensibly into children's games, customs, and sayings. Games pure and simple have been omitted from the present monograph, since they are evidently out of place among superstitions. They have been admirably treated in Mr. Newell's Games and Songs of American Children. The customs and sayings for the most part belong in collections like Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes rather than in the present collection.
No. 211.--Projects in which flowers and leaves are employed certainly much antedate the Christian era. Theocritus (Idyll III.) describes one in which a poppy petal is used, and he also refers to another form of love-divination by aid of the leaf of the plant Telephilon.
No. 245.--It is probable that the direction in which one is to walk during the performance of this and similar acts of divination is not a matter of indifference, even when no direction is prescribed. One would expect to find it done sunwise. See note on Chapter xvi.
Nos. 254-256.--The Sedum has long enjoyed a reputation for aphrodisiac qualities, as is set forth in Gerarde's Herbal and other authorities. Perhaps the choice of the plant for use in this form of project is due to some lingering tradition of its potency, or it may be simply because of its great vitality and power of growing under adverse conditions.
No. 334.--I happen to know that in 1895 one bride, in a Boston suburb, wore seven yellow garters, at the request of seven girl friends. Probably the fashion of wearing yellow garters owes its present currency to the repute in which they are held as love-amulets.
--Some notion of the prevalence of a popular belief in the omens to be derived from dreams may be obtained from the fact that dream books are still enough in demand to warrant their publication. I have seen but one such volume. That was more than thirty years ago. A dream book is now published by a New York firm, and I find, from inquiries in Boston, that it sells at a moderate rate.
No. 626.--See Shoe Omens in Brand's Popular Antiquities (Bohn's ed.), iii. 166.
Nos. 785-789.--The curious reader will find an excellent summary of the beliefs in regard to sneezing in Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. iii.
