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.
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