ens do not come out readily to feed in the morning, the
owner may make up his or her mind to meet with disappointments before
night.

It was formerly, if not now, unlucky to pare your nails on Sunday or
Friday. To prevent one dreaming about a dead person he has seen, it is
necessary to touch the body. To secure money being always in one's
pocket, he is advised to keep a bent sixpence, or a coin with a hole
in it, in his purse; to take it out and spit on it at every new moon;
and to return it to the pocket while wishing himself good luck.

It is unlucky to look at a funeral through a door or a window. Should
one wish to gaze on the melancholy procession, he ought to take his
position in the open air. The family will be fortunate on the roof of
whose house a stork builds its nest; and if any one take the heart of
a stork, and tie it up in the skin of a hawk or of a vulture, no enemy
can conquer him so long as he carries the charm attached to his right
arm. To sit with one's hands closed is bad, but to sit cross-legged
secures good fortune. At a card-table, people occasionally sit in the
latter position, with the view of bringing lucky deals.

A bride should not be married in a white satin dress. That a
newly-married couple may have no obstacles in the way of prosperity,
every one meeting them going to church to be united, or returning home
after the hymeneal knot is tied, should retrace his steps with them a
short distance. No small importance is attached to the old rhyme:

"Blessed is the bride that the sun shines on;
Blessed is the corpse that the rain rains on."

Marriages at the festival of St. Joseph are carefully avoided as
unfortunate. All fast-days and vigils should also be avoided as
marriage-days, they being considered inauspicious. The first day of
May continues in many lands to be held in great esteem, and the 12th
of that month is a high day among the witches. At that time they may
be seen dancing on the surface of lakes, brushing the dew off the
grass, milking cows in their folds, and flying through the air, or
escaping from pursuers in the shape of hares.

If a married woman lose her wedding ring, she has reason to fear the
estrangement of her husband's affections. If she break it, she thinks
there is danger of the matrimonial tie being soon severed by death. If
a newly-married couple go into a clean-swept house, they expect to be
poor all their days; but if the house be but indifferently cle