ouse-father goes to
the cowhouse with holy water and consecrated salt, asperges it from
without, and then entering, sprinkles every cow. Salt is also thrown on
the head of each animal with the words, "St. Thomas preserve thee from
all sickness." In the Boehmerwald the cattle are fed on this night with
consecrated bayberries, bread, and salt, in order to avert disease.{63}

In Upper and Lower Austria St. Thomas's Eve is reckoned as one of the
so-called _Rauchnaechte_ (smoke-nights) when houses and farm-buildings
must be sanctified with incense and holy water, the other nights being
the Eves of Christmas, the New Year, and the Epiphany.{64}

In Germany St. Thomas's, like St. Andrew's Eve, is a time for forecasting
the future, and the methods already described are sometimes employed by
girls who wish to behold their future husbands. A widely diffused custom
is that of throwing shoes backwards over the shoulders. If the points are
found turned towards the door the thrower is destined to leave the house
during the year; if they are turned away from it another year will be
spent there. In Westphalia a belief prevails that you must eat and drink
heartily on this night in order to avert scarcity.{65}

In Lower Austria it is supposed that sluggards can cure themselves of
oversleeping by saying a special prayer before they go to bed on St.
Thomas's Eve, and in Westphalia in the mid-nineteenth century the same
association of the day with slumber was shown by the schoolchildren's
custom of calling the child who arrived last at school _Domesesel_
(Thomas ass). In Holland, again, the person who lies longest in bed on
St. Thomas's Day is greeted with shouts of "lazybones." Probably the fact
that December 21 is the shortest day is enough to account for this.{66}

In England there was divination by means of "St. Thomas's onion." Girls
used to peel an onion, wrap it in a handkerchief and put it under their
heads at night, with a prayer to the satin |226| to show them their
true love in a dream.{67} The most notable English custom on this day,
however, was the peregrinations of poor people begging for money or
provisions for Christmas. Going "a-gooding," or "a-Thomassin'," or
"a-mumping," this was called. Sometimes in return for the charity
bestowed a sprig of holly or mistletoe was given.{68} Possibly the sprig
was originally a sacrament of the healthful spirit of growth: it may be
compared with the olive- or cornel-branches carried ab