Superst. I

400. A maid who is leaving must make one more mess of pottage, and eat it.
401. He that mows grass shall whet his scythe every time he leaves off, and not put it away or take it home unwhetted.
402. When girls are going to a dance, they shall put zehrwurzel-kraut in their shoes, and say: 'Herb, I put thee in my shoe, All you young fellows come round me, do!'
403. When the sun does not shine, all treasures buried in the earth are open.
404. If your flax does not thrive, steal a little linseed, and mix it with yours.
405. Put the first yarn a child spins on the millwheel of a watermill, and she will become a firstrate spinner.
406. If clothes in the was be left hanging out till sunset, he that puts them on will bewitch everybody.
407. He that comes in during a meal shall eat with you, if only a morsel.
408. If a woman with child step over a rope by which a mare has been tied, she will go two months over her time.
409. The first meat you give a child shall be a roast lark.
410. If a pure maiden step over a woman in labour, and in doing so drop her girdle on her, the woman shall have a quick recovery.
411. When the carpenter knocks the first nail in a new house, if fire leap out of it, the house will be burnt down (see 500. 707).
412. When the flax-sower comes to the flax-field, let him three times sit down on the bagful of seed, and rise again: it will be good.
413. If sparks of fire spirt out of a candle when lighted, the man they fly at will get money that day.
414. Beware of washing in water warmed with old waggon-wheels.
415. If a child is backward in speaking, take two loaves that have stuck together in baking, and break them loose over his head.
416. Strike no man or beast with a peeled rod, lest they dry up.
417. Pick no fruit (bruise no malt?) in the Twelves, or apples and pears will spoil.
418. Do no thrashing in the Twelves, or all the corn within hearing of the sound will spoil (see 916).
419. A shirt, sewed with thread spun in the Twelves, is good for many things.
420. He that walks into the winter corn onHoly Christmas eve, hears all that will happen in the village that year.
421. Let not the light go out on Christmas eve, or one in the house will die.
422. It is not good when a stool lies upside down, with its legs in the air.
423. If a man puts on a woman's cap, the horses will kick him.
424. In sweeping a room, don't sprinkle it with hot water, or those in the house will quarrel.
425. As the bride goes to church, throw the keys after her, and she'll be economical.
426. On her return from church, meet her with cake cut in slices; every guest take a slice, and push it against the bride's body.
427. When the bridegroom fetches home the bride, let her on the way throw some flax away, and her flax will thrive.
428. If an infant ride on a black foal it will cut its teeth quickly.
429. Move to a new house at new moon, and your provisions will increase.
430. If you have schwaben (black worms), steal a drag (hemm-schub) and put it on the oven, and they'll go away (see 607).
431. Put a stolen sand-clout (-wisch) in the hen's food, and they won't hide their eggs.
432. At harvest, make the last sheaf up very big, and your next crop will be so good that every sheaf can be as large.
433. When dogs fight at a wedding, the happy pair will come to blows.
434. Hit a man with the aber-rück of a distaff, and he'll get an aber-bein.
435. If the latch catch, and not the match, a guest will come next day.
436. After making thread, don't throw the thread-water where people will pass; one that walks over it will be subject to giddiness.
437. If you sneeze when you get up in the morning, lie down again for another three hours, or your wife will be master for a week.
438. When you buy a new knife, give the first morsel you cut with it to a dog, and you will not lose the knife.
439. If a dying man cannot die, push the table out of its place, or turn a shingle on the roof (see 721).
440. If you sit down on a water-jug, your stepmother will dislike you.
441. If you keep pigeons, do not talk of them at dinner-time, or they'll escape, and settle somewhere else.
442. He that sets out before the table is cleared, will have a toilsome journey.
443. When children are 'becried' and cannot sleep, take some earth off the common, and strew it over them.
444. To look through a bottomless pot gives one the headache.
445. In the bridechamber let the inschlit-light burn quite clean out.
446. On the three Christmas eves save up all the crumbs: they are good to give as physic to one who is disappointed.
447. If you are having a coat made, let no one else try it on, or it won't fit you.
448. If two eat off one plate, they will become enemies.
449. Light a match at both ends, you're putting brands in the witches' hands.
450. When fire breaks out in a house, slide the baking oven out; the flame will take after it.
451. Let a woman that goes to be churched have new shoes on, or her child will have a bad fall when it has learnt to run alone.
452. A spoon-stealer keeps his mouth open in death.
453. If you happen to spit on yourself, you will hear some news.
454. When cows growl in the night, the Jüdel is playing with them.
455. If women with child go to the bleaching, they get white children.
456. A bride at her wedding shall wear an old blue apron underneath.
457. Put your shoes wrong-wise at the head of your bed, and the alp will not press you that night.
458. If she that is confined stick needles in the curtains, the babe will have bad teeth.
459. If a woman with child tie a cord round her waist, her child will be hanged.
460. If she that is confined handle dough, the child's hands will chap.
461. If glasses break at a wedding, the wedded pair will not be rich.
462. The first time cows are driven to pasture in spring, let them be milked through a wreath of ground-ivy (gunder-man).
463. He that goes to church on Walburgis day with a wreath of ground ivy on his head, can recognize all the witches.
464. Cows that have calved, the peasants in Thuringia lead over three-fold iron.
465. If a woman with child follow a criminal going to execution, or merely cross the path he has gone, her child will die the same death.
466. Mix the milk of two men's cows, and the cows of one will dry up.
467. Give no thanks for given milk, or the cow dries up.
468. As often as the cock crows on Christmas eve, the quarter of corn that year will be as dear.
469. On Ash Wednesday the devil hunts the little woodwife in the wood.
470. He that deals in vinegar must lend none, even should the borrower leave no more than a pin in pledge.
471. For headache, wash in water that rebounds off a mill-wheel (see 766).
472. A cock built into a wall brings a long spell of good weather.
473. If the Jüdel has burnt a child, smear the oven's mouth with bacon-rind.
474. If a child has the freisig (lockjaw?), cover its head with an inherited fish-kettle, and force its mouth open with an inherited key.
475. Water cannot abide a corpse.
476. Throw devil's bit under the table, and the guests will quarrel and fight.
477. To get a good crop, go out in silence on a certain day, fetch mould from three inherited fields, and mix it with your seed.

b. From the Erzgebirge about Chemnitz.
(Journal von und für Deutschland 1787. 1, 186-7. 261-2).

478. At the first bidding of the banns the betrothed shall not be present.
479. On a barren wife throw a tablecloth that has served at a first christening dinner.
480. At a wedding or christening dinner let the butter-dishes have been begun, or the bachelors there will get baskets (the sack) when they woo.
481. When the bride goes from her seat to the altar, let the bridesmaids close up quickly, lest the seat grow cold, and the bride and bridegroom's love cool also.
482. If there is a grave open during a wedding, all depends on whether it is for a man, woman or child; in the first case the bride will be a widow, in the second the bridegroom a widower, in the last their children will die soon.
483. If a girl meets a wedding pair, their first child will be a daughter; if a boy, a son; if a boy and girl together, there will be twins.
484. Put a key beside the baby, and it cannot be changed.
485. Of a wedding pair, whichever gets out of bed first will die first.
486. The godmothers help in making the bridal bed, the straws are put in one by one, and care is taken that no stranger come into the bride-chamber. The bed must not be beaten, but softly stroked, else the wife will get beatings.
487. If a pillow fall off the bridal bed, the one that lay on it will die first.
488. On the wedding day, man and wife must wash crosswise, then they can't be becried (bewitched).
489. Of the wedding bread and roll, some shall be saved, that man and wife may not want. Such bread does not get mouldy, and a piece of it put in their pottage is good for pregnant women who have no appetite.
490. At the prayer for the sick, if there is perfect silence, the sick man dies; if any one coughs or makes a noise, he gets well.
491. If a sick man, after receiving the sacrament, ask for food, he will die; if for drink, he will recover.
492. For increasing goitre or warts, fix your eyes on the waxing moon, and say three times: 'May what I see increase, may what suffer cease,' (see 245).
493. Dogs howling foretell a fire or a death.
494. New servants must not go to church the first Sunday, or they'll never get used to the place.
495. Whatever dishes the sponsor does not eat of at the christening-feast, the child will get a dislike for.
496. Crows cawing round the house mean a corpse, if only of a beast.
497. If the church clock strike while the death-bell tolls, there will die in the parish a man, a youth, or a child, according as it is the great, the middle, or the small bell.
498. No bride shall move in when the moon's on the wane (see 238); but wealth she will win, who comes riding through rain (198).
499. When you move into a new house, throw something alive in first, a cat or dog: for the first to enter a house is the first to die.
500. When carpenters are felling timber for a new building, if sparks fly out at the first stroke , the building will burn down (see 411).
501. Before you go into the sitting-room of your new house, peep into the copper, to get used to the place. The same rule for new servants (see 95); beside which, they have to creep between the legs of their masters.
502. Journeymen, the first time they travel, must not look round, or they'll be homesick, and can't stay anywhere.
503. Let no strangers into the stable at milking time.
504. After candles are lighted, don't empty a washhand basin in the street, or the family will fall out the next day.
505. When children shed their first teeth, let the father swallow the daughter's teeth, and the mother the son's; the children will never have toothache then.

c. From the Saalfeld country.
(Journ. v. u. f. D. 1790. pp. 26-29; conf. Sächs. Provinz. bl. 5, 499-512).

506. On Christmas eve the girls sit up from 11 to 12. To find out if they shall get married the next year, they strip themselves naked, stick their heads into the copper, and watch the water hissing.
507. If that does not answer, they take a broom and sweep the room backwards, and see the future lover sitting in a corner: if they hear the crack of a whip, he is a waggoner, if the sound of a pipe, a shepherd.
508. Some rush out of doors naked, and call the lover; others go to a cross-road, and call out his name.
509. A woman who is confined must never be left alone; the devil has more hold upon her then.
510. She dare not sleep unless some one watches by the child, for a changeling is often put in the cradle. Let the husband's trowsers be thrown over it.
511. The village children dread the minister. The unruliest is hushed by the threat: 'Sit still, or parson 'll come and put you in the pitch-pot.'
512. If a girl has not cleared her distaff the last day of the year,it is defiled by Bergda: this Bergda is a shaggy monster.
513. A bride preserves her bridal wreath and a piece of wedding bread; so long as she keeps that hardened lump, she never wants bread. When man and wife are weary of life, they eat it soaked in pottage.
514. After the wedding, one of the bridesmaids hurries home first, gets beer or brandy, and offers a glass to the bridegroom, who empties it and tosses it behind his back: if the glass breaks, it is good; if not, not.
515. If one is taken ill suddenly without cause, a sage old woman goes, without greeting any one, draws water from a spring, and drops three coals into it; if they sink, he is 'becried'; she then draws nigh, and sprinkles him three times with the water, muttering: 'Art thou a wife, let it light on thy life! art thou a maid, may it fall on thy head! art thou a servant, thou art served as thou hast well deserved!' (see 865).