Superst. I

738. Empty the bath under a green tree, and the children will keep fresh.
739. Three days after birth, the godfather shall buy the child's crying from it (drop a coin in the swathings), that it may have peace.
740. If the child still cries, put three keys to bed in its cradle.
741. If the child can't or won't eat, give a little feast to the fowls of the air or the black dog.
742. If the baby sleep on through a thunder storm, the lightning will not strike.
743. The tablecloth whereon ye have eaten, fumigate with fallen crumbs, and wrap the child therein.
744. Every time the mother leaves the room, let her spread some garment of the father's over the child, and it cannot be changed.
745. If the churching be on Wednesday or Friday, the child will come to the gallows.
746. Before going out to be churched, let the mother stride over the broom.
747. If a male be the first to take a light from the taper used in churching, the next child will be a boy; if a female, a girl.
748. On her way home, let the mother buy bread, and lay it in the cradle, and the child will have bread as long as it lives.
749. Before suckling the child, let her wipe her breasts three times.
750. The first time the child is carried out, let a garment be put upon it on the side aforesaid (inside out).
751. As soon as you see the child's first tooth, box his ear, and he'll cut the rest easily.

l. From Osterode in the Harz.
(Journ. v. u. f. D. 1788. 2, 425-431.)

752. The first time you drive out to pasture in spring, put an axe and a fire steel wrapt in a blue apron just inside the stable threshold and let the cows step over it.
753. In feeding them the evening before, sprinkle three pinches of salt between their horns, and walk backwards out of the stable; then evil eyes will not affect them.
754. If the girl wash the cow unwashed, the milk will not cream.
755. For the cow not to go more than once with the bull, a blind dog must be buried alive just inside the stable door.
756. When you drive the cow past a witch's house, spit three times.
757. Cattle born or weaned in a waning moon are no good for breeding.
758. If swallows' nests on a house are pulled down, the cows give blood.
759. If a witch come to the churning, and can count the hoops on the churn, the butter will not come.
760. Three grains of salt in a milk pot will keep witches off the milk.
761. To make hens lay, feed them at noon on Newyear's day with all manner of fruit mixed.
762. Set the hen to hatch just as the pigs are coming in; in carrying her, keep pace with the pigs, and the eggs will hatch pretty near together.
763. Whichever loses the wedding ring first, will die first.
764. Let a wedding be at full-moon, or the marriage is not blest.
765. The first 'waim-bier' for an accouchée no one may taste, but only try with the fingers, or she'll have the gripes.
766. To cure ansprang (a kind of rash) on a child, get a piece of wood out of a millwheel, set it alight, and smoke the swathings with it; wash the child with water that bounds off the millwheel (see 471); what is left of the wood shall be thrown into running water.
767. Wean no child when trees are in blossom, or it will be gray headed.
768. While the babe is unbaptized, no stranger shall come in; he might not be dicht (= geheuer), then the mother's milk would go.
769. If a baby has the kinder-scheuerchen (shudder?), let the 'goth' if it is a boy, or the godmother if it is a girl, tear its shirt down the breast.
770. When a baby is weaning, give it three times a roll to eat, a penny to lose, and a key.
771. On Monday lend nothing, pay for all you buy, fasten no stocking on the left.
772. A stroke of lightning will find its way to whate'er you work at on Acension day (703).
773. On Matthias day throw a shoe over your head: if it then points out of doors, you will either move or die that year.
774. On Matthias day set as many leuchter pennies as there are people in the house, afloat on a pailful of water: he whose penny sinks will die that year.
775. Water drawn downstream and in silence, before sunrise on Easter Sunday, does not spoil, and is good for anything.
776. Bathing the same day and hour is good for scurf and other complaints.
777. If a new maidservant, the moment she is in the house, see that the fire is in, and stir it up, she'll stay long in the place.
778. In building a house, the master of it shall deal the first stroke of the axe: if sparks fly out, the house will be burnt down.
779. If a bed be so placed that the sleeper's feet point out of doors, he'll die.
780. Bewitched money grows less every time you count it: strew salt and dill amongst it, put a crossed twopenny piece to it, and it will keep right.
781. A hatching dollar makes your money grow, and if spent always comes back.
782. A woman that is confined must not look out of window: else every vehicle that passes takes a luck away.
783. He that carefully carries about him an egg laid on Maundy Thursday, can see all witches with tubs on their heads (see 636. 685).
784. The first corn blossom you see, draw it three times through your mouth, saying "God save me from fever and jaundice," and you are safe from them (see 695).
785. Three knots tied in a string, and laid in a coffin, send warts away.
786. If a woman have seven sons one after another, the seventh can heal all manner of hurts with a stroke of his hand.

m. From Bielefeld.
(Journ. v. u. f. D. 1790. 2, 389-390. 462-3.)

787. If an old woman with running eyes comes in, and talks to and fondles a child, she bewitches it; the same if she handles and admires your cattle.
788. If you walk down the street with one foot shod and the other bare, all the cattle coming that way will fall sick.
789. If an owl alights on the house hooting, and then flies over it, some one dies.
790. Wicke-weiber tell you who the thief is, and mark him on the body.
791. Old women met first in the morning mean misfortune, young people luck.
792. At 11-12 on Christmas night water becomes wine and the cattle stand up; but whoever pries into it, is struck blind or deaf, or is marked for death.
793. Healing spells must be taught in secret, without witnesses, and only by men to women, or by women to men.
794. The rose (Antony's fire) is appeased by the spell: 'hillig ding wike (holy thing depart), wike un verslike; brenne nich, un stik nich!'

n. Miscellaneous.

795. If a woman tear her wedding shoes, she'll be beaten by her husband.
796. If you've eaten peas or beans, sow none the same week: they will fail.
797. If she that is confined go without new shoes, her child will have a dangerous fall when it learns to walk.
798. For belly ache was in brook water while the death bell tolls.
799. When you've bought a knife, give the first morsel it cuts to the dog, and you'll never lose the knife.
800. Eggs put under the hen on a Friday will not thrive; what chicks creep out, the bird eats up.
801. He that turns his back to the moon at play, will lose.
802. If your right ear sings, they are speaking truth of you, if your left, a lie; bite the top button of your shirt, and the liar gets a blister on his tongue.
803. If a maid eat boiled milk or broth out of the pan, it will soon rain, and she'll get a husband as sour as sauerkraut.
804. Heilwag is water drawn while the clock strikes 12 on Christmas night: it is good for pains in the navel.
805. Waybread worn under the feet keeps one from getting tired.
806. Have a wolf's heart about you, and the wolf won't eat you up.
807. He that finds the white snake's crown, will light upon treasure.
808. He that looks through a coffin board, can see the witches.
809. To win a maiden's favour, write your own name and hers on virgin parchment, wrap it in virgin wax, and wear it about you.
810. He that is born on a Monday, three hours after sunrise, about the summer equinox, can converse with spirits.
811. It is good for the flechte (scrofula) to sing in the morning, before speaking to any one: de flock-asch un de flechte, de flogen wol över dat wilde meer; de flock-asch kam wedder (back), de flechte nimmermer.
812. A drut's foot (pentagram) must be painted on the cradle, or the schlenz will come and such the babies dry.
813. At Easter the sun dances before setting, leaps thrice for joy: the people go out in crowds to see it (Rollenhagen's Ind. reise, Altstet. 1614, p. 153).
814. If you eat pulse (peas, beans) in the Twelves, you fall sick; if you eat meat, the best head of cattle in the stall will die.
815. A death's head buried in the stable makes the horses thrive.
816. When sheep are bought and driven home, draw three crosses on the open door with a grey field-stone (landmark?), so that they can see.
817. If a woman that is more than half through her pregnancy, stand still before a cupboard, the child will be voracious (see 41). To cure it, let her put the child in the cupboard itself, or in a corner, and, cry as it may, make it sit there till she has done nine sorts of work.
818. If a child will not learn to walk, make it creep silently, three Friday mornings, through a raspberry bush grown into the ground at both ends.
819. When the plough is home, lift it off the dray, or the devil sleeps under it.
820. The milk will turn, if you carry a pailful over a waggon pole, or a pig smell at the pail. In that case, let a stallion drink out of the pail, and no harm is done (conf. K 92, Swed.).
821. What's begun on a Monday will never be a week old: so don't have a wedding or a wash that day.
822. Plans laid during a meal will not succeed.
823. If a woman walk up to the churn, and overcry it in the words, 'Here's a fine vessel of milk,' it will go to froth, and give little butter. Answer her: 'It would get on the better without your gab.'
824. Do not spin in the open country. Witches are called field spinners.
825. If your left nostril bleed, what you are after won't succeed.
826. If it rains before noon, it will be all the finer afternoon, when the old wives have cleared their throats.
827. Till the hunter is near the game, let his gun point down, or it will miss.
828. If a corpse sigh once more when on the straw, if it remain limp, if it suck in kerchiefs, ribbons, etc., that come near its mouth, if it open its eyes (todten-blick); then one of its kindred will follow soon.
829. If a corpse change colour when the bell tolls, it longs for the earth.
830. Never call the dead by name, or you will cry them up.
831. If two children kiss that can't yet talk, one of them will die (Rääf 129. 132).
832. If two watchmen at two ends of the street blow together, an old woman in that street will die.
833. If a stone roll towards a wedding pair walking to church, it betokens evil.
834. If you read tombstones, you lose your memory (Nec sepulcra legens vereor, quod aiunt, me meoriam perdere. Cic. de Senect. 31).
835. Two that were in mourning the first time they met, must not fall in love.
836. A thief must throw some of what he steals into water.
837. At a fire, he whose shoes catch and begin to burn, is the incendiary.
838. If a farmer has several times had a foal or calf die, he buries it in the garden, planting a young willow in its mouth. When the tree grows up, it is never polled or lopped, but grows its own way, and guards the farm from similar cases in future (Stendal in Altmark. allg. anz. der Deut. 1811, no. 306; conf. Müllenh. no. 327).
839. (3) At weddings, beside the great cake, they make a bachelor's cake, which the girls pull to pieces; she that has the largest piece, will get a husband first.
840. A betrothed pair may not sit at the same table as the pair just married, nor even put their feet under it; else no end of mischief befalls one of the pairs.
841. In the wedding ride the driver may not turn the horses, nor rein them in; else the marriage would be childless.
842. At a christening the sponsors must not take hold of the wester-hemd (chrism-cloth) by the corners.
843. Those who have lost children before, don't take a baby out by the door to be christened, but pass it out through the window.
844. A woman in her six weeks shall not go into a strange house; if she does, she must first buy something at a strange place, lest she bring misfortune to the house.

Notes:
3. Nos. 839 to 864 are from Jul. Schmidt's Topogr. der pflege Reichenfels (in Voigtland), Leipz. 1827. pp. 113-126. [Back]