Horseshoes are nailed prongs up on the threshold or over the door. Holy bells are hung on the cows to scare away the witches, and they are guided to pasture by a goad which has been blessed. Shots are fired over the cornfield. If one wishes, he may hide in the corn and hear what will happen for a year.
Signs and omens on Walpurgis Night have more weight than at other times except on St. John's Day.
"On Walpurgis Night rain
Makes good crops of autumn grain,"
but rain on May Day is harmful to them. Lovers try omens on this eve, as they do in Scotland on Hallowe'en. If you sleep with one stocking on, you will find on May morning in the toe a hair the color of your sweet-heart's. Girls try to find out the temperament of their husbands-to-be by keeping a linen thread for three days near an image of the Madonna, and at midnight on May Eve pulling it apart, saying:
