Page:Book Of Halloween(1919).djvu/98

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78
THE BOOK OF HALLOWE'EN
 

into a glass of water. The number of divisions was the number sought. White of egg is held with water in the mouth, like the grains of oats in Ireland, while one takes a walk to hear mentioned the name of his future wife. Names are written on papers, and laid upon the chimney-piece. Fate guides the hand of a blindfolded man to the slip which bears his sweetheart's name.

A Hallowe'en mirror is made by the rays of the moon shining into a looking-glass. If a girl goes secretly into a room at midnight between October and November, sits down at the mirror, and cuts an apple into nine slices, holding each on the point of a knife before she eats it, she may see in the moonlit glass the image of her lover looking over her left shoulder, and asking for the last piece of apple.

The wetting of the sark-sleeve in a south-running burn where "three lairds' lands meet," and carrying it home to dry before the fire, was really a Scotch custom, but has already been described in Ireland.