THE GOLDEN FORTUNE-TELLER
CHARMS AND CEREMONIES.
To see a Future Husband.—On Midsummer night just at sunset, three, five, or seven young women are to go into a garden, in which there is no other person, and each gather a sprig of red sage; and then going into a room by themselves, set a stool in the middle of the room, and on it a clean bason full of rose-water, in which the sprig of sage are to be put; and tying a line across tho room, on one side of the stool, each woman is to hang on it a clean shift, turned the wrong side outwards; then all are to sit down in a row, on the opposite side of the stool, as far distant as the room will admit, not speaking the whole time, whatever they see, and in a few minutes after twelve, each one’s future husband will take her sprig out of the rose-water, and sprinkle her shift with it.
Another Way to see a future Spouse in a Dream. The party inquiring must lie in a different county from that in which she commonly resides, and on going to bed must knit the left garter about the right-leg stocking, letting the other garter and stocking alone; and as you rehearse the following verses, at every comma knit a knot.
This knot I knit, to know the thing I know not yet,
That I may see, the man that shall my husband be,
How he goes, and what he wears,
And what he does, all days and years.
Accordingly in a dream, he will appear with the insignia of his trade or profession.
To know if your present Sweetheart will marry you.—Let any unmarried woman take the blade of a shoulder of lamb, and borrowing a
