COURTING AND WEDDING SIGNS

Entries

• #364

  If your apron string becomes loosened, your true love is thinking of you.

  New York.
• #365

  If your apron drops off, you’ll lose your beau. The same is true if you lose your garter.

  Stevens Point, Wis.
• #366

  If you sink a bottle in water, it will weaken your love.

  Massachusetts.
• #367

  Step over the broom, and you will be an old maid.

• #368

  If a girl wet her apron in washing, it is a sign that she will have a drunken husband.

  Labrador, Scilly Cove, N. F., and New England.
• #369

  To hang clothes wrong side out is an antidote for a drunken husband.

  Maine.
• #370

  If a girl finds a cobweb in the door, it is a sign that her beau calls elsewhere.

  Northern Ohio.
• #371

  To find many cobwebs in the kitchen means that there is no courting there.

  Boston, Mass.
• #372

  When the collar slips around and the opening comes to the ear, your lover is thinking of you.

  Salem, Mass.
• #373

  If you button your dress up unevenly, it is a sign that your lover is thinking of you.

  Miramichi, N. B.
• #374

  If you begin to button your dress unevenly, you will be a widow.

  Central Maine.
• #375

  If you are cross when you are young, you will be an old maid.

  Alabama.
• #376

  If you fall up stairs, you will have a new beau.

  Winn, Me.
• #377

  Tumble up stairs and you’ll not get married within the year. (Hence old maids were formerly said to be careful how they went up stairs.)

  New England.
• #378

  Stumbling either up or down stairs means you’ll be married inside a year.

  Cape Breton.
• #379

  If you sit on a table, you will not be married that year.

  New England, New York, and Alabama.
• #380

  Dropping hairpins from your hair means that your beau is thinking of you.

  General in the United States.
• #381

  If a lady dons a gentleman’s hat, it is a sign that she wants a kiss.

• #382

  If your lips itch, it is a sign some one will kiss you.

  Boston, Mass.
• #383

  If the outside of your nose itches, some one out of town loves you, and if the inside of your nose, then you are loved by some one in town.

  Western Massachusetts.
• #384

  If a gentleman and lady are riding and are tipped out, they will be married.

  Nashua, N. H.
• #385

  Make a rhyme when talking, and you’ll see your true love before Saturday night.

  Massachusetts.
• #386

  Should your shoestring come unloosened,

  ’T is a sure sign and a true,
  At that very moment
  Your true love thinks of you.

  New York.
• #387

  If your shoe comes untied, your sweetheart is talking about you.

  Alabama.
• #388

  If you want to sneeze and can’t, it is a sign some one loves you, and doesn’t dare to tell it.

  Boston, Mass.
• #389

  If you can’t drink a cup of tea, you must be love-sick.

  Labrador.
• #390

  Stub your toe
  See your beau.

  Massachusetts and Maine.
• #391

  If four persons cross hands in shaking hands on taking leave, one will marry before the year is out.

  Prince Edward Island, Eastern Massachusetts, and New York.
• #392

  If hands are crossed at the table while passing a dish, a wedding will follow. The top hand belongs to the person who will be married.

  Pennsylvania.
• #393

  To have two teaspoons in a saucer signifies marriage in a year.

• #394

  If a gentleman stayed to dinner and by accident got two knives, two forks, or two spoons, at his plate, he would be married within a year, and there was no help for it.

  Connecticut.
• #395

  Knock over your chair on rising from the table, and you won’t get married that year.

  Peabody, Mass., New York, and Talladega, Ala.
• #396

  If a girl sew a button on the clothing of a marriageable man, she will marry him within the year.

  New England.
• #397

  If you have a dress with rings for a figure in it, it is a sign you will be married before it is worn out.

  New York.
• #398

  If you have hearts in a figure in a dress or in a shawl, you will be married before it is worn out.

  New York.
• #399

  If you have a new dress and there are roses in it, the person who owns the dress will be married before the dress is worn out.

  Salem, Mass.
• #400

  Pins in the front of a dress waist are a sign that the wearer will be an old maid.

  New Hampshire.
• #401

  If, in making a dress, the thread kinks badly, the person for whom it is made will either die or get married before the dress is worn out.

  Alabama.
• #402

  If you have a dress tried on, and any pin catches in the underclothing, every pin means that it is a year before you will be married; hence dressmakers are especially careful to pin the dress in such a way that it will slip off easily.

  Boston, Mass.
• #403

  If you have good success in building a fire, you will have a smart husband; if bad success, a lazy husband.

  St. John, N. B., and Ohio.
• #404

  If a lock of hair over the forehead (“widow’s lock”) be cut before marriage, the girl will be a widow.

  Labrador.
• #405

  Get a lady friend to knit you a yellow garter. She must ask a gentleman unknown to you to knit ten rows. You will meet and marry the gentleman within a year.

• #406

  The exchange of one yellow garter means a proposal in six months.

  Washington, D. C.
• #407

  If a girl wears a yellow garter (which has been given to her) every day for a year, or every day and night for six months, at the end of that time she will be married.

  Montreal, P. Q.
• #408

  If you burn a lover’s letter, he will never marry you.

  Central Maine.
• #409

  If, at a dinner, a single person is inadvertently placed between two married people (husband or wife), it means marriage for him or her within a year.

• #410

  If you pass between two men on the street, you’ll marry both of them sometime.

  Champaign, Ill.
• #411

  If you drop a knitting-needle, you won’t be married during the present year.

• #412

  If you break many needles in a garment, it will be worn at a wedding.

• #413

  If you draw blood from a prick of the needle while making a garment, it is a sign you will be kissed the first time you wear it.

  Boston, Mass.
• #414

  Should needles break while sewing on a new garment, it is a sign that the owner will be married before it is worn out.

  New York.
• #415

  When a young man goes to see a girl for the first time, and the signs of the zodiac are in the heart, they will one day marry.

  Harmony, Me.
• #416

  If you step on a cigar stub, you will marry the first man you meet.

  Salem, Mass.
• #417

  Two spoons in a cup is the sign of a wedding.

  Bathurst, N. B., and Wisconsin.
• #418

  If you get two spoons in your cup or saucer, you’ll marry a second husband or wife.

• #419

  If a couple out walking together stumble, it is a sign that they will be married.

  Labrador.
• #420

  Sit on the table,
  Married before you’re able.

  Mattawamkeag, Me.
• #421

  If a girl gets the last piece of bread on a plate at the table, she will have a handsome husband.

  Massachusetts.
• #422

  If all of three dishes at the table are eaten, all of the unmarried people at the table will be married within the year.

  Northern Massachusetts.
• #423

  “If the tea-kettle boils, you will boil your beaux away,” is an old saying.

  Salem, Mass.
• #424

  If you have a cup of tea handed to you, and there are little bits floating on top, they represent the number of husbands you will have—one, two, or three.

• #425

  A girl that takes her thimble to the table will be an old maid.

  Northern Ohio.
• #426

  Three in a row,
  Meet your beau.
  The one in the middle will have him.

  Massachusetts.
• #427

  Three lamps in a row, the one who sets down the third will be soon married.

  Massachusetts.
• #428

  Three lamps in a row foretell a wedding in the family.

  New York.
• #429

  To look into a tumbler when you are drinking is a sign that you will be an old maid. If you look over the side, you are a flirt.

  Massachusetts.
• #430

  To wash the hands under a pump denotes that you will be a widow.

  Chestertown, Md.