CUSTOMS

Entries

• #1402

  Halloween cabbages are pulled and thrown against the owner’s door as a reminder of his laziness.

  Southern Pennsylvania and Ohio.
• #1403

  Shelled corn is thrown at every one—the significance not known.

  Southern Pennsylvania.
• #1404

  If a man is insulted and means to be revenged, he will bare his arm and cut a cross in it with his knife, called a “vengeance mark.”

  Mountains of North Carolina.
• #1405

  If you wash your face in dew before sunrise on May Day, you will become very beautiful.

  Alabama.
• #1406

  Dry spots, where there is no dew, are called “fairy rings.”

  Salem, Mass.
• #1407

  Run round a fairy ring twice on Easter Sunday morning, and fairies will arise and follow you.

  Salem, Mass.
• #1408

  The looking-glass is often turned with the face to the wall, or taken out of the room during a thunder-storm, because “quick-silver is so bad to draw the lightning.”

  Bathurst, N. B.
• #1409

  You are said to “take the manners” if you take the last of any kind of food from a plate.

  New England.
• #1410

  “Manners dish” is the dish put on for show, and not expected to be eaten.

  Northern Ohio.
• #1411

  Homœopathic pills must be taken in odd numbers.

  New England.
• #1412

  When a meteor is seen, Catholics often say, “A soul is ascending into heaven.”

• #1413

  A present of a knife or any pointed instrument cuts friendship; always sell it for a penny.

• #1414

  A present of pins breaks friendship.

  General in the United States.
• #1415

  There was a superstition among old people who had never been much abroad, in the town where I was born (Stratham, N. H.), that if they were photographed they were likely to die soon after, and many rather objected on that account.

  Stratham, N. H.
• #1416

  After sneezing, it is customary to say, “God bless you.”

  General in the United States.
• #1417

  A bit of steel, such as a needle, protects one from witches.

  Brookline, Mass.
• #1418

  A thief may be detected by a key turning in the Bible to Psalm i. 18-21, when the name of the guilty person is mentioned.

  Labrador.