New England
32 entries associated with this region.
Entries
- #20
To be a bright baby, it must go up before it is carried down, and it must be bumped to the attic roof for luck.
New England. - #142
If the thumb sticks up in the closed fist, you are either capable or honest, probably the latter, as thieves are said to double theirs in.
New England. - #174
Kiss the baby when nine days old, and the first gentleman you kiss afterward will be your future husband.
New England. - #260
Put a pea-pod with nine peas over the door. The first one who comes under it you will marry.
New England. - #266
If a piece of wedding-cake is passed through a ring and put in the left stocking, then placed under the pillow and slept on three nights running, you will dream of your lover, or he or she will come to you.
New England. - #328
Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride.
New England. - #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. - #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. - #379
If you sit on a table, you will not be married that year.
New England, New York, and Alabama. - #396
If a girl sew a button on the clothing of a marriageable man, she will marry him within the year.
New England. - #439
Put a loose eyelash on the back of your hand. It signifies a letter. Wish from whom the letter may come, carry it three times around your head, then throw it over your shoulder, and you will get your wish.
New England. - #491
If you dream of a bird in a cage you will have trouble with your beau.
New England. - #649
If you spill salt, you will have a whipping.
New England and Canada. - #659
To avert ill luck or disappointment that will come if a person comes back to a house for something forgotten, he must sit down a minute.
General in New England. - #725
If the left hand itches and you rub it on wood, you’ll receive money before the end of the week.
Rub it on wood
To make it good.Very common in New Brunswick and New England. - #743
Company on Sunday means company all the week.
New England. - #879
To touch the jelly-fish will cause warts.
Halifax, N. S., and parts of Eastern New England. - #880
Touching the excrescences that sometimes appear on trees will cause warts on the hand of the person who touches them.
New England. - #907
If you rub your warts with a pebble, wrap the pebble in paper, and throw it away; the person who picks it up will have them come to him. Or, should you label the paper with some one’s name and throw it away, the warts will go to the person whose name you have written.
New England. - #943
The sun shines some part of every Saturday in the year but one.
New England. - #963
From twelve till two
Tells what the day will do.New England. - #991
Should the new moon lie on its back, it is a sign it will be dry that month, for the moon would hold water. The Indian says the hunter can hang his powder-horn upon it. But should the new moon stand vertically, it will be a wet month, for the moon will not hold water, and the powder-horn will slip off. Very many, however, reverse these signs.
New England, New York, and Ohio. - #1092
Bow to the new moon seven times the first time you see it, and you’ll get a present, or wish and you will get your wish.
New England. - #1118
Grass cut when the moon is waning will not “spend well.”
New England. - #1119
If cut when it is waxing, the hay weighs and spends well.
New England. - #1184
Death takes place at ebb tide.
New England Coast. - #1236
To break the spell of thirteen at table, all should rise together, otherwise the first up (or, as some say, the last down) dies inside a twelvemonth.
New England. - #1241
In old colonial burying-grounds—in Plymouth, Concord, Cambridge, and Rutland, Mass.—the graves are so placed that the headstones face west, that is, the body lies with the feet toward the east.
Perhaps general in New England. - #1366
A scratch on the hand denotes a ride; the length of the scratch indicates the length of the ride.
New England. - #1391
If a white petticoat falls below your dress, it is a sign that your father loves you better than your mother.
New England. - #1409
You are said to “take the manners” if you take the last of any kind of food from a plate.
New England. - #1411
Homœopathic pills must be taken in odd numbers.
New England.
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