# Folk-Lore Record/Volume 1/Some West Sussex Superstitions Lingering in 1868/Chapter 1

WEST SUSSEX SUPERSTITIONS.
CHAPTER I.
PROGNOSTICS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
T is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious prejudices: they are sucked in, as it were, with our mother's milk; and, growing up with us at a time when they take the fastest hold and make the most lasting impressions, become so interwoven into our very constitutions, that the strongest good sense is required to disengage ourselves from them. No wonder, therefore, that the lower people retain them their whole lives through, since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the occasion. Such a preamble appears to be necessary before we enter on the superstitions of this district, lest we should be suspected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for this enlightened age."
These were the words of Gilbert White of Selborne, written in 1776; and, if such a preamble appeared necessary then, how much more needful may it be considered now, in speaking of the equally gross superstitions still lingering in a district not very far removed from Selborne. The rising generation are indeed gradually learning to despise this folk-lore of their fathers; and in referring to it they will generally add some expression indicative of their attitude towards it, e.g., "not that I believe in charms, or in good or bad signs, but I have heard my mother say a crow's cawing three times as it flew over the house was a sign of death;" or, "I know an old woman, who, it is said, can cure burns and scalds by saying a charm over them: but ​I dare say it is all fancy;" evidently wishing you to believe that in these times such things are only received by "the superstitious idle-headed eld." But in truth, though the folk of now-a-days may affect to laugh at the old lore, they have not risen above its influence. To expect them to make a frank confession of the fact, in "this enlightened age," is to demand too much of their moral courage; but the following record will prove that their condition has not been misrepresented, showing that in West Sussex alone there is a people whose life is leavened by the most startling superstitions, and whose most cherished worldly wisdom has been gained from "old wives' fables."
Inhabitants of the weald and wold of Sussex still put their faith in a great variety of good and bad signs.
(1) In speaking of the magpie, they confidently tell you that —
and (2) the perching of a magpie on the roof of a house is regarded as a good sign, a proof of that house being in no danger of falling.
(3) We speak figuratively of the one black sheep that is the cause of sorrow in a family; but in its reality it is regarded by the Sussex shepherd as an omen of good luck to his flock.
(4) If a strange dog or a strange black cat come to your house and remain domesticated there, it brings good fortune. So when a cat from a distance becomes restless, and tries to make her escape, put her into the cold oven, for it is said that the effect upon her will be that she will forget her former home as completely as if she had lapped of Lethe's water.
(5) It is considered lucky to see the new moon over your right shoulder.
(6) Should you cut your nails on a Monday morning without thinking of a fox's tail, you will have a present made to you.
(7) Babies' caps must be left off on a Sunday for the first time and no cold will be taken.
(8) It is lucky to put on a stocking wrong side out; but it is unlucky to turn it on your discovery of the mistake. ​(9) Good fortune will follow if you pick up a horse-shoe.
(10) If you were born on Christmas Day, you will neither be drowned nor hanged.
(11) It is lucky to be the first to open the house-door on this festival; and in my youth I was once persuaded by my nurse to get up with her before any other members of the family that we might divide this luck between us, she throwing open the door that led to the offices, while I admitted Christmas by the hall-door, saying, as I had been instructed by her, "Welcome, Old Father Christmas!"
(12) To kill the first snake you see in any year will give you power over your enemies for the rest of the twelvemonth, and (13) the skin of a snake hung up in a house is supposed to bring good luck.
(14) To find a swarm of bees in a hedge, or for a strange swarm to settle in your garden, is looked upon as a sign of extraordinary good fortune.
(15) If you catch a falling leaf, you will have twelve months of continued happiness.
(16) If you find nine peas in the first pod you gather, it bodes you good luck.
Our prognostics of misfortune are still more numerous.
(17) The popular belief is that one magpie seen on your left hand is a certain sign of coming woe.
(18) Perhaps it is the hope of averting by extreme civility the evil which the magpie is about to bring upon them that induces Sussex people of every class to take off their hats and bow to this bird whenever it suddenly appears on their left hand. Whenever I questioned my poorer neighbours about their evident dislike of it, they always answered that it was a bad bird, and knew more than it should do, and was always looking about and prying into other people's affairs.
(19) There is a general belief that its perching on any beast is a bad omen for the animal; and it has perhaps some truth in it: for before the farmer or the shepherd is aware of it, the magpie often smells out a lurking disease, and is known to attack and tear out the eyes of weakly sheep and lambs.
We have several superstitions connected with the cuckoo. She (every cuckoo being a female here, in Sussex) is a general favourite, ​and I have heard her return in early Spring announced by children singing,—
The scandal contained in the last line it would be useless to attempt to disprove.
(21) When you first hear the cuckoo in the Spring, if you have no money in your pocket, or do not turn it if you have, you will be poor for the remainder of the year.
(22) There is a superstitious feeling that will not allow birds' eggs to be brought into a house, though long strings of them may generally be seen in Spring hanging up in out-houses. It is thought that they bring bad luck. "As if," says Knapp, speaking of a similar dislike to them in the West of England (Journal of a Naturalist, p. 225, ed. 1838), "they were in some way offensive to the domestic deity of the hearth." (23) Another egg superstition is, that the bottom of the shell should be always broken through by you after you have eaten the contents, and I remember with what energy at our nurse's bidding we used to burst the bottom of egg-shells with spoons to disappoint the witches, who, we were told, would otherwise put out to sea in them.
To have one black sheep has been mentioned as an omen of good fortune ; but (24) to have two or three is accounted the reverse.
(25) Even the most favoured cat, if heard to sneeze, is instantly shut out of the house; for, should she stay to repeat the sneeze three times indoors, the whole family will have colds and coughs.
Many of our Sussex superstitions are probably of Saxon origin ; amongst which may be (26) the custom of bowing or curtseying to the new or Lady Moon, as she is styled, to deprecate bad luck. There is another kindred superstition (27), that the Queen of Night will dart malignant rays upon you, if, on the first day of her reappearance, you look up to her without money in your pocket. But if you are not fortunate enough to have any there, in order to avert her evil aspect, ​you must immediately turn head-over-heels! (28) It is considered unlucky to see the now moon through a window-pane, and I have known a maid -servant shut her eyes when closing the shutters lest she should unexpectedly see it through the glass. (29) Do not kill your pig until full moon, or the pork will be ruined.
(30) A child's nails must not be cut before it is a year old, or else it will be light-fingered; and (31) should you trim your own on a Sunday morning, you will come to grief before Saturday.
(32) You must not turn a feather-bed on a Sunday, or the person who sleeps on it will have fearful dreams for the rest of the week.
(33) If you sell bottles that have contained medicine, you will require them to be filled again for yourself.
(34) Beware, too, of singing before breakfast: if you sing before breakfast, you will cry before night. I have found this superstition prevalent amongst both gentle and simple; and I know a very highly educated lady who seems to place implicit faith in it.
(35) Those women who would avoid becoming mothers of an overwhelming progeny, must not allow any one to rock their cradles when they are empty:
"If you rock the cradle empty Then you shall have babies plenty."
A schoolmistress in the adjoining parish was always rating her scholars if they touched her cradle, and exclaiming, "There! leave that alone, can't ye? I have children enough already!"
(36) It is unlucky to carry a baby downstairs before it is carried up, and, if there are no stairs up which it can be carried, the nurse must mount upon a high chair with the baby in her arms.
(37) It is unlucky to divulge a child's intended name before its Baptism. (38) The water sprinkled on an infant's forehead at the font must on no account be wiped off; and (39) it must cry at the Christening, or ill luck will follow. The hold which this last superstition has, even upon educated people, is extraordinary. It is believed that when the child cries the evil spirit is in the act of quitting it; and I was lately present at a Christening in Sussex, when a lady of the party, who was grandmother of the child, whispered in a voice of anxiety, "The child never cried; why did not the nurse rouse it up?" ​After we had left the church she said to her, "Oh! Nurse, why did not you pinch baby?" And, when the baby's good behaviour was afterwards commented upon, she observed, with a very serious air, "I wish that he had cried."
(40) You must not collect hailstones. Old Mrs. Cooper says that it is manifest impiety, because if they are put into a wine-glass you will see that they always run through it, and leave a slop underneath.
(41) It is ominous of evil to spill salt; or (42) to lay your knife and fork across each other. These are two very wide -spread superstitions. The first of them has been handed down to us from the Romans. Gay, who attributes both of them to his old market-woman, was from the north of Devonshire :
(43) You must not give a knife or anything sharp-edged to one whom you love, or it will cut your love asunder. I once presented a servant with a pair of scissors, who at first seemed pleased, then coloured deeply, and producing a penny from her pocket begged me to take it, observing it was so unlucky to accept any sharp instrument without making some small return for it.
(44) Green is an unlucky colour. I have known several instances of mothers absolutely forbidding it in articles of dress, or in the furniture of their houses. (45) But to be dressed in green and white, according to the popular rhymes, must, in the eyes of a Sussex maiden, be tantamount to wearing the willow:
"Those dressed in blue. Have lovers true; In green and white, Forsaken quite."
(46) Never have your clothes mended on your back, or you will come to want.
(47) It is very unlucky to see a snake dead or alive upon the road.
(48) To put on the left shoe before the right is a sign of evil to come. ​(49) Let not Friday be your wedding-day, or you and your wife will lead a cat-and-dog life. (50) Begin not a piece of work on Friday or you will never finish it; (51) neither must you set off on a journey, (52) nor put out to sea on a Friday, or some misfortune will befall you. The superstitious dread of placing any dependence on this day is almost universal. A tradition, I have heard, that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit upon a Friday, assigns a very early origin to its unfortunate reputation.
(53) Bad luck always follows the killing of a house-cricket, or (54) the taking of a swallow's nest that is built under your eaves. (55) You will also bring trouble on your house, if you cut down the houseleek, or sungreen as it is called in Sussex, which has sprung up on your roof.
(56) It is the custom, in the cider districts of Sussex, to worsle (wassail) the apple-trees on New Year's Eve, and for several succeeding days, and it is considered unlucky to omit doing so. Farmers give a few pence to the worslers, who form a circle round the trees, and sing at the top of their voices—
and then all shout in chorus, with the exception of one boy, who blows a loud blast on a cow's horn. Last New Year's Eve the mother of a sick boy told me that her poor child was sadly put out because he was not able to go and worsle his grandfather's apple-trees; and it is quite certain that both mother and child expected a total failure of the apple crop in the grandfather's orchard to follow the omission.
(57) To dream of a cat is accounted unlucky—but of what is it not considered unlucky to dream ? (58) If your dearest friend ap- pears before you in your sleep, it bodes coming trouble to you or to ​him. (59) To dream about your teeth is a warning that sorrow of some kind is near at hand.
(60) The following extraordinary superstition was mentioned by a fanner's wife living near Arundel. She is in the habit of making every year a large quantity of blackberry jam, and, finding that less fruit than she required had been brought to her this autumn, she said to the charwoman, her assistant, "I wish you would send out some of your children to gather me three or four pints more." "Ma'am!" exclaimed the woman, "don't you know this is the 11th of October?" "Yes," was the answer, "Bless me, ma'am!" the response, "and you ask me to let my children go out black-berrying! Why, I thought everybody knew that the Devil went round on the 10th of October, and spat on all the blackberries, and that if any person were to eat one on the eleventh they or some belonging to them would die or fall into great trouble before the year was out. No, nothing should persuade me to let any child of mine go black-berrying on the 11th of October." (61) The watchfulness of the said Evil Spirit makes it dangerous to go out nutting on a Sunday, and worthy mothers may be heard warning their children against it by assuring them that, if they do so, the Devil will hold down the branches for them. We have a saying amongst us, "as black as the Devil's nutting-bag," which seems associated with this belief.
* ↑ The Natural History of Selborne, vol. i. p. 342, ed. 1813.
* ↑ See (3)