Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1885-07-16
pays sacred % Nystic RI.es.

The day of all others sacred to mys-
tic rites was ever the eve Of St Agnes.
(Jan. 20.) when maidens tasted and
then watched for signs. A passage in +
the Office for st. Agnes's Day in the
Sarum Missal may have given rise TO
this custom: "H@c est virgo sapiens
guam Dominus cigilantens invent, "
and the Gospel is the Parable of the
Virgins Ben Jonson alludes to the
custom: M
ION sweet Saint Agness night
Please you with the promised sight
- Some OF husbands, some of lovers,
Which an empty dream discovers"
And character in ''Cupid's Whirligig",
(l616) says, II could find in my heart
to pray nine times to the moone and
fast three St Agnes's Ewes, so that l
might be sure to have him to my hus-.
band" Aubrey gives two receipts to
the ladies for that eve which may still
be useful. Take row Of pins and pull
out every ono one after another, say
ing paternoster and sticking pin in
your sleeve, and you will dream Of him
you shall marry. Again, ''you must
lie in another country. aud knit the
left garter about the right-legged
stocking, Qet the other garter and
stocking alone, and as you rehearse
these following verses ut every comma
knit knot:
This knot knit,
To know the thing, know not yet
That may see,
The man that shall my husband be,
How he goes. and what be- wears.
And what he does, all days and years.
AnaArdln0lV frnltn will
see him; ii q musician, with Lutte or
other instrument; if a scholar, with a
book or papers" and he adds little
encouragement to use this device in
the following anecdotes: "a gentle
woman that / knew confessed in my
hearing that she used this method and
dreamed of her husband whom she had
never seen. About two or three years
after, as she was on Sunday at church,
(at our Lady's Church in Sarum,) up
pops q young Oxonian in the pulpit
she cries out presently to her sister,,
This is the very face of the man that Il
saw in my dream. Sir William Soame'si
lady did the like. /" 1t is hardly need-I
full to remind readers of Keats Eve of
st. Agnes" and the story OF Madeline:j
"whose heart had brooded, ui that wintry|
day, J.
On love, and wing'd ST. Agncss sanity care
AS she had heard cid danes full many times
declare
Our ancestors made merry in a SINH
lar fashion on st. Valentines Day. So
Herrick, speaking of bride, says:
''She must no more u-,; aging,
Or by rosebutls dvinc
Who'll be her Valentine
Brand, who helps lis TO this quotation,
gives an amusing extract from the
CORnoisseur to the same ella {: Last
Friday was st. Valentines Day and the
night before l got five bay leaves, and
pinned four of them to the four corners
of my pillow, and the Iifln TO The MIDI
die; and then, if .lreaml 9, my sweet
heart, Betty said we Shout hc married
before the year was out. But TO make!
it more sure | boiled in egg hard, and
took out the yolk and iiilruit with salt,
and when / went to bed eat it, shell
and all, without speaking or drinking.
after it. We also wrote our lovers,
names upon bits Of paper. and rolled
them up in clay. and l.ut them into
water, and the first that rc,e up was to,
be our valentine. Woultsyou think itPi
MIR. Blossom was my man. lay abed
and shut my eyes all the morning till
he came to our house, fnr would not
have seen another man before him for
all the world. "-Beigrarpi.