Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-01-07
NEW YEARS FOLKLORE.
j. II. BeadIe Writes of Some Old Tim
Indiana SuperstItIOns.

j. ii. Beadle Writes of Some Old Time
| Indiana SuperstItIons.
! Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
! Wherein our Saviour's birth Is celebrated,
| Tho bird Of dawning singeth all night long:
| And then they say no spirit can walk abroad
| The nights are wholesome; then no planets
| strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
50 hallowed and so gracious is the time
So Shakespeare says, or makes Mar
cellus say and Horatio agree with him,
! but for some reason l could never dis
cover, the traditions of the south and of
southern peoples generally have trans
ferred the larger share of these gracious
influences to New Years night.
The rare yankee" who penetrated to
our section of the lower Wabash valley
| in the forties and fifties was amazed at
our notions, and the New England critic
sometimes said that our parents had been
"Africanized" in their old homes in the
border south. He meant, suppose, that
the poor and middle class whites-the
early settlers of the Wabash region-had
| imbibed the superstitions Of the negroes;
and there must have been some truth in
it, for surely we had many beliefs that
no white race would have invented. "To
watch the old year out and the new year
in," was to see strange sights indeed.
Then the cows would fall upon
their knees and low in strange,
prayerful way; the chickens would rise
on their perches and stretch their wings
as if in prayer; other animals would
show devotion after their manner, and
Ill ,,,n,,II col
that indicated the beginning of new
life. If the potatoes in store had sprout-
ed, as they too often did in warm
cellar, the sprouts would often shoot out
sixinches in as many minutes, and il
the ground near the smokehouse was
bare, peculiar white plants would spring
up.
81 have pulled shoots as long as my
arm," one good old lady told me, "but
they never would keep. They jes' dried
up and blew away before daylight"
All this and much more l steadfastly
believed, and why not? Hundreds of the
best negroes in Kentucky had testified
most positively to having seen such
things, and though our own white folks
had never been so favored, they did not
contradict the old negroes and the old
white people who had seen them. One
sight, however, did see, and that was
the "world in an egg"
If the sun shone bright on New Years
day the trial was made by opening the
south door of the dwelling and setting
a glass half full of water on the floor in
the sunshine. Into this an egg was
broken, and as the contents slowly min
gled with the water the bright rays Of
the sun illumining the mass would
show in it men of various nations pursu-
ing their various employments. saw
the "egg men," a few of them, once
when was about eight years old, but
have never been able to see them since.
Philosophers may supply the explana-
ton. In those days, too, often saw
wonderful things in the clouds, in the
Goals of the wood fire and in the frost
upon the window-angels, fairies and
marvelously beautiful birds, lovely faces
and deep vistas of garden and woodland
but ! cannot see them now.
New Years in the west and south was
then sort of supplementary Christmas
there was less rioting and more quiet
homely cheer. On Christmas the ten.
dency was to gather at the village OIL
country store to drink and sing, shoot al
mark, wrestle and race; New Year!
was the day for relatives and intimat,
friends to gather and partake of boun
tiful dinner. 1t was about 1850 tina
S "watch night" began to be observed
G with religious services, at least in GU
5 peighborhood, and the old superstition
seemed to disappear all at once. N
more praying cows or reverential roost
ers, no more sprouting plants or ''men Il
the egg" and no doubt the young peopl
t Of that region would now hear wit
b amazement that any one, no matter hoy
p ignorant, ever "took stock in sue
+ things" j. H. BEADLE.