The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1892-12-29
NEW YEARS FOLKLORE.

.. u. Eeadle Writes of Some Old Tive
Indiana SnDerstitions.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our SayiOur's birth is celebrated
Tho bird Of dawning singeth all night long
And then they say no spirit walk abroad:
The nights are wholesome; then no planets
strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
80 haiowed and SO gracious is the time.
30 Shakespeare says, or makes Mar
ceilus say and HOratio agree with MIN,
but for some reason | 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 aud the new year
in" was TO see strange sights indeed.
Then the cows would fall ugon
their knees and low i'll Il strange.
prayerful way; the chickens would rise
on their perche5 and stretch their wings
as if in prayer; other animals would
show devotion after their manner, and
all nature would take on an appearance
thaf ip1inafaI fha Of ,,o,.,
life. If the potatoes in store had sprout-
ed, as they too often did in warm
cellar, the sprouts would often shoot out
sly inches In as many minutes, and if
the ground near the smokehouse was
bare, peculiar white plants would spring
up.
I have pulled shoots us long as my
arm" one good old lady told me, ''but
they never would keep. They jes' dried
mp and blew away before daylight"
All this and much more I steadfastly
believed, and why not? Hundreds of the
best negroes in Kentucky had testified
most positively 10 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 s'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
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 employmsnts. L saw
the s'egg men," few of them, once
when was about eight years old, but
have never been able to sec them since.
Philosophers may supply the explana-
ton. In those days, too, l 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 suugh was
theu sort of supplementary Christmas
there was less rioting and more quiet,
homely cheer. On Christmas the ten
dency was TO gather at the village or
country store to drink and sing, shoot at
a mark, wrestle and race; New Years
was the day for relatives and intimate
friends to gather and partake of boun-
tiful dinner. 1t was about 1850 that
watch night" began to be observed
with religious services, at least in our
neiohborhood. and the old superStitions
seemed TO disappear all at once. No
more praying cows or revereutial roost-
ers. no more sprouting plants or ''men in
the egg" and no doubt the young people
of that region would now hear with
amazement that any one, no matter how
IGNORANT, ever ''took stock in such
things" g. ID bEADLE-