The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1893-10-27
HALL0W ZEN CHARMS.
OLD SUPERsTITIoNs BY THE AID Oh
WHICH A MAID MAY DISCOVER WHOM
SHE WILL WE'D.

onE WILL well.
Many and strange are the rites and
supersttions that cling to Halloween.
Here are some of them.
If you are brave enough to tempt
the powers Of darkness, supp Losed to
be abroad on the last night of Octo.
Der, walk three times around a church
at midnight strewing hempseed, and
repeating:
lIempsced | SOW,
1empsecd | strow,
lie that is my true love
Come after me and NOV.
On the third round your future hus
band will appear behind you with a
scythe.
A favorite but ghastly trick in the
old countries is the throwing of ball
Of yarn into the we'll. Begin to wind
it up and say:
| wind, wind,
My true love you to find.
With the end of the yarn he will
rise, seated in his coffin.
Comb your hair before the parlor
mirror, at the same time eating an ap-
pie, and he will look over your shoul-
der in the glass as the clock strikes
I2.
Leave soap, towels, brush and ra-
zor on the bureau, lie awake and
watch, and at IL o'clock he will enter,
shave himself, and retire. If he fails
to come you are doomed to be an old
maid.
If there happens to be a new moon
on Halloween, 60 out to the gate
alone, and repeat the couplet
New moon, true moon reveal unto Inc.
This night who my husband is to be.
He will appear before you. 1t is
recounted, that lass who tried this
was whipped up and borne away by a
horseman in black cloak.
Less tragic was the experience of
the girl who put pan of ashes at her
bedside, expecting to see the name of
her future husband written in it next
morning. During the night her broth
er stole s'yly in, and this is what she
found:
Trying tricks is but a notion,
Death and hell shall be thy portion.
If you would bring the absent love
to your side, make little rag doll and
name it with his name. Wish that he
will have neither rest nor peace until
he comes, and bury it in hot Goals and
ashes on the hearth, where it will
shoulder slowly. By the time it has
burned away he will arrive. This
seems to have originated from the
melting of the wax image of an enemy
before the fire, an old Scottish super
stition embalmed in Rossetti's poem,
"Sister Helen
Eat thimbleful Of salt, 60 to bed
backward, and in silence, and the man
you are distined to wed will bring you
water in your dreams. If in tin cup,
you will be very poor (; if glass, com
fortably well OF. but if you quench
your thirst from silver, you will be
wealth.
In Germany, the fraulein goes into
the garden backward at midnight, and
pulls cabbage. If earth adheres to
the roots, she will marry rich.
More pleasing, however, are the
tricks that can be tried in gay COM
pany, such as the naming and burning
of nuts, as having been blindfolded, to
dip your hand into one of these bowls
set before you, one empty, one filled
with clean and one with dirty water.
The clean signifies that you will wed a
man never married before, the dirty a
widower; and the empty one means
you will not marry at all. 1t is also
very amusing to drop melted lead in
to bowl of cold water, when it will
assume fantastic shapes, supposed to
indicate the calling of the future part.
ner of your joys and sorrows.