The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-19
Friday, That Awful Day of III OmenS, That Fri9htenS Most \
 Of Us Blue in the Face
By DOLLY pALRY mPLE
TRIDAY, for many of us, has the most frightful significance; es-

LRIDAY, for many of us has the most frightful significance; es-
 pecially those of us who are superstitious. We wouldn't begin task, a journey, or anything else on Friday for worlds
 | Friday, of which some one has said, the day of the week when super stitious negroes believe all jaybirds are engaged in carrying firewood for the devilo-holds countless terrors for us.
 | But where could the negroes have gotten that idea, I wonder? | And where, also, did they get the idea that red pepper is a charm against | evil influences?
 l Mary Johnson, in her very readable novel, "Cease Firing" refers to this latter superstition; she describes a wagon journey during the civil war 1 times through battle-rent region, and | says:
 The wagon went heavily on, the wind rushed on either side like goblin horsemen. At intervals during the morning the negro boy was moved to ! in de graveyard. Dey tel 'erbout hit in de kitchen las night Dey been to CT voodoo woman an she say all de ghosts loose high en low, out CT every graveyard, en she aint got no red pepper what kin lay them. She say time past she had enough, but she aint got eronugh now
 What are they doing-the ghostso' "Dey're linin' up in long lines like de poplars, en wavin' dere arms en sayin': 'De ends come! De ends comet" End den dey rises from de ground en goes erroun de plantation in CT ring 'twel you almos' think hits jus CT ring ob mist. But dey keep er-sayin': "De ends come! De ends come!" Yess'm day're all out, end dere aint nothing what kin lay them"
 Mary Austin, once a Russian subject, in her book, "The Promised Land," re- fers to the same belief in her child hood in Russian of the potency of pep per; she speaks of two children going unattended to school or upon some er- rand, and says:
 But no harm ever came to the little
  tie pepper and salt into the corners of their pockets to ward off the evil eyer" Here you see was the same super jstition implicitly believed by orthodox Jews dwelling in Polotak, Russia alien peoples dwelling far apart and widely separated geographically in race, yet both pinning their faith to pepper as an antidote to witchcraft or malign purposes.
 At Christmas time there is a super stition of the Russian Jews that is worth mentioning, when the custom is recalled in the Tsars kingdom; it was recently pictured in a drawing by an artist named Strimpl and reproduced in popular magazine; the sketch was entitled, Consulting the Oracle; a Russian Christmas Eve Custom"
 It revealed richly laid dinner table from which viands had been removed and about which sat gay, expectant, bevy or youths and maidens; before each persons was a small golden bowl and in the center of the table, usurp- ing the place of the conventional cen- terp1ece stood a lordly chanticler; a foot note explained that in Russia it is a custom on Christmas to have a o'clock placed at dinner on the dining table at the conclusion of the repast; before each of the marriageable young people present, is placed bowl of grain; that bowl from which the cock first pecks, will be the first to marry.
 Since the Russians are an agricul- tural people, the barnyard oracle is a natural one, and the custom is doubt less native one to the people rather than borrowed from another race.