Superstitions about Deformity, Moles, &c.—Tingling of the Ear—The Nose—The Eye—The Teeth—The Hair—The Hand—Dead Man\'s Hand—The Feet.

In the preceding pages we have given a brief survey of that widespread folk-lore with which the life of man has been invested, stage by stage, from the cradle to the grave. In like manner the popular imagination has, in most countries from the earliest times,[66] woven round the human body a thick network of superstitions, many of which, while of the nature of omens, are supposed to indicate certain facts, such as the person\'s character, the events connected with his life, and to give that insight into his future career which eager curiosity would strive to ascertain. Thus, according to an old prejudice, which is not quite extinct, those who are defective or deformed are marked by nature as prone to mischief, in accordance with which notion Shakespeare makes Margaret, speaking of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in King Richard III. (Act i., sc. 3), say:—
"Thou elvish-mark\'d, abortive, rotting hog Thou that was seal\'d in thy nativity The slave of nature and the son of hell."

Moles, too, have generally been thought to denote good or ill-luck from their position on the body. Thus one on the throat is a sign of luck, but one on the left side of the forehead near the hair is just the reverse. Again, a mole on either the chin, ear, or neck is an indication of riches, but one on the breast signifies poverty. Indeed, if we are to believe the "Greenwich Fortune-teller," a popular chap-book in former years, omens to be drawn from moles are almost unlimited.

Referring, however, more especially to the folk-lore associated with the different parts of the human body, this, as we have already stated, is very extensive, being in many cases the legacy bequeathed to us by our ancestors. Commencing, then, with the ear, there is a well-known superstition that a tingling of the right one is lucky, denoting that a friend is speaking[67] well of one; a tingling of the left implying the opposite. This notion differs according to the locality, as in some places it is the tingling of the left ear which denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear the enemy. Shakespeare, in Much Ado about Nothing (Act iii., sc. 1), makes Beatrice say to Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her, "What fire is in mine ears?" in allusion, it is generally supposed, to this popular fancy, which is old as the time of Pliny, who says, "When our ears tingle some one is talking of us in our absence." Sir Thomas Browne also ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian angels, who touch the right or left ear according as the conversation is favourable or not to the person. The Scotch peasantry have an omen called the "death-bell"—a tingling in the ears which is believed to announce some friend\'s death. Hogg alludes to this superstition in his "Mountain Bard":—
"O lady, \'tis dark, an\' I heard the death-bell, An\' I darena gae yonder for gowd nor fee,"

and gives also an amusing anecdote illustrative of it:—"Our two servant-girls agreed to go on an errand of their own, one night after supper, to a considerable distance, from which I strove to persuade them, but could not prevail; so, after going to the apartment where I slept, I took a drinking-glass, and coming close to the back of the door made two or three sweeps round the lip of the glass with my finger, which caused a loud shrill sound, and then overheard the following dialogue:—

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"B. \'Ah, mercy! the dead-bell went through my head just now with such a knell as I never heard.\'

"I. \'I heard it too.\'

"B. \'Did you indeed? That is remarkable. I never knew of two hearing it at the same time before.\'

"I. \'We will not go to Midgehope to-night.\'

"B. \'I would not go for all the world! I shall warrant it is my poor brother Wat. Who knows what these wild Irish may have done to him?\'"

The itching of the nose, like that of the ears, is not without its signification, denoting that a stranger will certainly appear before many hours have passed by, in allusion to which Dekker, in his "Honest Whore," says:—"We shall ha\' guests to-day; my nose itcheth so." In the north of England, however, if the nose itches it is reckoned a sign that the person will either be crossed, vexed, or kissed by a fool; whereas an old writer tells us that "when a man\'s nose itcheth it is a signe he shall drink wine." Many omens, too, are gathered from bleeding of the nose. Thus Grose says, "One drop of blood from the nose commonly foretells death or a very severe fit of sickness; three drops are still more ominous;" and according to another notion one drop from the left nostril is a sign of good luck, and vice versa. Bleeding of the nose seems also to have been regarded as a sign of love, if we may judge from a passage in Boulster\'s "Lectures," published early in the seventeenth century:—"\'Did my nose ever bleed when I was in your company?\' and, poor wretch, just as[69] she spake this, to show her true heart, her nose fell a-bleeding." Again, that bleeding of the nose was looked upon as ominous in days gone by, we may gather from Launcelot\'s exclamation in the Merchant of Venice (Act ii., sc. 5), "It was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o\'clock"—a superstition to which many of our old writers refer. Among further superstitions connected with the nose we may mention one in Cornwall, known as "the blue vein," an illustration of which occurs in Mr. Hunt\'s "Popular Romances of the West of England," who relates the following little anecdote:—"A fond mother was paying more than ordinary attention to a fine healthy-looking child, a boy about three years old. The poor woman\'s breast was heaving with emotion, and she struggled to repress her sighs. Upon inquiring if anything was really wrong, she said, \'The old lady of the house had just told her that the child could not live long because he had a blue vein across his nose.\'" This piece of folk-lore, which caused the anxious mother such distress, is not confined to the West of England, but crops up here and there throughout the country. While speaking of the nose, we may just note that it is the subject of various proverbs. Thus "to put the nose out of joint" means to supplant one in another\'s favour, and the popular one of "paying through the nose," implying extortion, may, it has been suggested, have originated in a poll-tax levied by Odin, which was called in Sweden a nose-tax, and was a penny per nose or poll. Once more, we have the term "nose of[70] wax" applied to a person who is very accommodating, and one may occasionally hear the phrase "wipe the nose" used in the sense of affront.

Leaving the nose, however, we find similar odd fancies attached to the eye. In many places we are told that "it\'s a good thing to have meeting eyebrows, as such a person will never know trouble," although, curious to say, on the Continent quite a different significance is attributed to this peculiarity. In Greece, for instance, it is held as an omen that the man is a vampire, and in Denmark and Germany it is said to indicate that he is a werewolf. In China, also, there is a proverb that "people whose eyebrows meet can never expect to attain to the dignity of a minister of state." There can be no doubt that, according to the general idea, meeting eyebrows are not considered lucky:—
"Trust not the man whose eyebrows meet, For in his heart you\'ll find deceit."

Thus, Charles Kingsley, in "Two Years Ago," speaks of this idea in the following passage:—"Tom began carefully scrutinising Mrs. Harvey\'s face. It had been very handsome. It was still very clever, but the eyebrows clashed together downwards above her nose, and rising higher at the outward corners, indicated, as surely as the restless down-drop eye, a character self-conscious, furtive, capable of great inconsistencies, possibly of great deceit."

Again, the itching of the right eye is considered a lucky omen, an idea that is very old, and may be traced as far back as the time of Theocritus, who says:—

"My right eye itches now, and I shall see my love."

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According to the antiquary Grose, however, who collected together so many of the superstitions prevalent in his day, "When the right eye itches, the party affected will shortly cry; if the left, they will laugh." The power of fascination has generally been considered to be a peculiar quality of the eye, a notion by no means obsolete, and numerous charms have been resorted to for counteracting its influence. In our chapter on "Birth and Infancy" we have already spoken of the danger to which young children are said to be subject from the malevolent power of some evil eye, and of the pernicious effects resulting from it. Shakespeare gives several references to it, one of which occurs in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Act v., sc. 5), where Pistol says of Falstaff:—

"Vile worm, thou wast o\'erlook\'d even in thy birth."

And once more, in Titus Andronicus (Act ii., sc. 1), Aaron speaks of Tamora as
"——fetter\'d in amorous chains— And faster bound to Aaron\'s charming eyes, Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus."

It was not very long ago that a curious case of this superstition was brought before the guardians of the Shaftesbury union, in which an applicant for relief stated his inability to work because he had been "overlooked" by his sister-in-law. Although his wife had resorted for help to a wise-woman, yet she was unable to remove the spell under which he lay, and thus the unfortunate man, incapable of labour, applied for relief, which he did not obtain.

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In the next place, some of the superstitions connected with the teeth are quaint, and afford opportunities to the credulous for drawing omens of various kinds. Thus, to dream about teeth is held to be a warning that sorrow of some kind is at hand; and it is even unluckier still to dream of one\'s teeth falling out. It is also frequently the custom, for the sake of luck, to throw a tooth when extracted into the fire, a practice which, as we have already seen, is frequently most scrupulously kept up in the case of young children, to make sure of the remainder of their teeth coming properly. Furthermore, to have teeth wide apart is a sign of prosperity, and is said to indicate one\'s future happiness in life. As an instance of this piece of folk-lore we may quote the following, narrated by a correspondent in Notes and Queries:—"A young lady the other day, in reply to an observation of mine, \'What a lucky girl you are!\' replied, \'So they used to say I should be when at school.\' \'Why?\' \'Because my teeth were set so far apart; it was a sure sign I should be lucky and travel.\'" Trivial as many of these superstitions may seem, yet they are interesting, inasmuch as they show how minutely the imagination has at different times surrounded the human body with countless items of odd notions, some of which in all probability originated from practical experience, while others have been the result of a thousand circumstances, to ascertain the history of which would be a matter of long and elaborate research.

Passing on to the hair, there is a popular notion that[73] sudden fright or violent distress will, to use Sir Walter Scott\'s words, "blanch at once the hair." Thus, in Shakespeare\'s 1 Henry IV. (Act ii., sc. 4), Falstaff, in his speech to Prince Henry, says:—

"Thy father\'s beard is turned white with the news."

Although this has been styled "a whimsical notion," yet in its support various instances of its occurrence have been from time to time recorded. The hair of Ludwig of Bavaria, for example, it is said, became almost suddenly white as snow on his learning the innocence of his wife, whom he had caused to be put to death on a suspicion of infidelity; and the same thing, we are told, happened to Charles I. in a single night, when he attempted to escape from Carisbrooke Castle. A similar story is told of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, when her flight from France was checked at Varennes. According to another notion, excessive fear has occasionally caused the hair to stand on end, a belief which Shakespeare has recorded. In Hamlet (Act iii., sc. 4), in that famous passage where the Queen is at a loss to understand her son\'s mysterious conduct and strange appearance, during his conversation with the ghost which is hidden to her eyes, she says:—
"And, as the sleeping soldiers in th\' alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end."

Once more, too, in that graphic scene in the Tempest (Act i., sc. 2), where Ariel describes the shipwreck, he says:—

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"All but mariners Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, Then all afire with me; the king\'s son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring—then like reeds, not hair— Was the first man that leap\'d."

The sudden loss of hair is considered unlucky, being said to prognosticate the loss of children, health, or property; whereas many consider it imprudent to throw it away, or to leave the smallest scrap lying about. One reason assigned for this notion is that if hair is left about, birds might build their nests with it, a fatal thing for the person from whose head it has fallen. Thus, should a magpie use it for any such purpose—by no means an unlikely circumstance—the person\'s death will be sure to happen "within a year and a day." Some say, again, that hair should never be burnt, but only buried, a superstition founded on a tradition that at the resurrection its owner will come in search of it. On the other hand, it is customary with some persons to throw a piece of their hair into the fire, drawing various omens from the way it burns. Should it gradually smoulder away, it is an omen of death; but its burning brightly is a sign of longevity, and the brighter the flame the longer the life. In Devonshire, too, if the hair grows down on the forehead and retreats up the head above the temples, it is considered an indication that the person will have a long life. There is a very prevalent idea that persons who have much hair or down on their arms are, to quote the common expression, "born to be rich," although the[75] exception, in this as in many other similar cases, rather proves the rule; but abundance of hair on the head has been supposed to denote a lack of brains, from whence arose an odd proverb, "Bush natural, more hair than wit." Once more, Judas is said to have had red hair, and hence, from time immemorial, there has been a strong antipathy to it. Shakespeare, in As You Like It (Act iii., sc. 4), alludes to this belief, when he makes Rosalind say of Orlando:—

"His very hair is of the dissembling colour."

To which Celia replies:—

"Something browner than Judas\'s."

It has been conjectured, however, that the odium attached to red hair took its origin in this country from the aversion felt to the red-haired Danes. One reason, perhaps, more than another why this dislike to it arose, originated in the circumstance that the colour was thought ugly and unfashionable, and the antipathy to it, therefore, would naturally be increased by this opinion. Thus, in course of time, a red beard was also held in contempt, and was regarded as an infallible token of a vile disposition. Yellow hair, too, was formerly esteemed a deformity, and in ancient tapestries both Cain and Judas are represented with yellow beards, in allusion to which, in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Act i., sc. 4), Simple, when interrogated, says of his master, "He hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard—a Cain-coloured beard." While alluding to beards, we may note that in former years they gave rise to various customs,[76] many of which, however, have long ago fallen into disuse. Thus, dyeing beards was a common practice, and our readers may recollect how Bottom, in A Midsummer Night\'s Dream (Act i., sc. 2), is perplexed as to what beard he should wear in performing his part before the Duke. He says, "I will discharge it either in your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow." It was evidently quite as much the habit for gentlemen to dye their beards in Shakespeare\'s day as it is said to be for ladies to dye their locks now-a-days. When beards, too, were the fashion, to mutilate or cut off one was considered an irreparable outrage.

Pursuing our subject, we find that the cheek is not without its quota of folk-lore; for, like the ear, nose, and eye, it is considered ominous when one\'s cheek itches. According to Grose, "If the right cheek burns, some one is speaking to the person\'s advantage; if the left, to their disadvantage." One may still occasionally hear the following charm uttered by a person whose cheek suddenly burns:—
"Right cheek! left cheek! why do you burn? Cursed be she that doth me any harm; If she be a maid, let her be staid; If she be a widow, long let her mourn; But if it be my own true love—burn, cheek, burn."

Again, the hand has been honoured with a very extensive folk-lore, and the following extract from an old writer shows that nearly every peculiarity of the[77] hand has been made emblematical of some personal trait of character. Thus, we are told:—"A great thick hand signifies one not only strong, but stout; a little slender hand, one not only weak, but timorous; a long hand and long fingers betoken a man not only apt for mechanical artifice, but liberally ingenious. Those short, on the contrary, note a fool, and fit for nothing; a hard brawny hand signifies one dull and rude; a soft hand, one witty, but effeminate; a hairy hand, one luxurious. Long joints signify generosity; yet, if they be thick withal, one not so ingenious. The often clapping and folding of the hands note covetousness; and their much moving in speech, loquacity. Short and fat fingers mark a man out as intemperate and silly; but long and lean, as witty. If his fingers crook upward, that shows him liberal; if downward, niggardly. Long nails and crooked signify one to be brutish, ravenous, and unchaste; very short nails, pale and sharp, show him subtle and beguiling." Among other omens, we are told that the itching of the right hand signifies that it will shortly receive money, whereas if the left hand be the one to itch, it is a sign that money will before very many days have to be paid away. In Suffolk the peasants have the following rhyme on the subject:—
"If your hand itches, You\'re going to take riches; Rub it on wood, Sure to come good; Rub it on iron, Sure to come flying; [78] Rub it on brass, Sure to come to pass; Rub it on steel, Sure to come a deal; Rub it on tin, Sure to come agin."

A moist hand is said to denote an amorous constitution, and in 2 Henry IV. (Act i., sc. 2), the Lord Chief Justice enumerates a dry hand among the characteristics of age and debility.

Palmistry, or divination by means of the hands, a species of fortune-telling still much practised, we have already described in another chapter. A superstition, however, which we must not omit to mention, is the practice of rubbing with a dead hand for the purpose of taking away disease, instances of which, even now-a-days, are of occasional occurrence. Mr. Henderson mentions a case that happened about the year 1853. The wife of a pitman at Castle Eden Colliery, who was suffering from a wen in the neck, went alone, according to advice given her by a "wise woman," and lay all night in the out-house, with the hand of a corpse on her wen. She had been assured that the hand of a suicide was an infallible cure. The shock, at any rate, to her nervous system from that terrible night was so great that she did not rally for some months, and eventually she died from the wen. As a further specimen of this incredible superstition, we may quote the following case, which happened some years ago in an Eastern county. A little girl of about eight years of age had from birth been troubled with scrofulous disease, and had been[79] reared with great difficulty. Her friends consulted the "wise man" of the neighbourhood, who told the mother that if she took the girl and rubbed her naked body all over with the hand of a dead man she would be cured. The experiment was tried, and the poor little girl was nearly killed with fright, and, of course, made no progress whatever towards health.

Many of our readers are, no doubt, acquainted with the famous "dead man\'s hand," which was formerly kept at Bryn Hall, in Lancashire. It is said to have been the hand of Father Arrowsmith, a priest who, according to some accounts, was put to death for his religion in the time of William III. Preserved with great care in a white silken bag, this hand was resorted to by many diseased persons, and wonderful cures are reported to have been effected by this saintly relic. Thus, we are told of a woman who, afflicted with the small-pox, had this dead hand in bed with her every night for six weeks; and of a poor lad who was rubbed with it for the cure of scrofulous sores. It is, indeed, generally supposed that practices of this kind are rare and of exceptional occurrence, but they are far more common than might be imagined, although not recorded in newspapers. This is, however, in a great measure owing to the fact that those who believe in and have recourse to such rites observe secresy, for fear of meeting with ridicule from others.

The nails, also, as we have mentioned in our chapter on Childhood, have their folk-lore, the little specks which are seen on them being regarded as ominous. Many have their particular days for cutting[80] the nails. Of the numerous rhymes on the subject, we may quote the following as a specimen, from which it will be seen that every day has its peculiar virtue:—
"Cut them on Monday, you cut them for health; Cut them on Tuesday, you cut them for wealth; Cut them on Wednesday, you cut them for news; Cut them on Thursday, a new pair of shoes; Cut them on Friday, you cut them for sorrow; Cut them on Saturday, see your true love to-morrow; Cut them on Sunday, the devil will be with you all the week."

This old rhyming-saw differs in various localities, although in the main points it is the same; as by general consent both Friday and Sunday are regarded as most inauspicious days for cutting both the nails and hair.

Once more, to sit cross-legged is said to produce good fortune; and occasionally at a card-table one may find some superstitiously-inclined person sitting in this attitude with a view of securing good luck. Sir Thomas Browne, on the contrary, tells us that in days gone to "sit cross-legged, or with the fingers pectinated" or shut together, was accounted a sign of bad luck: a superstition alluded to by Pliny. Referring to the feet, we cannot do more than just allude to two or three items of folk-lore with which they are connected. Thus, a flat-footed person is generally considered to have a bad temper, a notion indeed which daily experience often proves to be incorrect. The itching of the foot has been supposed to indicate that its owner will shortly undertake[81] a strange journey; while that unpleasant sensation popularly styled "the foot going to sleep," is often charmed away by crossing the foot with saliva. When the division between the toes is incomplete, and they are partially joined, they are called "twin toes," and are said to bring good luck. This section of our "Domestic Folk-lore" might have been prolonged to an almost indefinite extent had space permitted, but as the preceding pages amply bear witness to the prevalence of such ideas, we will proceed to discuss another, and, it is to be hoped, not less interesting class of superstitions.