Bible and Key—Dipping—Sieve and Shears—Crowing of the Cock—Spatulamancia—Palmistry and Onymancy—Look-divination—Astrology—Cards—Casting Lot—Tea-stalks.

The practice of divination, or foretelling future events, has existed amongst most nations in all ages; and, although not so popular as in days gone by, yet it still retains its hold on the popular mind. Many of the methods for diving into futurity are extremely[135] curious, and instances of them occasionally find their way into the papers. In a previous chapter we have already shown how numerous are the divinations practised in love affairs, and what an importance is attached to them by the maiden bent on ascertaining her lot in the marriage state. There are, however, many other ends to which this species of superstition is employed, one being the detection of guilt. Thus, a common method is by the "Bible and the Key," which is resorted to more or less by the humbler classes from one end of the United Kingdom to the other, the mode of procedure being as follows:—The key is placed on a certain chapter, and the Sacred Volume closed and fastened tightly. The Bible and the key are then suspended to a nail, the accused person\'s name is repeated three times by one of those present, while another recites these words:—
"If it turns to thee thou art the thief, And we all are free."

This incantation being concluded, should the key be found to have turned, it is unanimously agreed that the accused is the guilty one. Not very long ago, a lady residing at Ludlow having lost a sheet made use of this test. Armed with a copy of the Sacred Book, she perambulated the neighbourhood, placing the key in the volume near several houses. At last, on arriving before a certain door, it was alleged that the key with much alacrity began, of its own accord, to turn; whereupon the owner of the lost sheet uttered the suspected person\'s name as loudly as she could;[136] after which, it is said, the Bible turned completely round and fell on the ground. Again, a year or two ago, at Southampton, a boy working on a collier was charged with theft, the only evidence against him being such as was afforded by the ordeal of the Bible and key. It seems that the mate and some others swung a Bible attached to a key with a piece of yarn, the key being placed on the first chapter of Ruth. While the Bible was turning, the names of several persons suspected were called over, but on mention of the prisoner\'s the book fell on the ground. The bench, of course, discharged the prisoner.

Closely akin to this method of divination is the well-known medi?val diversion known as the Sortes Virgilian?, which consisted in opening a volume of Virgil\'s works, and forecasting the future from some word or passage selected at random. The Sacred Book is now the modern substitute, and there is no doubt but that the superstition is thousands of years older than even the Virgil of the Augustan age. This custom, practised in many parts of England on New Year\'s Day, is called "Dipping." A Bible is laid on the table at breakfast-time, and those who wish to consult it open its pages at random; it being supposed that the events of the ensuing year will be in some way foreshown by the contents of the chapter contained in the two open pages. Sometimes the anxious inquirer will take the Bible to bed with him on New Year\'s Eve, and on awaking after twelve o\'clock, open it in the dark, mark a verse with his thumb, turn down a corner of the page, and replace[137] the book under the pillow. That verse is said to be a prophecy of the good or bad luck that will befall him during the coming year. This as a mode of divination is extensively practised. Another form of this superstition consists in foretelling the events in a man\'s life from the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs, the thirty-one verses of this chapter being supposed to have a mystical reference to the corresponding days of the month. Thus, it is predicted of persons born on the 14th that they will get their "food from afar." A correspondent of Notes and Queries, writing from a Northamptonshire village, tells us that "this is so fully believed in by some that a boy has actually been apprenticed to a linen-draper, for no other reason than because he was born on the 24th of the month; whilst those born on the 13th would be sent to a woollen-draper. The twenty-fourth verse speaks of \'fine linen,\' and the thirteenth of \'wool.\'"

Another means of discovering a guilty person is by the "Sieve and Shears," one of those divinatory instruments upon which such implicit reliance has been placed by superstitious folk from time out of mind, described as it is in the "Hudibras" as
"Th\' oracle of sieve and shears, That turns as certain as the spheres."

The sieve is held hanging by a thread, or else by the points of a pair of shears stuck into its rim, it being supposed to turn, or swing, or fall at the mention of a thief\'s name, and give similar signs for other purposes. This ancient rite was formerly known[138] as the "Trick of the Sieve and Scissors," and was generally practised among the Greeks for ascertaining crime. We find an allusion to it in Theocritus:—
"To Agrio, too, I made the same demand; A cunning woman she, I cross\'d her hand: She turn\'d the sieve and shears, and told me true, That I should love, but not be lov\'d by you."

Among other modes of divination practised for the same purpose, there is one by the crowing of the cock. Thus, a farmer in Cornwall having been robbed of some property, invited all his neighbours into his cottage, and when they were assembled he placed a cock under the "brandice" (an iron vessel formerly much used by the peasantry in baking), he then asked each one to touch the brandice with the third finger, and say, "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, speak." Every one did as they were directed, and yet no sound came from beneath the brandice. The last person was a woman who occasionally laboured for the farmer in his field. She hung back, hoping to pass unobserved amidst the crowd. The neighbours, however, would not permit her to do so, and no sooner had she touched the brandice than, before she could even utter the prescribed words, the cock crew. Thereupon she fainted on the spot, and on recovering confessed her guilt.

In the North of England there was formerly a curious process of divination in the case of a person bewitched:—A black hen was stolen, the heart taken out, stuck full of pins, and roasted at midnight. It[139] was then supposed that the "double" of the witch would come and nearly pull the door down. If, however, the "double" was not seen, any one of the neighbours who had passed a remarkably bad night was fixed upon.

Referring in the next place to what may be considered the principal object of divination, a knowledge of futurity, we find various mystic arts in use to gain this purpose. Foremost among these may be reckoned "Spatulamancia," "reading the speal-bone," or "divination by the blade-bone," an art which is of very ancient origin. It is, we are told by Mr. Tylor, especially found in Tartary, whence it may have spread into all other countries where we hear of it. The mode of procedure is as follows:—The shoulder-blade is put on the fire till it cracks in various directions, and then a long split lengthwise is reckoned as "the way of life," while cross-cracks on the right and left stand for different kinds of good and evil fortune, and so on. In Ireland, Camden speaks of looking through the blade-bone of a sheep, to discover a black spot which foretells a death; and Drayton in his "Polyolbion" thus describes it:—
"By th\' shoulder of a ram from off the right side par\'d, Which usually they boile, the spade-bone being bar\'d, Which when the wizard takes, and gazing thereupon Things long to come foreshows, as things done long agone."

This species of divination was in days gone by much practised in Scotland, and a good account of the Highland custom of thus divining is given by Mr. Thoms[140] in the "Folk-Lore Record" (i. 177), from a manuscript account by Mr. Donald McPherson, a bookseller of Chelsea, a Highlander born, and who was well acquainted with the superstitions of his countrymen:—"Before the shoulder-blade is inspected, the whole of the flesh must be stripped clean off, without the use of any metal, either by a bone or a hard wooden knife, or by the teeth. Most of the discoveries are made by inspecting the spots that may be observed in the semi-transparent part of the blade; but very great proficients penetrate into futurity though the opaque parts also. Nothing can be known that may happen beyond the circle of the ensuing year. The discoveries made have relation only to the person for whom the sacrifice is offered."

Chiromancy, or palmistry, as a means of unravelling hidden things, still finds favour not only with gipsy fortune-tellers, but even with those who profess to belong to the intelligent classes of society. This branch of fortune-telling flourished in ancient Greece and Italy, as we are informed it still does in India, where to say, "It is written on the palms of my hands," is the ordinary way of expressing what is looked upon as inevitable. The professors of this art formerly attributed to it a Divine origin, quoting as their authority the following verse from the Book of Job: "He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work;" or as the Vulgate renders the passage: "Qui in manu omnium hominum signa posuit"—"Who has placed signs in the hand of all men"—which certainly gives it a more chiromantical[141] meaning. Thus chiromancy, or palmistry, traces the future from an examination of the "lines" of the palm of the hand, each of which has its own peculiar character and name, as for instance the line of long life, of married life, of fortune, and so on. However childish this system may be, it still has its numerous votaries, and can often be seen in full force at our provincial fairs. Referring to its popula............