”Valentine Day. — Let a single woman go out of her own door very early in the morning, and if the first person she meets be a woman, she will not be married that year: if she meet a man, she will be married within three months.

“Lady Day. — The following charm may be tried this day with certain success: — String thirty-one nuts on a string, composed of red worsted mixed with blue silk, and tie it round your neck on going to bed, repeating these lines :

Shortly after midnight, you will see your lover in a dream, and be informed at the same time of all the principal events of your future life.

“St. Swithin’s Eve. — Select three things you most wish to know; write them down with a new pen and red ink on a sheet of fine-wove paper, from which you must previously cut off all the corners and burn them. Fold the paper into a true-lover’s knot, and wrap round it three hairs from your head. Place the paper under your pillow for three successive nights, and your curiosity to know the future will be satisfied.

“St. Mark’s Eve. — Repair to the nearest churchyard as the clock strikes twelve, and take from a grave on the south-side of the church three tufts of grass (the longer and ranker the better), and on going to bed place them under your pillow, repeating earnestly three several times,

Should you have no dream that night, you will be single and miserable all your life. If you dream of thunder and lightning, your life will be one of great difficulty and sorrow.

“Candlemas Eve. — On this night (which is the purification of the Virgin Mary), let three, five, seven, or nine, young maidens assemble together in a square chamber. Hang in each corner a bundle of sweet herbs, mixed with rue and rosemary. Then mix a cake of flour, olive-oil, and white sugar; every maiden having an equal share in the making and the expense of it. Afterwards, it must be cut into equal pieces, each one marking the piece as she cuts it with the initials of her name. It is then to be baked one hour before the fire, not a word being spoken the whole time, and the maidens sitting with their arms and knees across. Each piece of cake is then to be wrapped up in a sheet of paper, on which each maiden shall write the love part of Solomon’s Songs. If she put this under her pillow, she will dream true. She will see her future husband and every one of her children, and will know, besides, whether her family will be poor or prosperous — a comfort to her, or the contrary.

“Midsummer. — Take three roses, smoke them with sulphur, and exactly at three in the day, bury one of the roses under a yew tree; the second in a newly-made grave, and put the third under your pillow for three nights, and at the end of that period burn it in a fire of charcoal. Your dreams during that time will be prophetic of your future destiny, and, what is still more curious and valuable (Mother Bridget loquitur), the man whom you are to wed, will know no peace till he comes and visits you. Besides this, you will perpetually haunt his dreams.

“St. John’s Eve. — Make a new pincushion of the very best black velvet (no inferior quality will answer the purpose), and on one side stick your name in full length with the very smallest pins that can be bought (none other will do). On the other side, make a cross with some very large pins, and surround it with a circle. Put this into your stocking when you take it off at night, and hang it up at the foot of the bed. All your future life will pass before you in a dream.

“First New Moon of the Year. — On the first new moon in the year, take a pint of clear springwater and infuse into it the white of an egg laid by a white hen, a glass of white wine, three almonds peeled