Chapter War of Wartburg to Warning-Givers of W by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(28) EAR (The). If the left ear tingles or burns, it indicates that some one is talking evil of you; if the right ear, some one is praising you. The foreboded evil may be averted by biting the little finger of the left hand.

Laudor et adverso, sonat auris, lædor ab ore;
Dextra bono tinnit murmure, læva malo.
   —R. Keuchen: Crepundia, 113 (1662).

(29) EPITAPHS (Reading). If you would preserve your memory, be warned against reading epitaphs. In this instance the American superstition is the warning-giver, and not the act referred to.

(30) FIR TREES. “If a firr tree be touched, withered, or burned with lighting, it is a warning to the house that the master or mistress thereof shall shortly dye.”—Thomas Lupton: Syxt Book of Notable Thinges, iii. (1660).

(31) FIRE. The noise occasioned when the enclosed gas in a piece of burning coal catches fire, is a sure indication of a quarrel between the inmates of the house.

(32) FLORIMEL’S GIRDLE would loosen or tear asunder if any woman unfaithful or unchaste attempted to put it on.—Spenser: Faërie Queene.

(33) GATES OF GUNDOFORUS (The). No one carrying poison could pass these gates. They were made of the horn of the horned snake, by the apostle Thomas, who built a palace of sethym wood for this Indian king, and set up the gates.

(34) GROTTO OF EPHESUS (The) contained a reed, which gave forth musical sounds when the chaste and faithful entered it, but denounced others by giving forth harsh and discordant noises.—Lytton: Tales of Miletus, iii.

(35) HARE CROSSING THE ROAD (A). It was thought by the ancient Romans that if a hare ran across the road on which a person was travelling, it was a certain omen of ill luck.

Lepus quoque occurrens in via, infortunatum iter præsagit et ominosum.—Alexander ab Alexandro: Genialium Dierum, libri VI. v. 13, p. 685.

Nor did we meet, with nimble feet,
One little fearful lepus,
That certain sign, as some divine,
Of fortune bad to keep us.
   —Ellison: Trip to Benwell, lx.

(36) HOOPOE (The). The country people of Sweden consider the appearance of the hoopoe as the presage of war.—Pennant: Zoology, i. 258.

(37) LIZARDS warn men of the approach of a serpent.

(38) LOOKING-GLASSES. If a looking-glass is broken, it is a warning that some one in the house will ere long lose a friend. Grose says it “betokens a mortality in the family, commonly the master.”

To break a looking-glass is prophetic that a person will never get married; or, if married, will lose the person wedded.

(39) MAGPIES are prophetic birds. A common Lincolnshire proverb is, “One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for death;” or thus: “One for sorrow, two for mirth, three a wedding, four a birth.”

Augurs and understood relations have,
By magotpies and choughs and rooks, brought forth
The secret’st man of blood.
   —Shakespeare: Macbeth (1606).