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Ball-divinationfrom Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales - SUPERSITITIONSCook a ball, cherry-tree; Good ball, tell me How many years I shall be Before my true love I do see? One and two, and that makes three; Thank'ee, good ball for telling of me. Cook is to toss, or throw, a provincialism common in the Midland counties. The ball is thrown against a wall, and the divination is taken from the number of rebounds it makes. Another version is-- Cuckoo, cherry-tree,[47] Good ball, tell me How many years I shall be Before I get married? [Footnote 47: The following lines reached me without an explanation. They seem to be analogous to the above: Cuckoo, cherry-tree, Lay an egg, give it me; Lay another, Give it my brother!] And this is probably correct, for we appear to have formed this method of divination in some indirect manner from a custom still prevalent in Germany of addressing the cuckoo, when he is first heard, with a view of ascertaining the duration of life, by counting the number of times it repeats its note. The lines used on this occasion are given by Grimm: Kukuk, Beckerknecht! Sag mir recht, Wie viel jahr Ich leben soll? An old story is told of a man who was on his road towards a monastery, which he was desirous of entering as a monk for the salvation of his soul, and hearing the cuckoo, stopped to count the number of notes. They were twenty-two. "Oh!" said he, "since I shall be sure to live twenty-two years, what is the use of mortifying myself in a monastery all that time? I'll e'en go and live merrily for twenty years, and it will be all in good time to betake me to a monastery for the other two." See Wright's Essays, i. 257; and Latin Stories, p. 42, de cuculo; p. 74, de muliere in extremis quae dixit kuckuc. Both these tales curiously illustrate the extent to which faith in the divination extended. If a maid desires to attach the affections of her lover unalterably to her, she must wait till she finds him asleep with his clothes on. She must then take away one of his garters without his perceiving it, and tie it to her own in a true-love knot, saying-- Three times this knot I tie secure; Firm is the knot, Firm his love endure. In many parts of the country, it is considered extremely unlucky to give a person anything that is sharp, as a knife, razor, &c., but the bad fortune may be averted if the receiver gives something, however trifling, in return, and exclaims-- If you love me as I love you, No knife shall cut our love in two! In counting the buttons of the waistcoat upwards, the last found corresponding to one of the following names indicates the destiny of the wearer: My belief,-- A captain, a colonel, a cow-boy, a thief. Next: The Even-ash Previous: Kale
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