The Moon
: NATURE SONGS: Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales
The inhabitants of most of our rural districts still retain the old
dislike to a new moon on Friday, and perpetuate it by the saying,--
Friday's moon,
Come when it wool,
It comes too soon.
Or by the following,--
Friday's moon,
Once in seven year comes too soon.
Some persons, however, contend that Saturday is
new, and Sunday equally so for a full moon. So runs the distich,--
Saturday's new, and Sunday's full,
Was never fine, nor never wool.
The moon anciently occupied an important place in love-divinations. The
following invocation to the planet is used by young women throughout the
country:
New moon, new moon, declare to me
Shall I this night my true love see?
Not in his best, but in the array
As he walks in every day.
Or, sometimes, the following:
New moon, new moon, I hail thee!
By all the virtue in thy body,
Grant this night that I may see
He who my true love is to be.
Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, ed. 1696, p. 105, gives the following
lines, used in Yorkshire for charming the moon to cause a dream of a
future husband:
All hail to the moon, all hail to thee!
I, prithee, good moon, reveal to me
This night who my husband must be!
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