Kale

: SUPERSITITIONS
: Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales

The young women of some districts in the North of England have a method

of divination by kale or broth, which is used for the purpose of

learning who are to be their future husbands. The plan followed is this.

The maiden at bedtime stands on something on which she never stood

before, holding a pot of cold kale in her hand, and repeating the

following lines. She then drinks nine times, goes to bed backwards, and

of cour e dreams of her partner:



Hot kale or cold kale, I drink thee;

If ever I marry a man, or a man marry me,

I wish this night I may him see,

To-morrow may him ken

In church, fair, or market,

Above all other men.



On Valentine's day take two bay leaves, sprinkle them with rose-water,

and lay them across your pillow in the evening. When you go to bed, put

on a clean nightgown turned wrong side outwards, and, lying down, say

these words softly to yourself:



Good Valentine, be kind to me,

In dreams let me my true love see.



After this go to sleep as soon as you can, and you will see in a dream

your future husband.



Schoolboys have several kinds of divination-verses on going to bed, now

repeated "more in mock than mark," but no doubt originating in serious

belief--



Go to bed first,

A golden purse;

Go to bed second,

A golden pheasant;

Go to bed third,

A golden bird.



The positions they occupy in the bed are suggestive of the following

fortunes:



He that lies at the stock,

Shall have the gold rock;

He that lies at the wall,

Shall have the gold ball;

He that lies in the middle,

Shall have the gold fiddle.