Hair. To dreain you comb your hair, and it seem very long and fine, shows you will have many joys of short duration. Hat. To dream your hat is torn and dirty, signifies damage and dishonour; but to dream that you have a hat on that pleases you, denotes joy, profit, and success in business. Hatred.-To dream of hatred, or of being hated, whether of friends or enemies is ill, for one may have need of all the world. Heart's-ease. You will be married well, and live happy, if you dream of this innocent flower in bloom. Hen and chickens.-To dream of a hen and chickens, shows you will be married to a widow or widower with many children. Horse. To dream you are mounted on a fine young horse, and that you are well dressed, with the horse or mare gaily caparisoned, denotes you will marry some rich person, who will make you happy. Husbandry. To dream of a plough, denotes success in life, and a good marriage. Ice. To dream of ice, shows that the person you would wish to be your companion for life is cool, of an amiable temper, free from choleric passions, and faithful. Image. To dream of an image or statue, signifies children. King. To dream you see the king and queen, signifies gain, honour, and joy. Knave. For a man to dream he is a knave, is a sign he will grow rich; but for a man to dream he is concerned with knaves, shows he will have many lawsuits. Kissing. To dream you are kissing a pretty maid, shows an evil design. In love, it shows that your sweetheart, though she loves you, will act more cautiously. Kittens are harmless diverting creatures. To dream of them signifies many children. Knife. To dream you bestow a knife upon any one, signifies injustice and contention. Ladder. To dream that you ascend a ladder, signifies honour; but to dream that you descend a ladder betokeneth damage. Letter. To dream you send a letter to your sweetheart, or others unsealed, shows secrets will be exposed. Lying. To tell a lie in a dream is not good, except by players and jesters who practise it. Marry. To dream you marry, denotes damage, sickness, melancholy, and sometimes death. Maids. To dream you obtain a maid, signifies joy; to dream you take away a maid by force, signifies weeping. If a maid dream that she has let a bird out of its cage, she ought to be very watchful over herself. Money.-To dream of losing money is in old folks a sign of short life; in young folks it signifies loss of modesty and honour. Music.-To dream you hear melodious music, signifies that the party dreaming shall suddenly hear some very acceptable news. Nosegay. To dream of gathering or making nosegays is unlucky; showing our best hopes shall wither as flowers do in nosegays. Nun. To dream you turn nun, denotes confinement, or it shows you will be disappointed by your lover, or crossed by a rival. Oven.-To dream you see an oven burning hot, signifies joy. Pit. To dream you fall into a pit, and cannot get out easily, denotes some serious calamity; that your sweetheart is false, and will prefer another. Purse. To dream you find an empty purse, bodes the dreamer is lazy. Quarrelling. To dream that you are quarrelling, denotes that some unexpected news will reach you, and that your sweetheart is about to be married to another. Rainbow. To dream you see a rainbow in the sky, betokens your changing your present state and manner of life; to dream you see the rainbow in the east, is a good omen to the poor and sick, for the former will recover their estates, and the latter their health; if you dream you see it in the west, to the rich it is good, to the poor a bad sign; to dream you see a rainbow directly over your head, or near you, signifies a change of fortune, and most commonly the death of the dreamer, and ruin of his family. Note also, that in your dreams, the rainbow on your right hand is good, on the left ill, and you must judge the right and left by the sun. Ring. To dream your lover puts a ring on your finger of the wrong hand, generally shows he is deceitful, and not to be trusted; to dream of a ring is favorable. Riding. To dream of riding in a coach, and that you sit at ease and are much pleased therewith, denotes the person to be proud, and will spare no cost to gratify their vanity. Shipwreck. To dream you suffer shipwreck, the ship being overwhelmed or broken, is most dangerous to all, except those who are detained by force; for to whom it signifies release and liberty. Silk. To dream you are clothed in silk, signifies honour; but to dream that you trade with a stranger in silk denotes profit and joy. Soldiers.-To dream that you see soldiers, may prove literally true, or that you may very soon see such persons. Serpents denote a prison, and the dreamer will encounter many dangers. Swimming. To dream of swimming or wading in the water is good, so that the head be kept above water. Sweetheart.-If a man dream of a sweetheart that is absent, and she seems to be more fair than usual, it is a sign that she is chaste and constant; but if she looks pale, black, or sickly, be assured she hath broke her faith, and is become altogether inconstant. Thunder. To dream of thunder, signifies afflictions of divers and sundry causes; chiefly to the rich: for the poor it signifies repose. Trees.--To dream you see trees in blossom, denotes a happy marriage with the present object of your affections, and many children, who will all do well in life. Treasure. To dream you find treasure hid in the earth is evil, whether it be little or great. Tombs. To dream you are erecting a tomb signifies marriages, weddings, and birth of children; but if you dream that the tomb falls to ruin, it signifies sickness, and destruction to him and his family. To have a sepulchre or tomb, or to build one, is good for a servant, for he shall have one that will survive him; in short, it is a good dream in general to both rich and poor. Thieves.-To dream of thieves is good or bad, according as the dream is circumstanced. Water. To dream you are drinking water, denotes great trouble and adversity; to the lover it shows your sweetheart is false, and prefers another, and will never marry you. Weeping. To dream one weeps and grieves, whether it be for any friend departed, or for any other cause, it is joy and mirth for some good act. Wife. If a man dreams he sees his wife married to another, it signifieth a change of affairs. Writing. When dreaming of writing a letter to your sweetheart, if you put it in the post, you will have a pleasing return, but to trust it into other hands, shows your secrets will be exposed. Yarrow. To dream of this weed, which is in general most abundant in churchyards, denotes to the married, deaths in the family; and to the single that the grim tyrant will deprive them of the first object on whom they rest their affections. Yellow Flowers-predict love mixed with jealousy, and that you will have more children to maintain than what justly belong to you. Yew Tree.-An indication of the funeral of a very aged person, by whose death the dreamer will derive some benefit, or a protecting hand among the relations of the deceased person. Yeast. To dream of yeast denotes that what you next undertake will prosper, and that your wife will soon be in the family-way. If a single man, your sweetheart's love will increase. To a maiden, her lover will be rich, and very like a brewer or baker. To dream that they are kneading dough with yeast, is a sure sign of being comfortable for life.] In a Strange Metamorphosis of Man transformed into a Wildernesse, Deciphered in Characters, 1634, under No. 37, the Bay Tree, it is observed: "Nor is he altogether free from superstition; for he will make you beleeve that, if you put his leaves but under your pillow, you shall be sure to have true dreames." In the old play of the Vow-Breaker, or the Fair Maid of Clifton, 1636, act iii. sc. i., Ursula speaks: "I have heard you say that dreames and visions were fabulous ; and yet one time I dreamt fowle water ran through the floore, and the next day the house was on fire. You us'd to say hobgoblins, fairies, and the like, were nothing but our owne affrightments, and yet o' my troth, cuz, I once dream'd of a young batchelour, and was ridd with a night-mare. But come, so my conscience be cleere, I never care how fowle my dreames are." "'Tis a custom among country girls to put the Bible under their pillows at night, with sixpence clapt in the book of Ruth, in order to dream of the men destined to be their husbands." See Poems by Nobody, 8vo. Lond. 1770, p. 199, note. Various are the popular superstitions, or at least the faint traces of them, that still are made use of to procure dreams of divination, such as fasting St. Agnes' Fast; laying a piece of the first cut of a cheese at a lying-in, called vulgarly in the North the groaning cheese, under the pillow, to cause young persons to dream of their lovers; and putting a Bible in the like situation, with a sixpence clapped in the book of Ruth, &c. Various also are the interpretations of dreams given by old women, but of which the regard is insensibly wearing away. [If you would wish to be revenged on a lover by tormenting him with hideous dreams, take a bird's heart and at twelve o'clock at night stick it full of pins, and a semblance of him will appear before you in great agony.'] Strutt, describing the manners of the English, Manners and Customs, iii. 180, says: "Writing their name on a paper at twelve o'clock, burning the same, then carefully gathering up the ashes, and laying them close wrapp'd in a paper upon a looking-glass, marked with a cross, under their pillows, this should make them dream of their love." THE MOON. THE Moon, the ancient object of idolatrous worship, has in later times composed an article in the creed of popular superstition. The ancient Druids had their superstitious rites at the changes of the moon. This planet, as Dr. Johnson tells us, has great influence in vulgar philosophy. In his memory, he observes, it was a precept annually given in one of ['Obligingly communicated to the publisher by Mr. Robert Bond, of Gloucester, with several other superstitions of that locality, which will be found under their respective heads. The one given above is not confined to the neighbourhood of Gloucester, but is more or less prevalent in every county in England.] the English almanacs, to kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the better in boiling. In the Husbandman's Practice or Prognostication for ever, 8vo. Lond. 1664, p. 108, we are told to "Kill swine in or neer the full of the moon, and flesh will the better prove in boiling;" and that (p. 111), "Kill fat swine for bacon (the better to keep their fat in boiling) about the full moon.' Also (p. 110), "Shear sheep at the moon's increase: fell hand timber from the full to the change. Fell frith, copice, and fuel at the first quarter. Lib or geld cattle, the moon in Aries, Sagittarius, or in Capricorn." The following is in Curiosities, or the Cabinet of Nature, 12mo. Lond. 1637, p. 231: "Q. Wherefore is it that we gather those fruits which we desire should be faultlesse in the wane of the moone, and gueld cattle more safely in the wane than in the increase? An. Because in that season bodies have lesse humour and heate, by which an innated putrefaction is wont to make them faulty and unsound." [The influence of the moon over mental and corporeal diseases, its virtue in all magical rites, its appearances as predictive of evil and good, and its power over the weather and over many of the minor concerns of life, such as the gathering of herbs, the killing of animals for the table, and other matters of a like nature, were almost universally confided in as matters of useful and necessary belief in the sixteenth century; and it is stated on reasonable authority that the relics of this belief are still to be traced among our rural population. Shakespeare has many allusions to these impressions, but they have not been quite so fully illustrated by the commentators as might have been anticipated from the extent of their researches. Perhaps we are in some measure indebted for them to the poet's own imagination. He alludes to the moon as the "sovereign mistress of true melancholy;" informs us that she makes men insane when "she comes more near to the earth than she was wont ;" and that, when "pale in her anger, rheumatic diseases do abound." Hecate tells the witches 66 Upon the corner of the moon efficacious in the invocation of spirits. The great dramatist |
