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 course 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.