As marriage and death are the chief events in human life, an enormous
mass of popular beliefs has in all nations crystallised round them.
Perhaps the sterner and more gloomy character of Kelts, Saxons, and
Northmen generally found vent in the greater prominence they have
given to omens of death, second-sight, ghosts, and the like; whereas
the lighter and sunnier disposition of Southern Europe has delighted
more in love-spells, methods of divining a future partner, the whole
pomp and circumstance attending Venus and her doves. The writhing of
the wryneck so graphically portrayed in Theocritus, or the spells of
the lover in his Latin imitator, with their refrain—