If you can peel an apple with the paring in one piece take the peel by one end with the right hand and wave it three times over your head and throw it over your left shoulder, and it will fall in the form of the first letter of your sweetheart’s christian or surname.

With the first cherry pie of the season, those who partake of it count the stones, to know their prospect of matrimony.  The counting is done in this manner and, at the same time, repeating these words over and over again until all the stones on the plate have been counted:—­

1st. stone “This year,” 2nd stone “Next year,” 3rd stone “Sometime,” 4th. stone “Never,” and on which word the last stone falls, that is the fate.

      GENERAL.

“Grandfather” Clocks, and especially those which have been in a family for two or three generations, are regarded as capable of foretelling deaths in a family.  If one falls down, stops without any apparent cause, or strikes several times more that it ought to do without stopping, then these events are certain signs of death.

A well known barrister told me he had bought an old Grandfather clock, and his man had entire charge of it.  One morning the man found the clock had fallen down during the night and he was very much disturbed about it and said there would be a death soon, and within a week the man’s father died.

In another case a man said he was cleaning a clock which his father had made, and the owner told him what a good clock it was, but, said she, “It was completely master of your father for a time.  He came to clean it one day, and after a few weeks it stopped, and he went again and attended to it, but it was no use, so was given up as a bad job.  The owner was certain a death would soon occur, and shortly after her husband’s mother died.  When she heard of the death she set the pendulum swinging, and it had never stopped since, except to be cleaned.”

It is very seldom that other kinds of clocks are credited with these powers although at Werrington there was, in a cottage, a small wooden Dutch clock called in this neighbourhood a “Sheep’s head” clock.  It was hanging on the wall and had not been going for some years, the weights and pendulum had been lost and the lines were wrapped round the clock.  One Sunday morning before the woman and her husband had risen from bed, but were both wide awake, they distinctly heard this clock strike “one” and by the next mail they received notice that their son, a soldier on Foreign service, had died that Sunday morning, and at one o’clock.

There are several things worn as charms and amulets, which are attributed with various powers, and one favourite is a “Lucky bone” which is worn for good luck.  This bone is taken from a sheep’s head, and is in the form of a T.

A stone with a hole through it, is worn and highly valued for its Good Luck.

The stones that have only one large hole, are hung on bed heads, and in stables.