Then take that instrument used in
winnowing the corn, which, in our country-dialect, we call a wecht;
and go thro' all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind.
Repeat it three times; and the third time, an apparition will pass
thro' the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having
both the figure in question and the appearance or retinue, marking the
employment or station in life.
[16] Take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a bear-stack, and
fathom it three times round. The last fathom of the last time, you
will catch in your arms the appearance of your conjugal yoke-fellow.
[17] You go out, one or more, for this is a social spell, to a
south-running spring or rivulet, where "three lairds' lands meet," and
dip your left shirt sleeve. Go to bed in sight of a fire, and hang
your wet sleeve before it to dry. Lie awake, and sometime near
midnight, an apparition having the exact figure of the grand object in
question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side
of it.
[18] Take three dishes; put clean water in one, foul water in another;
and leave the third empty: blindfold a person, and lead him to the
hearth where the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand: if
by chance in the clean water, the future husband or wife will come to
the bar of matrimony, a maid: if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty
dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage at all.
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