OCR Text |
Show Valentine Customs and Superstitions of Old There were certain superstitions during early times which now seem entirely to have passed away. For instance, if a young girl, on the eve of St. Valentine day, went alone and waited until - midnight on the porch of a church, then started for home, scattering hempseed on the way, it was believed she would see her own true love in a winding sheet raking the hampseed behind her. Why he was supposed to be seen in a winding sheet has not been explained. Another superstition was most interesting. If a young girl got five bay leaves and pinned one on each of the four corners of her pillow, the remaining one to be placed in the center, and if that night her sweetheart appeared in 'her dreams they would be married before the end of the year. It is written of one young lady of those times that she confessed, in order to make the charm more potent, to having boiled an egg perfectly per-fectly hard, removed the yolk, filled the vacant place with salt and, upon going to bed, eaten the entire egg, salt, shell and all, without drinking or speaking to any one after she had finished the eating of it. a But the really, truly way to find out the name of your own true love was to write the names of all your admirers upon bits of paper, roll them up In clay, put them in a vessel ves-sel of water and the first one to rise to the surface was surely the one. The practice of sending comic valentines Is a much later one. These caricatures which poked fun at people's personal appearance, their clothes and even the work in which they were engaged had their greatest popularity perhaps 40 or 50 years ago. Fortunately, they now seem to have lost their vogue. There is no doubt that many friendships friend-ships were severed and enemies made because of these frequently offensive missives being sent with malice aforethought. Meanwhile, the pretty valentine all hearts, paper lace and cupids seem to grow finer each year. Beautiful hand-painted cards and painted and beautifully decorated boxes for confections are sold in great numbers. Not the least Interesting of the present-day valentines are the various vari-ous and numerous assortments of packages filled with all the para phernalia ready to be assembled Into lovely valentines which children chil-dren love to prepare for their teachers, friends and family. As it has now become more a day for children than for grown-ups, these packages afford much pleasure to the sender and to the recipient. R .IJJL liHI WWK " MJIR Siy,L'J! L"JUU.l J . |