Show the why of superstitions by H IRVING KING CORN COB OVER THE DOOR ERE Is another way in which a hyoung HERE young woman may divine the person whom she Is destined to marry it Is especially adapted tor for marriageable girls in the rural districts where indeed the superstition most prevails take an ear of 0 corn and shell off all but twenty of the kernels then hang it above the door and the first young man who enters under it will marry you in this we have arith mancy sun worship and that form of nature worship which was applied to the grain spirit in form of a survival the ancients it Is true did not have indian corn but they had vil wheat leat which is corn everywhere in america and there were grains in the ear of wheat the grain spirit la is equally represented by maize of other forms of corn the cult of the grain spirit was universal among primitive inn man n it lingers in many modern superstitions and first and last volumes have been written about it hanging the corn cob over the door invokes invoices the grain spirit by leaving twenty grains on the cob tile the sun god Is also invoked for according to the arith mancy of the babylonians twenty represented the sun the they y gave numbers to all their gods placing the sun moon and stars in what they called the second trind triad and assigning them the numbers twenty fifty and forty respectively and babylonian arith mancy came down to the western world through the greeks and the romans IS omans 1931 mcclure newspaper Ss S service |