The observation of lucky and unlucky days was once an important matter, and was often the turning-point of great events. It is now confined to the one subject of mar riage. In fixing the wedding-day, May among months, and Friday among days, are shunned by many people both in the higher and lower orders; for in this matter, which is the exclusive province of women, and in which sentiment and fancy are in every way so much more active than reason, the educated and uneducated are reduced to a level. Perhaps half the superstitious beliefs that yet survive among civilized and Christian communities, group themselves round the subject of love and marriage—of such intense interest to all, yet so mysterious in its origin, and problematical in its issue. The liking or passion for one individual rather than any other, is so unaccountable, that the god of love has been fabled blind; it is of the nature of fascination, magic, spell. And then, whether happiness or the reverse shall be the result, seems beyond the reach of ordinary calculation. All is apparently given over to mystery, chance, fortune, and any circumstances may, for what we know, influence or indicate what fortune's shall bring round. Hence the innumerable ways of prognosticating which of two or more persons shall be first married, who or what manner of person shall be the future husband or wife, the number of children, etc. It is generally at particular seasons, as at the eve of St. Agnes and Hallowe'en, that the veil of the future may thus be lifted.
Sneezing, likewise, has long been looked upon as supernatural, for this reason, that it is sudden, unaccountable, uncontrollable, and therefore ominous. The person is con sidered as possessed for the time, and a form of exorcism is used. A nurse would not think she had done her duty if, when her charge sneezes, she did not say: "Bless the child," just as the Greeks, more than two thousand years ago, said: " Zeus protect thee." One general remark, however, it is important to make in regard to omens. An omen is not conceived to be a mere sign of what is destined to be; it is conceived as causing in some mysterious way the event it forebodes; and the consequence, it is thought, may be prevented by some counteracting charm. Thus the spilling of salt not only forebodes strife, but strife is conceived as the consequence of the spilling of the salt, and may be hindered by taking up the spilled salt and throwing it over the left shoulder.
An important exercise of the diviner's art is to determine the innocence or guilt of parties. . This will be treated under ORDEAL. nUt it would be impossible to enumer ate the endless modes of D. for which learned names have been found. Some of the principal are aximomancy (q.v.), belomancy (q.v.), bibliomancy (q.v.), botanomancy, or D. by means of plants and flowers (it was practiced by the ancients, who were wont to bruise poppy-flowers betwixt their hands, under the conviction that they could thereby discover their loves. Hence Theocritus calls the poppy telipidlos, quasi ddiphi/.9.9; i.e., a tell-love. Goethe has made a beautiful use of another form of this superstition, which existed among the Teutonic races no less than among the old Greeks. The childlike Marguerite, in Faust, seeks to discover whether or not Faust loves her by plucking the leaves from a star-flower, murmuring alternately, "He loves me," "He loves me not," and finds to her joy that the last leaf comes away while she is saying " He loves me"); capnomancy (q.v.), cheiromancy (q.v.), cosinomancy (q.v).), crystallomancy (q.v.), cup, divination by (q.v.?; geomancy (this was anciently practiced by casting pebbles on the ground, from which conjectures were formed; but the Arabian geomancy was more recondite, being founded on the effects of motion under the crust of the earth, the chinks thus produced, and the noises or thundering heard); hydromancy, D. by water or by a mirror, in which the diviner shows the image of an absent person, what he is doing, etc. (this mode of D. plays an important part in the Arabian romances); lithomancy, a species of D. performed by stones, but in what manner it is difficult to ascertain; oneiromancy (see DREA3ts); pyromancy, or D. by flame (it was common among the Greeks and Romans: if the flame of the sacrifice was vigorous and quickly consumed the victim, if it was clear of all smoke, and did not crackle, but burn silently in a pyramidal form, the omen was favorable; otherwise, it was not); rabdomancy (see Divrx ING-110D); and teraphim (q.v.).