DREAMS.
Souge, Reve, . . . FR. I Sogno, IT Traum, GER Sucno, SP Khab, Nazr, Manitm,PEEs. Roga, Dush, . . TURK.
Dreams are to a great extent still trusted to in Eastern countries. Their earliest remarkable dreams related, were those to Abraham, of the captivity, and at Bethel, of the ladder (Genesis xxviii. 12). Subsequently were Joseph's dreams and those of Pharaoh (Genesis xl. 5, xli. 1), Gideon, and Saul (1 Samuel xxviii. 6). Belief in dreams is inti mately associated with the lower forms of religion. To the savage they have a reality and au import ance which we can scarcely appreciate. During sleep the spirit seems to desert the body ; and as in dreams we visit other localities and even other worlds, living as it were a separate and dif ferent life, the two phenomena are not unnaturally regarded as the complements of one another. In Madagascar the people pay a religious regard to dreams, and imagine that their good demons or inferior deities tell them in their dreams what ought to be done, or warn them of what ought to be avoided.
Throughout the Christian world and in Great Britain, as elsewhere, it was customary for young women on St. Agues' eve to endeavour to divine who should be their husbands. This was called fasting St. Agnes' fast. They took a row of pins, pulling one out after another, saying a paternoster, and sticking one pin in the sleeve. Then, going to rest without food, their dreams were supposed to present the inaage of their future husbands. In Keat's poem, entitled the Eve of St. Agnes, the custom is thus alluded to :— ' They told her,how, upon SL Agnes' eve, Young virgins might have visions of delight, And soft adorings from their loves receive, Upon the honeyed middle of the night, If ceremonies due they did aright,— As, supperless to bed they must retire, And couch supine their beauties lily-white, Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.'