38 Transactions. 



the opportunities they afford for social eiijoymeat and aumsement. 

 We pass over various other beliefs associated with birth and 

 infancy that we may deal more fully with the important subject 

 of baptism. In Scotland children are still often baptised as early 

 as the second or third week after birth, a haste which is doubtless 

 due, in some measure, to a lingering superstition, for baptism 

 has long been looked upon as the only sufficient safeguard against 

 tlie influence of the evil eye, or the powers of the ill-disposed 

 fairies; and its performance has in consequence ever been delayed 

 as little as possible. Burns mentions among the "unco's" seen 

 by his hero " Tarn o' Shanter," on the night of his eventful ride, 

 "Twa span-lang wee unchristened bairns," whose presence in such 

 unhallowed company was of course due to the circumstance that 

 the potent rite of baptism had been neglected. It was deemed 

 of the utmost importance that the person who carried tlie child 

 to church on the occasion of the christening should be known to 

 be lucky. Prior to setting out, a small pocket of salt was put 

 in the child's bosom, or attached to some part of the dross, to 

 keep witches away ; and if a call was made the mistress of 

 tlie house was expected to give the child a lick of sugar for luck. 

 Once arrived at church, should there be a boy and a girl to present 

 at the same diet, great care had to be taken to have the boy 

 christened fii-st, else he would grow up effeminate, while the girl 

 would have the boy's beard, a contingency which may have helped 

 to reconcile the gentler sex to a sacrifice of that precedence which 

 we, on all other occasions, concede as their due. 



Subsequent to baptism we find a number of curious beliefs. 

 Thus, it is considered most unlucky to let a child see itself in the 

 mirror until all its teeth have been cut. It is also unlucky to cut 

 a cliild's finger nails or to cut a child's hair, for in the former case 

 you teach the child to steal, while in tlie latter there is a danger 

 of hair growing over the child's whole body. Anotlier curious 

 belief is that if the cradle be rocked while empty, it will cause its 

 biiby owner to have a sore head. Satanic or elfish influences, 

 inimical to the child, were repelled by the use of the three oils — a 

 mystic prepai'ation with which the forehead was bathed as 

 occasion might require. 



Coming to speak of marriage we notice first of all the various 

 modes of love-divination. In Scotland " All Hallow's Eve " is, 

 of course, the popular festival for practising this form of super- 



