462 pFant "ls)oi*e, "bege^/, cmil 'bijnc/', 



shire and other parts of England, as well as in Germany, a certain 

 relation is believed to exist between the produce of the Hazel- 

 bushes and the increase of the population ; a good Nut year always 

 bringing an abundance of babies. In Westphalia, the proverb runs, 



" Plenty of Nuts, plenty of babies." Brand says it is a custom 



in Iceland, when a maiden would know if her lover is faithful, to 

 put three Nuts upon the bar of a grate, naming them after her 

 lover and herself. If a Nut crack or jump, the lover will prove 

 faithless ; if it begin to blaze or burn, it is a sign of the fervour of 

 his affedlion. If the Nuts named after the girl and her swain burn 

 together, they will be married. This divination is still pradlised in 

 Scotland on Hallowe'en, whose mysterious rites Burns has immor- 

 talised in his poem, containing these lines : — 



" Some merry friendly countree folks 

 Together did convene 

 To burn their Nits and pu' their stocks, 

 And haud their Hallowe'en, 



Fu' blithe that night." 



A similar custom has for years existed in Ireland ; and Gray, long 

 before Burns, had evidenced that the superstitions of Hallowe'en 

 or Nutcrack Night (Odtober 31st) were known and practised in 

 England, as thus — 



" Tv\o Hazel-nuts I threw into the flame, 

 And to each Nut I gave a sweetheart's name. 

 This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed, 

 That with a flame of brightest colour blazed. 

 As blazed the Nut, so may thy passion grow ; 

 For 'twas thy Nut that did so brightly glow." 



In Bohemia, on Christmas Eve, girls fix coloured wax lights in 

 the shells of the first parcel of Nuts they have opened that day, 

 light them all at the same time, and set them floating in the water, 

 after mentally giving to each the name of a wooer. He whose 

 lighted bark first approaches the girl will be her future husband. 

 If an unwelcome suitor seems likely to be first in, the girl endea- 

 vours to retard the shell by blowing against it, and by this means 

 the favourite's bark usually wins. Should, however, one of the lights 



be perchance blown out, it is accounted a portent of death. 



The instrument used by the nutter in robbing the Hazel of its 

 fruit seems to have been formerly regarded as opprobrious, and as 

 suggestive of a thief: thus, in the ' Merry Wives of Windsor,' Nym 

 says: " If you run the Nut-hook's humour on me," or, in other words, 

 " If you call me a thief." Again, in • Henry IV.,' Part II., Doll 

 Tearsheet cries out to the beadle : " Nut-hook, Nut-hook, you 



lie ! " In Sussex, there is a proverb current : " As black as the 



De'il's nutting bag ;" and it is held to be dangerous to go out 

 nutting on Sunday, for fear of meeting the Evil One, who haunts 

 the Nut-bushes, and sometimes appears to nutters in friendly guise, 



and holds down the branches for them to strip. In bygone times, 



it was believed that a spirit of a weird and sinister character in- 



