140 SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
Holy Rood Day, September 14. Brand quotes 
(i. 353 ) “ Status Scholae Etonensis,” 1560 , which 
orders the boys of Eton, on a certain day in Sep¬ 
tember, to go out to gather nuts, having first written 
verses on the fruitfulness of autumn and the cold of 
advancing winter; and also from “ Poor Robin,” 
1709: 
The devil, as the common people say, 
Doth go a nutting on Holyrood day; 
And sure some leachery in some doth lurk 
Going a nutting do the devil’s work. 
There was also the All Hallows E’en (“ Nutcrack 
Night ”), when around the fire fortunes were told by 
the cracking of nuts. The custom is referred to in 
Goldsmith’s “ Vicar of Wakefield”: “ They kept up 
the Christmas carol, sent true-love knots on Valen¬ 
tine morning, ate pancakes on Shrovetide, showed 
their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked 
nuts on Michaelmas Eve” (chap. iv.). Brand quotes 
Hutchinson’s “Northumberland,” (vol. ii., p. 18): 
“ The 1 st of November seems to retain the celebra¬ 
tion of a festival to Pomona, when it is supposed the 
summer stores are opened on the approach of winter. 
Divinations and consulting of omens attended all 
these ceremonies in the practice of the heathen. 
Hence, in the rural sacrifice of nuts propitious omens 
are sought touching matrimony: If the nuts be still 
and burn together, it prognosticates a happy marriage 
or a hopeful love ; if, on the contrary, they bounce 
and fly asunder, the sign is unpropitious.” To the 
present day the ceremony is used, but chestnuts are 
the medium ; as they are placed on the grate bars 
the following distich is repeated: 
If you love me, pop and fly, 
If not, lie there silently. 
Nor must the use of the forked hazel rod in divina- 
