The last summer, on the day of St. John the Baptist, 1694, I
accidentally was walking in the pasture behind Montague house, it was
12 o'clock. I saw there about two or three and twenty young women,
most of them well habited, on their knees very busy, as if they had
been weeding. I could not presently learn what the matter was; at last
a young man told me, that they were looking for a coal under the root
of a plantain, to put under their head that night, and they should
dream who would be their husbands:It was to be sought for that day
and hour.
The women have several magical secrets handed down to them by
tradition, for this purpose, as, on St. Agnes' night, 21st day of
Jannary, take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after
another, saying a Pater Noster, or (Our Father) sticking a pin in your
sleeve, and you will dream of him, or her, you shall marry. Ben Jonson
in one of his Masques make some mention of this.
And on sweet Saint Agnes night
Please you with the promis'd sight,
Some of husbands, some of lovers,
Which an empty dream discovers,
Another. *To know whom one shall marry.
You must lie in another county, and knit the left garter about the
right legged stocking (let the other garter and stocking alone) and
as you rehearse these following verses, at every comma, knit a knot.
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