

E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist, Charlie Howard, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
(https://archive.org/details/americana)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations.
      See 44177-h.htm or 44177-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44177/44177-h/44177-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44177/44177-h.zip)


      Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
      https://archive.org/details/mythsfablesoftod00drak


Transcriber's note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).





THE MYTHS AND FABLES OF TO-DAY


      *      *      *      *      *      *

BY THE SAME AUTHOR


  =The Watch Fires of '76= Illustrated              =$1.25=
  =The Campaign of Trenton=                           =.50=
  =Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777=                       =.50=
  =The Taking of Louisburg=                           =.50=
  =The Battle of Gettysburg=                          =.50=
  =Our Colonial Homes= Illustrated                   =2.50=
  =Old Landmarks of Boston= Illustrated              =2.00=
  =Old Landmarks of Middlesex= Illustrated           =2.00=
  =Captain Nelson= A romance of Colonial Days         =.75=
  =The Heart of the White Mountains= Illustra'd      =7.50=
  =The Same= Tourists' Edition                       =3.00=
  =Old Boston Taverns= Paper                          =.25=
  =Around the Hub= A Boys' Book about Boston         =1.12=
  =New England Legends and Folk Lore= Illus'd        =2.00=
  =The Making of New England= Illustrated            =1.50=
  =The Making of the Great West= Illustrated         =1.50=
  =The Making of Virginia and Middle Colonies=       =1.50=
  =The Making of the Ohio Valley States= Ill'd       =1.50=
  =The Pine Tree Coast= Illustrated                  =1.50=

  _Any book in the above list sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of
  price, by_

  LEE AND SHEPARD BOSTON MASS.

      *      *      *      *      *      *


THE MYTHS AND FABLES OF TO-DAY


"_Lord, what fools these mortals be!_"


[Illustration: HALLOWE'EN.]


THE MYTHS AND FABLES OF TO-DAY

by

SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE

Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill







Boston
Lee and Shepard
MCM

Copyright, 1900, by Samuel Adams Drake.

_All rights reserved._

THE MYTHS AND FABLES OF TO-DAY.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




CONTENTS


                                                      PAGE

     I. A RECKONING WITH TIME                            1

    II. THE FOLK-LORE OF CHILDHOOD                      25

   III. WEATHER LORE                                    34

    IV. SIGNS OF ALL SORTS                              47

     V. CHARMS TO GOOD LUCK                             55

    VI. CHARMS AGAINST DISEASE                          85

   VII. OF FATE IN JEWELS                              109

  VIII. OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE                           122

    IX. OF EVIL OMENS                                  144

     X. OF HAUNTED HOUSES, PERSONS, AND  PLACES        182

    XI. OF PRESENTIMENTS                               208

   XII. THE DIVINING-ROD                               229

  XIII. WONDERS OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE               234

   XIV. "SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT"                 244

    XV. FORTUNE-TELLING, ASTROLOGY, AND PALMISTRY      259




[Illustration]

I

A RECKONING WITH TIME

    "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too
    superstitious."


To say that superstition is one of the facts of history is only to
state a truism. If that were all, we might treat the subject from
a purely philosophical or historical point of view, as one of the
inexplicable phenomena of an age much lower in intelligence than our
own, and there leave it.

But if, also, we must admit superstition to be a present, a living,
fact, influencing, if not controlling, the everyday acts of men, we
have to deal with a problem as yet unsolved, if not insolvable.

I know it is commonly said that such things belong to a past age--that
they were the legitimate product of ignorance, and have died out with
the education of the masses. In other words, we know more than our
ancestors did about the phenomena of nature, and therefore by no means
accept, as they did--good, superstitious souls!--the appearance of a
comet blazing in the heavens, or the heaving of an earthquake under our
feet, as events having moral significance. With the aid of electricity
or steam we perform miracles every day of our lives, such as, no doubt,
would have created equal wonder and fear for the general stability of
the world not many generations ago.

Very true. So far as merely physical phenomena are concerned, most of
us may have schooled ourselves to disunite them wholly from coming
events; but as regards those things which spring from the inward
consciousness of the man himself, his intuitions, his perceptions,
his aspirations, his imaginative nature, which, if strong enough, is
capable of creating and peopling a realm wholly outside of the little
world he lives in--"ay, there's the rub." Who will undertake to span
the gulf stretching out a shoreless void between the revelations of
science and the incomprehensible mysteries of life itself? It is upon
that debatable