To make a young tree grow in the divan passage. (Osmanli). This would be impossible as the divan passage is usually paved with stone and is in constant use.

To pound water in a mortar. (Persian).

To show the path to one who knows it. (Welsh).

To tie a priest's hair in a knot. (Japanese).

Which would be impossible owing to the fact that the priests shave their heads.

Using a mirror to look at one's bracelets. (Bengalese). Exerting oneself to discover that which is plainly visible.

66 Why, man, have you got up into the tamarind tree?" He replied," To pluck grass for my kitten." (Tamil). “You fellow, Why did you go up the cocoanut tree? When thus addressed, he replied, "I went to get grass for the calf." (Tamil).

Equivalent to the common phrase, "It's none of your business."

You dance in a net and think nobody sees you. (English).

SUPERSTITION IN PROVERBS

See Fortune and Luck in Proverbs.

After a dream of a wedding comes a corpse. (English). It was a common superstition of olden times that when anyone, particularly lovers, dreamed about marriage, death and disaster were sure to follow. To dream about a wedding always "denotes the death of some near friend or relation, with loss of property and severe disappointment."

Old English Chapbook. "To dream you are married is ominous of death and very unfavourable to the dreamer; it denotes poverty, a prison, and misfortune.'

Old English Chapbook.

A gift on the thumb is sure to come; a gift on the finger is sure to linger. (English).

This proverb does not refer, as is often supposed, to presents that may be received or withheld, but to some impending good or evil. "Gift" was a colloquial word that was applied in mediaval times to the white spots that sometimes appear on the finger nails.

"Specks on the fingers, fortune lingers;

Specks on the thumbs, fortune surely comes.' It was the custom of people in olden times to count the white spots that they saw on their nails and touch them one after another, beginning with those on the thumb and proceeding to those on each of the fingers. As this was done the counter would say, "Gift-Friend-Foe-Sweetheart to come-Journey to go." Sometimes "Letter" was substituted for "Sweetheart to come."

A hair of the dog that bit you. (English).

"To take a hair of the same dog." (English).
To take more of the liquor that intoxicated you."
"Early we rose, in haste to get away;

And to the hostler this morning, by day,

This fellow called: 'What ho! fellow, thou knave! thee let me and my fellow have

I

pray

A hair of the dog that bit us last night-
And bitten were we both to the brain aright.
We saw each other drunk in the good ale glass,
And so did each one each other, that there was.""
John Heywood.

Another and older meaning was that when a person

had been bitten by a dog it was desirable to secure one of the animal's hairs and place it on the wound for a cure.

A king reigns on land, in half-filled-up tanks reigns the water sprite. (Assamese).

The water sprite is an evil spirit that is supposed to haunt the swamps and marshes and lead people astray.

A man had better ne'er be born as have his nails on a
Sunday shorn. (English).

"Cut them on Monday, cut them for health;
Cut them on Tuesday, cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Wednesday, cut them for news;
Cut them on Thursday, a new pair of shoes;
Cut them on Friday, cut them for sorrow;

Cut them on Saturday, see your sweetheart to-
morrow."-Old English Rhyme.

A serpent unless it devours a serpent grows not to a dragon. (Latin and Greek).

A Sunday child never dies of plague. (French). "A child of Sunday and Christmas Day Is good and fair, and wise and gay."

Bush natural; more hair than wit. (English).

Meaning that when a person has a large quantity
of hair on his head he is deficient in intellect.
Shakespeare refers to this superstition in Two
Gentlemen of Verona (Act IÌI, Scene 1) when

he makes Launce say: "More hair than wit? It may be; I'll prove it. The cover of the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt; the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the greater hides the less, what next?"

Cross a stile and a gate hard by, you'll be a widow before you die. (English).

Don't wash the inside of a baby's hand; you will wash his luck away. (American Negro).

The above saying is one of many current in Tide-
water Virginia, given by a writer in the Southern
Workman (Hampton Institute) for November,
1899. Others are as follows: "Don't leave the
griddle on the fire after the bread is done; it will
make bread scarce." "Don't sweep dirt out of
the door after night; you will sweep yourself out
of a home." 'Don't step over anybody's leg; it
will turn to a stick of wood." "Don't comb your
hair at night, it will make you forgetful." "Don't
be the first to drive a hearse, or you will be the
next to die." "Don't shake the tablecloth out
of doors after sunset; you will never marry.'
"Don't sweep a person's feet, it will make him
lazy; so will hitting them with a straw.”
"Don't
whip the child who burns another; if you do, the
burnt child will die." "Don't measure yourself;
it will make you die." "Don't lend or borrow
salt or pepper; it will break friendship. If you
must borrow it, don't pay it back." "Don't
kill a wren; it will cause your limbs to get broken."
"Don't pass anything over a person's back; it
will give him pains." Don't pour out tea before
putting sugar in the cup, or some one will be
drowned. Some say it will drown the miller."
“Don't kill cats, dogs, or frogs; you will die in
rags." "Don't move cats; if you do, you will die
a beggar." "Don't meet a corpse, or you will
get very sick before the year is out.'
"Don't
point at or speak of a shooting star.' "Don't
count the teeth of a comb; they will all break
out."
"Don't lock your hands over your

head."

Dry bargains bode ill. (Scotch).

An allusion to an old Scotch custom of ratifying a bargain with drink.

Eat cress to learn more wit. (Greek).

Friday is a cross day for marriage. (English).

See Fortune and Luck in Proverbs:

"He that

laughs on Friday will weep on Sunday." Probably taken from the old English rhyme:

"Monday for wealth,

Tuesday for health,

Wednesday the best day of all;

Thursday for losses,

Friday for crosses,

And Saturday, no luck at all."

Happy is the bride the sun shines on, and the corpse the

rain rains on.

(English).

"While others repeat:

Your praise and bless you, sprinkling you with wheat;

While that others so divine,

Bless'd is the bride on which the sun doth shine."

Robert Herrick.

He was wrapp'd in his mither's sark tail. (Scotch). "He was lapped in his mother's smock." (English). There is an old Scotch superstitious_custom of receiving every male child at birth in its mother's shift, believing that by so doing it will be made acceptable to women in after life, so that when a man is unpopular among women people say, "He was kept in a broad claith; he was some hap to his meat, but none to his wives."

If in handling a loaf you break it in two parts, it will rain all the week. (English).

It is an old superstition that if an unmarried woman is placed between a man and his wife at a social gathering, or permits a loaf to be broken by accident while it is in her hands, she will not be married for one year.