Northern mythology

276 DANISH TRADITIONS.
return on him who shot it. But if the piece be loaded
with a silver button, that will infallibly take effect ^
42. The third night after burial the dead are wont to
walk.
43. A pregnant woman must not walk over a place
where a knife has been ground; as it causes a difficult
delivery. But if she spits thrice on the spot, there is no
danger.
44. If a child is weighed immediately after it is born,
it will not thrive afterv/ards.
45. If a child be lifted out of one window and taken in
through another, it will never grow bigger.
46. If a lying-in woman dies before delivery, she will
give birth forty weeks after in the grave.
For which reason,
a needle, thread, scissors, &c. should be buried with
her, that she may sew the baby-linen.
47. By the breast-bone of a Martinmas goose it may
be known how the winter will be. The white in it is a
sign of snow ;
but the brown forebodes very severe cold.
It is also to be observed that the foremost part by the
neck foretells of winter before Christmas ;
part of winter after Christmas.
but the hinder
48. As the weather is on the day of the Seven Sleepers
(July 27), so it will continue for seven weeks.
49. It often happens that mariners in the wide ocean
see a ship—in all
respects resembling a real one— sailing
by, and at the same instant vanishing from their sight.
It is the spectre-ship, and forebodes that a vessel will
soon go to the bottom on that spot.
50. Every seventh year the cock lays an egg. When
it is hatched, a basihsk comes forth, which kills people
merely by looking at them. It is also said, that this
animal can be killed only by holding a mirror before it,
it being so ugly that it cannot survive the sight of itself-.
1
See pp. 6, 191, 192, note ^ 2 See p. 212.