The following form of divination seems purely Northumbrian. After a death has taken place in a family, the straw or chaff from the bed of the departed is taken into an open place and burned. Among its ashes the survivors look for a footprint, and that member of the family whose foot fits the impression will be the next to die.
Yorkshire, too, has its own manner of inquiring who will be taken from this world. Those who are curious to know about the death of their fellow-parishioners must keep watch in the church-porch on St. Mark’s Eve for an hour on each side of midnight for three successive years. On the third year they will see the forms of those doomed to die within the twelvemonth passing one by one into the church. If the watcher fall asleep during his vigil he will die himself during the year. I have heard, however, of one case in which the intimation was given by the sight of the watcher’s own form and features. It is that of an old woman at Scarborough, who kept St. Mark’s vigil in the porch of St. Mary’s in that town about eighty years ago. Figure after figure glided into the church, turning round to her as they went in, so that she recognised their familiar faces. At last a figure turned and gazed at her; she knew herself, screamed, and fell senseless to the ground. Her neighbours found her there in the morning, and carried her home, but she did not long survive the shock. An old man who recently died at Fishlake, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was in the habit of keeping these vigils, and was in consequence an object of some dread to his neighbours. The old sexton at —— did so too, in order, it was said, to count the gains of the coming year. At the gates of Bramley church, Yorkshire, lived, some years ago, a man named Askew, son of a Baptist minister, who was reported always to keep St. Mark’s watch. One year he let it transpire that he had seen the spirit of a neighbour called Lester, who, in consequence, would die during the twelvemonth. Mr. Lester, who was not in good health at the time, was much affected. He was then building a house, and he now arranged it with double doors, so that his widow might conveniently let half of it in case of his decease. He used to say that if he lived
