broken open and half-a-sovereign stolen.[1] In some districts, however, special weight is attached to the “first-foot” being that of a person with a high-arched instep, a foot that “water runs under.” A flat-footed person would bring great ill-luck for the coming year. The possessor of the lucky, i.e., arched foot, whether male or female, will then be asked to come first to the home or to the room to awaken the sleepers.
It is recorded by Hospinian that formerly, in Rome, no one would suffer another to take fire out of his house on New Year’s Day, or anything made of iron, or indeed would lend anything.[2] But I can bear witness that this idea has been more thoroughly worked out in the farmhouses of the county of Durham. It happened that, when a boy, I spent Christmas in one of those primitive secluded spots, which now, alas! have disappeared before the collieries which crowd and darken the land. I remember accompanying the mistress of the house to her kitchen on New Year’s Eve, when she called together all her servants, and warned them, under pain of dismissal, not to allow anything to be carried out of the house on the following day, though they might bring in as much as they pleased. Acting on this order, all ashes, dish-washings, or potato-parings, and so forth, were retained in the house till the next day; while coals, potatoes, firewood, and bread were brought in as usual, the mistress keeping a sharp look-out on the fulfilment of her orders.
Now, we may see in this practice on the first day of the year a shadow of anxiety that the incomings of the ensuing twelvemonth should exceed the outgoings, or in other words that the year might be prosperous. Much of our Folk-Lore points to this craving for material prosperity: e.g., the keeping the tip of a dried tongue in the pocket, that it may never be empty; or turning the money in it on the first sight of the new moon, or
