TRADITIONAL BELIEF AND PRACTICE

Abstract

Superstitious rituals and beliefs belonging to the children's own traditions and owing little to adult influence include: ritual counting; divining sweethearts, etc.; confirming promises; sealing bargains; protective rituals, including those invoked when children duplicate the same words; making up after a quarrel; finding things; various procedures in connection with paving stone cracks and milk teeth; and miscellaneous beliefs associated with the weather, flowers, birds, insects, spiders, vehicles, etc. In discussing these, Nigel Kelsey follows the Opies in describing them as ``half-belief'', which he regards as a very useful term that covers a wide range of practices, rituals, sayings, and beliefs. A subsection is devoted to superstitions concerning luck and related topics. The section concludes with examples of seasonal lore, which the author sees as being in decline.