man's hair and works it into a nest he will suffer terribly till it is completely
decayed.
One way of interrogating fate in love affairs is to slice an apple in two
with a sharp knife; if this can be done without cutting a seed the wish of the
heart will be fulfilled. Of yore, in many lands the apple was ever sacred to
love, wisdom, and divination. Once in Germany a well-formed child
became, through bewitchment, sorely crooked and cramped; by the advice
of a monk the mother cut an apple in three pieces and made the child eat
them, whereupon it became as before. In Illzach, in Alsace, there is a custom
called "Andresle." On Saint Andrew's Eve a girl must take from a widow,
and without returning thanks for it, an apple. As in Hungary she cuts it in
two and must eat one half of it before midnight, and the other half after it;
then in sleep she will see her future husband. And there is yet another love-
spell of the split apple given by SCHEIBLE ("Die gute alte Zeit," Stuttgart,
1847, p, 297) which runs as follows:--
"On Friday early as may be,
Take the fairest apple from a tree,
Then in thy blood on paper white
Thy own name and thy true love's write,
That apple thou in two shalt cut,
And for its cure that paper put,
With two sharp pins of myrtle wood
Join the halves till it seem good,
In the oven let it dry,
And wrapped in leaves of myrtle lie,
Under the pillow of thy dear,
Yet let it be unknown to her
And if it a secret be
She soon will show her love for thee."