"Kind fortune, tell me where is he
Who my future lord shall be;
From this bowl all that I claim
Is to know my sweetheart's name."
she puts the bowl into a safe place until morning. Then she is blindfolded and picks out the same number of letters as there are in her own name, and spells another from them.
In New Brunswick, instead of an apple, a hard-boiled egg without salt is eaten before a mirror, with the same result. In Canada a thread is held over a lamp. The number that can be counted slowly before the thread parts, is the number of years before the one who counts will marry.
In the United States a hair is thrown to the winds with the stanza chanted:
"I pluck this lock of hair off my head
To tell whence comes the one I shall wed.
Fly, silken hair, fly all the world around.
Until you reach the spot where my true love is found."
The direction in which the hair floats is prophetic.
