MODERN NORMANDY

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 February 1938, Page 7

MODERN NORMANDY

lIOW TO SECURE MATES. PARIS, December 15. Normandy, land of apple blossom and cider and quaint old towns, is the home of hundreds of marriage supeistitions. . There is a belief that if a girl or a young man spills salt on a table in a room where there is a beam above the table, she will be married within the year. There is a largo polished stone close to the Chapelle of Notre Dame dela Deliverance, at Monthault. The slanting surface of this stone measures six or seven yards, and marriage inside; months waits for anyone who has the courage to climb to the top and slide down it. There is a groove worn in this stone, which shows that during the centuries it has been widely used. Young girls of one part of Normandy, to know their future husbands, are recommended to fast during three days and to sing three times before going to bed a four-line song to St. Nicholas asking that saint to “show in sleep what I shall have in life.’’ Many prefer to have recourse to intermediaries who know who are the young men or young women desiring to marry. Th ecustom is to make the match-maker a present of a hat.