Andrew's, or Christmas, night with an apple under her pillow, "takes her
stand with it in her hand on the next festival of the Church thereafter;
and the first man whom she sees, other than a relative, will become
her husband."

Again, in Bohemia, on Christmas Eve, there is a pretty practice for
young people to fix coloured wax-lights in the shells of the first nuts
they have opened that day, and to float them in water, after silently
assigning to each the name of some fancied wooer. He whose little barque
is the first to approach the girl will be her future husband; but, on
the other hand, should an unwelcome suitor seem likely to be the first,
she blows against it, and so, by impeding its progress, allows the
favoured barque to win.

In very early times flowers were mcuh in request as love-philtres,
various allusions to which occur in the literature of most ages. Thus,
in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Oberon tells Puck to place a pansy on
the eyes of Titania, in order that, on awaking, she may fall in love
with the first object she encounters. Gerarde speaks of the carrot as
"serving for love matters," and adds that the root of the wild species
is more effectual than that of the garden. Vervain has long been in
repute as a love-philtre, and in Germany now-a-days endive-seed is sold
for its supposed power to influence the affections. The root of the male
fern was in years gone by used in love-philtres, and hence the following
allusion:

"'Twas the maiden's matchless beauty
That drew my heart a-nigh;
Not the fern-root potion,
But the glance of her blue eye."