There's many a neighbor
about thim works their fingers to the stumps, an' yit you see they can't
get an: for Ellish, if she'd throw the sweepins of her hearth to the
wind, it 'ud come back to her in money. She was born to it, an' nothin'
can keep her from her luck!"**
* The caul is a, thin membrane, about the consistence
of very fine silk, which sometimes covers the head on a
new-born infant like a cap. It is always the omen of
great good fortune to the infant and parents; and in
Ireland, when any one has unexpectedly fallen into the
receipt of property, or any other temporal good, it is
customary to say, "such a person was born with a 'lucky
caul' on his head."
Why these are considered lucky, it would be a very
difficult matter to ascertain. Several instances of
good fortune, happening to such as were born with them,
might, by their coincidences, form a basis for the
superstition; just as the fact of three men during one
severe winter having been found drowned, each with two
shirts on, generated an opinion which has now become
fixed and general in that parish, that it is unlucky to
wear two shirts at once. We are not certain whether the
caul is in general the perquisite of the midwife--
sometimes we believe it is; at all events, her
integrity occasionally yields to the desire of
possessing it.
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