In the gaslight and steam-railway age, when Victorian confidence in progress burned bright, Samuel Adams Drake looked backward, and found the past still living in the present. This enchanting volume catalogs the superstitions, omens, and folk beliefs that persisted even in an age of electric lights and scientific certainty. Drake records weather proverbs passed from grandmother to grandchild, domestic signs that governed daily life (a cat washing behind her ears means rain; spiders on the wall portend wet weather), and the ancient magic hidden within Christmas celebrations and nursery tales. What emerges is a portrait of a society that prided itself on rationality yet remained woven through with threads of older, darker, more wonderful belief. Drake argues that superstition is no relic of the past but a living force, cropping up in every conversation, every habit, every unexamined custom. For readers who delight in folklore, Victorian oddities, or the strange persistence of magic in modern life, this book offers a bewitching glimpse into a world that believed the world was enchanted, and maybe still is.
