Hewett's Haloween - Part 9 - Hemp seed love-charm and the reapers...

Hemp - By Jungbim (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

"Now the crucial movement was at hand. Each girl took possession of a big handful of hempseed. The front door was thrown wide open and securely fastened back to prevent the possibility of its being accidentally closed ; the girls stood without. As the clock gave the first stroke of twelve off they started each in a different direction across the lawn, shouting :

Hempseed I sow,
Hempseed I throw,
He that's my true-love,
Come after me and mow !

The spirits of the future ones were expected to be beyond the shrubs ready to rush after the sowers, and unhappy would have been the maiden, who could not get over the threshold before the scythe of the reaper caught her. All the girls reached the hall unharmed : little Mary, looking a bit scared, said, as she wound her arms around me.

" Oh, wasn't I just about startled? indeed, I was, for I thought I saw Dick Harvey right in front of me as I turned to come back, holding a bright new sickle over his head."

I felt the child tremble, and then I enquired, " Who is Dick Harvey ?"

"Oh, nobody in particular, don't tell."

Of course I have not told till now..."

Derkovits, Gyula - Dózsa-series II. Peasant Whettering the Scythe (1928)

"...Poor Dick Harvey never came to claim little Mary, for, very soon after that happy evening, news came of a great storm, and Dick, who was first officer of the ss. Petrel, was lost with all hands in mid Atlantic."

Hewett 1900

Map - Haldon Hills