I am getting older and I am starting to worry more. I need reassurance.
Will I get enough work to pay the bills? Will my wife be satisfied with my domestic duties? Will my children find fresh reasons to criticise their upbringing? As a rugby coach, will enough players turn up on Saturday?
I need to know what the future will bring so I am going to try a bit of divination.
Grounds for the future
After I have had my first cup of coffee of the morning, I gaze into the bottom of my cup to see what the coffee grounds are saying. This is “tasseomancy”—usually seeing the future in tea leaves although it can also be done with coffee grounds (French “tasse” for cup and “-mancy” from Greek “manteia” meaning prophecy). An even distribution suggests I have at least avoided swallowing the dregs—a mouthful of coffee grounds is definitely a bad omen. This augurs well.
As I look at the cup in my hand, I remember that I can also read my palm. Chiromancy, better known as palmistry, is divination from the lines of the hand. The word comes from Greek “kheir” (hand) and -mancy. I have a reassuringly long life line but my palm offers little guidance on what mood my wife will be in this afternoon. Still, a long line is preferable to a short one.
“I don’t have a crystal ball” is an expression for not being able to see into the future. Without a crystal ball I can’t even try. Crystal ball divination can be called crystallomancy but is better known as “scrying”. Scrying is a shortened form of descrying — an old word meaning to discern or catch sight of something difficult to see. Scrying and palm reading are also the methods associated with the stereotypical Romani fortune teller we know so well from books, film and TV. I wish there was one I could consult.
Next, I dig out my James Bond Tarot cards (merchandise from the Live and Let Die film of 1973) to give myself a reading (this is “cartomancy” for “card” prophesy). The cards are encouraging—The Fool indicates a new beginning; The Hermit suggests reflection; and The Wheel of Fortune signifies change—so tomorrow will be different from today, but also similar.
Bird watching with the Romans—augur & auspice
Bird divination was particularly important to the Romans. Seeking some certainty about the future, including before military campaigns, they employed augurs. An augur read the future by interpreting the behaviour of birds. “Augur” may originate from the Latin “avis” for bird and “garrire” to chatter, that is, to talk of birds.
A related word is “auspice”, from Latin auspicium—literally “bird-watching”, or divination from the flight of birds. From it we get “auspicious”, meaning favourable or promising. Something that augurs well is, appropriately enough, auspicious.
We might even get “omen” from the Greek word “oionos” for a bird of prey. We can speculate that the flight of the eagle as the totem bird of the Roman legions might have had most meaning to them in predicting the future.
I often count the ibises in my garden. The ibis— or bin chicken, as we affectionately call it—is the mascot of my rugby union team. I somewhat believe that the more ibises I have in my garden, the better my team attendance on Saturday. To improve my chances, I feed the bin chickens every day. So far, I have had as many as twelve—this surely will bring success, but still three short of a rugby team.
We have a black cat, Dexter, that is supposed to bring us good luck. Ailuromancy, from Greek “ailouros” (cat) is predicting the future using the behaviour of cats. A black cat crossing your path augurs good luck (at least in English witchcraft). Signs to look for include a cat climbing up furniture foretells rain: grooming its face, that visitors are coming: and sitting with its back to the fire, cold weather is coming. All that Dexter seems to predict with any accuracy is his feeding time.
The dark arts of divination
So far, I have avoided “haruspicy”—divination from the entrails of sacrificed animals. Livers are particularly informative, it seems. However, the ibises are safe and probably Dexter.
If haruspicy is a step too far, I am certainly too apprehensive for necromancy—divination by communicating with the human dead. One of the earliest references to necromancy is in Book 11 of the Odyssey when Odysseus summons the dead to seek advice on his journey home from Troy.
Necromancy comes from Greek “nekros” (dead body). In medieval Europe the word became “nigromancy”, through association with Latin niger (black). This misreading associated necromancy with black magic. The spelling was corrected back to necromancy in the sixteenth century.
Talking to dead bodies is taking this far too far.
There are many other divination methods to try to augur the future. But it is much easier to get guidance from a book. Opening a text at random and taking advice from the first passage you read is known as “bibliomancy” for book prophecy. Christians traditionally used the Bible. The Romans consulted Virgil. I prefer Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary.
I opened it. “Year—a period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.” I could only agree.