Augury

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
But the child that is born on the Sabbath day,
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. 

I haven't heard it in years, but it came to mind recently. I had always wondered how such easily-disproven augury had survived, but as there is high variance in everyone's behavior, especially children, I suppose you could talk yourself into most of it. There were days I was full of woe, and days I worked hard. The rhyme only goes back about 200 years, so I then wondered if it was just supposed to be a bit of English charm without much attempt at accuracy. But people took these things seriously even three hundred years earlier.  And the list was a little grimmer, likely due to harder conditions. 

If a man-child was born on a Sunday it was believed that he would live without anxiety and be handsome. If born on a Monday he was certain to be killed. Those born on a Tuesday grew up sinful and perverse, while those born on a Wednesday were waspish in temper. A child born on Thursday, however, was sure to be of a peaceful and easy disposition, though averse to women. Friday was supposed to be the most unlucky day of all, it being prophesied that a child born on this day would grow up to be silly, crafty, a thief, and a coward, and that he would not live longer than mid-age. If born on a Saturday, his deeds would be renowned : he would live to be an alderman, many things would happen to him, and he would live long.

I don't think augury was the point, though they certainly looked for signs in everything in Merrie England*: the behavior of flocks of birds, the birth of deformed animals, dreams and other spectral evidence. Such augury was twinned with grammarye, in which people hoped to make such things come into being if they were hoped for, but seldom referenced if they were not until near death, when Fate had done its work. Speak it into being, or not.

There is also a fatalism in it, a teaching for children and all hearers that life could be hard and there might not be much one could do but endure it. Good looks and good temper might be your lot - notice that prosperity is not included in the lists - but woe and hard life come to many. 

*A period which began, ironically enough, just after the Great Plague, when people almost frantically began to have regular celebrations according to the liturgical holidays, but clean up some of the impiety of them from the dark and unknown past. It was at that time that a spirit of egalitarianism grew up around Europe, as people saw that the wealthy had fared little better during the catastrophe, surprising heirs came to inherit lands, and laborers or craftsmen became more valuable.