"Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rotting hog Thou that was seal'd in thy nativity The slave of nature and the son of hell."
Moles, too, have generally been thought to denote good or ill-luck from their position on the body. Thus one on the throat is a sign of luck, but one on the left side of the forehead near the hair is just the reverse. Again, a mole on either the chin, ear, or neck is an indication of riches, but one on the breast signifies poverty. Indeed, if we are to believe the "Greenwich Fortune-teller," a popular chap-book in former years, omens to be drawn from moles are almost unlimited.
Referring, however, more especially to the folk-lore associated with the different parts of the human body, this, as we have already stated, is very extensive, being in many cases the legacy bequeathed to us by our ancestors. Commencing, then, with the ear, there is a well-known superstition that a tingling of the right one is lucky, denoting that a friend is speaking well of one; a tingling of the left implying the opposite. This notion differs according to the locality, as in some places it is the tingling of the left ear which denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear the enemy. Shakespeare, in _Much Ado about Nothing_ (Act iii., sc. 1), makes Beatrice say to Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her, "What fire is in mine ears?" in allusion, it is generally supposed, to this popular fancy, which is old as the time of Pliny, who says, "When our ears tingle some one is talking of us in our absence." Sir Thomas Browne also ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian angels, who touch the right or left ear according as the conversation is favourable or not to the person. The Scotch peasantry have an omen called the "death-bell"--a tingling in the ears which is believed to announce some friend's death. Hogg alludes to this superstition in his "Mountain Bard":--
"O lady, 'tis dark, an' I heard the death-bell, An' I darena gae yonder for gowd nor fee,"
and gives also an amusing anecdote illustrative of it:--"Our two servant-girls agreed to go on an errand of their own, one night after supper, to a considerable distance, from which I strove to persuade them, but could not prevail; so, after going to the apartment where I slept, I took a drinking-glass, and coming close to the back of the door made two or three sweeps round the lip of the glass with my finger, which caused a loud shrill sound, and then overheard the following dialogue:--