Rocking the Empty Cradle

A contributor to Chambers gathered nursery beliefs met with at first hand. It was unlucky to weigh a new baby, which would then die or fail to thrive, and nurses protested even while calling it nonsense. Cats were said to suck the breath of infants. A child leaving its mother’s room for the first time had to go upstairs before going down, or it would never rise in the world, and where there was no upstairs the nurse stepped up on a chair with it. Rocking an empty cradle would rock a new baby into it.