British Goblins Part 22

The British Boxing-day is well known, both as to its customs and its origin. The Christmas-box, or thrift-box, is still to be seen in barber shops in Wales, fastened to the wall, or standing conveniently under the looking-gla.s.s among the pots and brushes. At one time the custom became such a nuisance throughout Britain that an outcry was raised about it. It got to that pa.s.s that the butcher and baker would send their apprentices around among their customers to levy contributions. The English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in 1837, sent a circular to the different emba.s.sies requesting their excellencies and charges d'affaires to discontinue the customary Christmas-boxes to the 'messengers of the Foreign Department, domestic servants of Viscount Palmerston, foreign postmen, etc.' The nuisance is hardly less prevalent now. The faithful postman in Wales not only expects to be remembered at Christmas, but he expects to be given a precise sum, and if he does not get it he is capable of asking for it.

In one case, a postman accustomed to receive five s.h.i.+llings at a certain office, on asking for his 'box,' was told the usual donor was absent in London, whereupon he requested the clerk to write up to him in London immediately on the subject. These things strike a stranger as very singular, among a people usually so self-respecting. Warnings are from time to time issued on this subject by those in authority, but the custom is likely to survive so long as it is not ranked outright with beggary. Like the Christmas-tree, it is a graceful thing among the children, or among friends or household servants, if spontaneous; but as a tax, it is an odious perversion.[132]

FOOTNOTE:

[132] Among those who last Christmas applied at my house for 'his box, sir, if you please' (as my maid put it), quite as a matter of course, were the postman, the leader of the waits, the boy who brings the daily newspapers, the bookseller's boy, the chimney-sweep, the dustman, the grocer's man, etc., etc., no one of whom I had ever set eyes on. The equal of this I never encountered, except in Paris, on the _jour de l'an_.

VI.

The pagan origin of most of our Christmas customs is undoubted. Even the cheery Christmas-tree is a symbol of heathen rites in times long antedating Christ. The early Christian fathers, in adopting the popular usages of their predecessors, and bending them to the service of Christianity, made wondrous little change in them, beyond the subst.i.tution of new motives and names for the old festivals peculiar to several seasons of the year. The British Druids' feast of Alban Arthur, celebrating the new birth of the sun, occurred at our Christmas time, and is still celebrated at Pontypridd, Glamorgans.h.i.+re, every year. It begins on the 22nd of December, and lasts three days, during which period the sun is supposed to fight with Avagddu, the spirit of darkness, the great luminary having descended into h.e.l.l for that purpose. On the third day he rose, and the bards struck their harps, rejoicing that the sun had again been found. The Pontypridd ceremonies are similar to those of Midsummer-day, already mentioned.

The Arch-Druid presides in the folds of the serpent circle--when he can get there, that is, for he is old, past eighty, and the Druidic hill is apt to be slippery with snow and ice at this time of the year.

He prays to the pagan G.o.d, and perhaps chants a poem in Welsh.[133]

The Druidic fires of the winter solstice feast were continued in customs like that which survived in Herefords.h.i.+re until recent years, when on old Christmas-eve thirteen fires were lighted in a cornfield, twelve of them being in a circle round a central one which burned higher than the rest. The circle fires were called the Twelve Apostles, and the central one the Virgin Mary. In a shed near by was a cow with a plum-cake between or upon her horns, into whose face a pail of cider was dashed, with a rhyming address, and the cow tossing her horns from her unexpected baptism naturally threw the plum-cake down.

If it fell forward, good harvests were predicted; if backward, the omen was evil. A feast among the peasants followed. In the Plygain in like manner survives the Druidic custom of going to the sacred groves before dawn on this morning, to greet the rising of the new-born sun after his struggle with the evil principle.

FOOTNOTE:

[133] I give a free translation of this effort as delivered on Sunday, December 24th, 1876 (which proved a mild day), and which I find reported in the 'Western Mail' of the 26th as follows: 'The day of the winter solstice has dawned upon us; little is the smile and the halo of Hea. The depth of winter has been reached, but the muse of Wales is budding still. Cold is the snow on the mountains; naked are the trees, and the meadows are bare; but while nature is withering the muse of Wales is budding. When the earth is decked in mourning, and the birds are silent, the muse of Wales, with its harp, is heard in the gorsedd of the holy hill. On the stone ark, within the circle of the caldron of Ceridwen, are throned the sons of Awen; though through their hair the frozen mist is wafted, their bosoms are sympathetic and they rejoice. Peace, love, and truth, encircle our throne; throne without a beginning and without ending, adorned with uchelwydd (mistletoe), symbol of perennial life. The throne of the British Bard--which remains a throne while other thrones decay into dust around it: an everlasting throne! The great wheel of ages revolves and brings around our festivities; repeating our joys it does perpetually. Muse, awake; awake, ye harps; let not any part of the year be forgotten wherein to crown usage (defod), morals (moes), and virtue. The Saviour Hea is about to be born of the winter solstice. He will rise higher still and higher s.h.i.+ningly, and we will have again a new year. Haste hail, haste falling snow, hasten rough storms of winter--hasten away that we may see the happy evidences of the new year.'

CHAPTER V.

Courts.h.i.+p and Marriage--Planting Weeds and Rue on the Graves of Old Bachelors--Special Significance of Flowers in connection with Virginity--The Welsh Venus--Bundling, or Courting Abed--Kissing Schools--Rhamanta--Lovers'

Superst.i.tions--The Maid's Trick--Dreaming on a Mutton Bone--Wheat and Shovel--Garters in a Lovers' Knot--Egg-Sh.e.l.l Cake--Sowing Leeks--Twca and Sheath.

I.

Welsh courts.h.i.+p is a thorough-going business, early entered upon by the boys and girls of the Princ.i.p.ality; and consequently most Welsh women marry young. The ancient laws of Howell the Good (died 948) expressly provided that a woman should be considered marriageable from fourteen upwards, and should be ent.i.tled to maintenance from that age until the end of her fortieth year; 'that is to say, from fourteen to forty she ought to be considered in her youth.' By every sort of moral suasion it is deemed right in Wales to encourage matrimony, and no where are old bachelors viewed with less forbearance. There used to be a custom--I know not whether it be extinct now--of expressing the popular disapprobation for celibacy by planting on the graves of old bachelors that ill-scented plant, the rue, and sometimes thistles, nettles, henbane, and other unlovely weeds. The practice was even extended, most illiberally and unjustly, to the graves of old maids, who certainly needed no such insult added to their injury. Probably the custom was never very general, but grew out of similar--but other-meaning--customs which are still prevalent, and which are very beautiful. I refer to the planting of graves with significant flowers in token of the virtues of the dead. Thus where the red rose is planted on a grave, its tenant is indicated as having been in life a person of peculiar benevolence of character. The flower specially planted on the grave of a young virgin is the white rose. There is also an old custom, at the funeral of a young unmarried person, of strewing the way to the grave with evergreens and sweet-scented flowers, and the common saying in connection therewith is that the dead one is going to his or her marriage-bed. Sad extremely, and touchingly beautiful, are these customs; but wherever such exist, there are sure to be ill-conditioned persons who will vent spiteful feelings by similar means. Hence the occasional affront to the remains of antiquated single folk, who had been perhaps of a temperament which rendered them unpopular.

The Welsh being generally of an affectionate disposition, courts.h.i.+p, as I have said, is a thorough-going business. To any but a people of the strongest moral and religious tendencies, some of their customs would prove dangerous in the extreme; but no people so link love and religion. More of their courting is done while going home from church than at any other time whatever; and the Welsh Venus is a holy saint, and not at all a wicked Pagan character like her cla.s.sic prototype.

'Holy Dwynwen, G.o.ddess of love, daughter of Brychan,' had a church dedicated to her in Anglesea in 590; and for ages her shrine was resorted to by desponding swains and lovesick maidens. Her name--_Dwyn_, to carry off, and _wen_, white--signifies the bearer off of the palm of fairness; and, ruling the court of love while living, when dead

A thousand bleeding hearts her power invoked.

Throughout the poetry of the Cymric bards you constantly see the severest moral precepts, and the purest pictures of virtuous felicity, mingling in singularly perfect fusion with the most amorous strains.

Among the 'Choice Things' of Geraint, the famous Blue Bard, were:

A song of ardent love for the lip of a fair maid; A softly sweet glance of the eye, and love without wantonness; A secluded walking-place to caress one that is fair and slender; To reside by the margin of a brook in a tranquil dell of dry soil; A house small and warm, fronting the bright suns.h.i.+ne.

With these, versifications of all the virtues and moralities. 'In the whole range of Kymric poetry,' says the learned Thomas Stephens,[134]

'there is not, I venture to a.s.sert, a line of impiety.'

FOOTNOTE:

[134] Vide 'Lit. of the Kymry.'

II.

The Welsh custom of Bundling, or courting abed, needs no description.

The Welsh words sopen and sypio mean a bundle and to bundle, and they mean a squeezed-up ma.s.s, and to squeeze together; but there is a further meaning, equivalent to our word baggage, as applied to a strumpet.[135] The custom of bundling is still practised in certain rural neighbourhoods of Wales. To discuss its moral character is not my province in these pages; but I may properly record the fact that its practice is not confined to the irreligious cla.s.ses. It is also pertinent here to recall the circ.u.mstance that among these people anciently, courts.h.i.+p was guarded by the sternest laws, so that any other issue to courts.h.i.+p than marriage was practically impossible. If a maiden forgot her duty to herself, her parents, and her training, when the evil result became known she was to be thrown over a precipice; the young man who had abused the parents' confidence was also to be destroyed. Murder itself was punished less severely.

Customs of promiscuous sleeping arose in the earliest times, out of the necessities of existence in those primitive days, when a whole household lay down together on a common bed of rushes strewn on the floor of the room. In cold weather they lay close together for greater warmth, with their usual clothing on. Caesar's misconception that the ancient Britons were polyandrous polygamists evidently had here its source.

It is only by breathing the very atmosphere of an existence whose primitive influences we may thus ourselves feel, that we can get a just conception of the underlying forces which govern a custom like this. Of course it is sternly condemned by every advanced moralist, even in the neighbourhoods where it prevails. An instance came to my knowledge but a short time ago, (in 1877,) where the vicar of a certain parish (Mydrim, Carmarthens.h.i.+re) exercised himself with great zeal to secure its abolition. Unfortunately, in this instance, the good man was not content with abolis.h.i.+ng bundling, he wanted to abolish more innocent forms of courting; and worst of all, he turned his ethical batteries chiefly upon the lads and la.s.ses of the dissenting congregation. Of course, it was not the vicar's fault that the bundlers were among the meeting-house wors.h.i.+ppers, and not among the established church-goers, but nevertheless it injured the impartiality of his champions.h.i.+p in the estimation of 'the Methodys.'

I am not sure the bundling might not have ceased, in deference to his opinions, notwithstanding, if he had not, in the excess of his zeal, complained of the young men for seeing the girls home after meeting, and casually stretching the walk beyond what was necessary. Such intermeddling as this taxed the patience of the courting community to its extreme limit, and it a.s.sumed a rebellious front. The vicar, quite undaunted, pursued the war with vigour; he smote the enemy hip and thigh. He returned to the charge with the a.s.sertion that these young people had 'schools for the art of kissing,' a metaphorical expression, I suppose; and that they indulged in flirtation. This was really too much. Bundling might or might not be an exclusively dissenting practice, but the most unreasonable of vicars must know that kissing and flirtation were as universal as the parish itself; and so there was scoffing and flouting of the vicar, and, as rebounds are proverbially extreme, I fear there is now more bundling in Mydrim than ever.

FOOTNOTE:

[135] The Rev. Dr. Thomas, late President of Pontypool College, whose acquaintance with Welsh customs is very extensive, (and to whose erudition I have been frequently indebted during the progress of these pages through the press,) tells me he never heard the word sopen or sypio, synonymous with bundling, used for the old custom, but only 'caru yn y gwelu,' (courting abed.)

III.

The customs of Rhamanta, or romantic divination, by which lovers and sweethearts seek to pierce the future, are many and curious, in all parts of Wales. Besides such familiar forms of this widely popular practice as sleeping on a bit of wedding-cake, etc., several unique examples may be mentioned. One known as the Maid's Trick is thus performed; and none must attempt it but true maids, or they will get themselves into trouble with the fairies: On Christmas eve, or on one of the Three Spirit Nights, after the old folks are abed, the curious maiden puts a good stock of coal on the fire, lays a clean cloth on the table, and spreads thereon such store of eatables and drinkables as her larder will afford. Toasted cheese is considered an appropriate luxury for this occasion. Having prepared the feast, the maiden then takes off all her clothing, piece by piece, standing before the fire the while, and her last and closest garment she washes in a pail of clear spring water, on the hearth, and spreads it to dry across a chair-back turned to the fire. She then goes off to bed, and listens for her future husband, whose apparition is confidently expected to come and eat the supper. In case she hears him, she is allowed to peep into the room, should there be a convenient crack or key-hole for that purpose; and it is said there be unhappy maids who have believed themselves doomed to marry a monster, from having seen through a cranny the horrible spectacle of a black-furred creature with fiery eyes, its tail las.h.i.+ng its sides, its whiskers dripping gravy, gorging itself with the supper. But if her lover come, she will be his bride that same year.

In Pembrokes.h.i.+re a shoulder of mutton, with nine holes bored in the blade bone, is put under the pillow to dream on. At the same time the shoes of the experimenting damsel are placed at the foot of the bed in the shape of a letter T, and an incantation is said over them, in which it is trusted by the damsel that she may see her lover in his every-day clothes.

In Glamorgans.h.i.+re a form of rhamanta still exists which is common in many lands. A shovel being placed against the fire, on it a boy and a girl put each a grain of wheat, side by side. Presently these edge towards each other; they bob and curtsey, or seem to, as they hop about. They swell and grow hot, and finally pop off the shovel. If both grains go off together, it is a sign the young pair will jump together into matrimony; but if they take different directions, or go off at different times, the omen is unhappy. In Glamorgans.h.i.+re also this is done: A man gets possession of a girl's garters, and weaves them into a true lover's knot, saying over them some words of hope and love in Welsh. This he puts under his s.h.i.+rt, next his heart, till he goes to bed, when he places it under the bolster. If the test be successful the vision of his future wife appears to him in the night.

IV.

A curious rhamanta among farm-women is thus described by a learned Welsh writer:[136] The maiden would get hold of a pullet's first egg, cut it through the middle, fill one half-sh.e.l.l with wheaten flour and the other with salt, and make a cake out of the egg, the flour, and the salt. One half of this she would eat; the other half was put in the foot of her left stocking under her pillow that night; and after offering up a suitable prayer, she would go to sleep. What with her romantic thoughts, and her thirst after eating this salty cake, it was not perhaps surprising that the future husband should be seen, in a vision of the night, to come to the bedside bearing a vessel of water or other beverage for the thirsty maid. Another custom was to go into the garden at midnight, in the season when 'black seed' was sown, and sow leeks, with two garden rakes. One rake was left on the ground while the young woman worked away with the other, humming to herself the while,

Y sawl sydd i gydfydio, Doed i gydgribinio!

Or in English:

He that would a life partner be, Let him also rake with me.

There was a certain young Welshwoman who, about eighty years ago, performed this rhamanta, when who should come into the garden but her master! The la.s.s ran to the house in great fright, and asked her mistress, 'Why have you sent master out into the garden to me?' 'Wel, wel,' replied the good dame, in much heaviness of heart, 'make much of my little children!' The mistress died shortly after, and the husband eventually married the servant.

The sterner s.e.x have a form of rhamanta in which the knife plays a part. This is to enter the churchyard at midnight, carrying a twca, which is a sort of knife made out of an old razor, with a handle of sheep or goat-horn, and encircle the church edifice seven times, holding the twca at arm's length, and saying, 'Dyma'r twca, p'le mae'r wain?' (Here's the twca--where's the sheath?)

FOOTNOTE:

[136] Cynddelw, 'Manion Hynafiaethol,' 53.

CHAPTER VI.

Wedding Customs--The Bidding--Forms of Cymmhorth--The Gwahoddwr--Horse-Weddings--Stealing a Bride--Obstructions to the Bridal Party--The Gwyntyn--Chaining--Evergreen Arches--Strewing Flowers--Throwing Rice and Shoes--Rosemary in the Garden--Names after Marriage--The Coolstrin--The Ceffyl Pren.