Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-lore Part 7

A quaint old writer, in a work called "The Festival," published in 1511, referring to these "need-fires," says:--"This day is called, in many places, G.o.dde's Sondaye: ye knowe well that it is the maner at this day to do the fyre out of the hall, and the blacke wynter brandes, and all thyngs that is foule with fume and smoke shall be done awaye, and there the fyre was shall be gayly arayed with fayre floures, and strewed with grene rysshes all aboute."

The coloured eggs thrown into the air or knocked against each other, at Easter, by adults as well as children, are, doubtless, remnants of the Aryan myth, which typified the renovated sun of the spring season by a red or golden egg. Schwartz says it was a custom among the Pa.r.s.ees to distribute red eggs at their spring festival. De Gebelin, in his "Religious History of the Calendar," traces this Easter custom to the ancient Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Greeks, Romans, and others, "amongst all of whom an egg was an emblem of the universe, the work of the Supreme Divinity." In the nursery tale of "Jack and the Bean-stalk,"

evidently descended from an Aryan source, one of the hero's feats is the abduction from the giant's castle in "cloudland" of the hen that, at the bidding of its owner, laid golden eggs.

Brand says:--"Belithus, a ritualist of ancient times, tells us that it was customary in some churches for the bishops and archbishops themselves to play with the inferior clergy at _hand-ball_, and this, as Durand a.s.serts, even on Easter-day itself. Why they should play at hand-ball at this time, rather than any other game, Bourne tells us he has not been able to discover; certain it is, however, that the present custom of playing at that game on Easter holidays for a tansy-cake has been derived from thence. Erasmus, speaking of the proverb, _Mea est pila_, that is, 'I got the ball,' tells us that it signifies 'I've obtained the victory; I am master of my wishes.'"

Brand seems to have hit upon the most probable origin of this ball-playing, which appears to be but another form of the Easter egg-throwing; but, in consequence of his non-acquaintance with the Sanscrit writings and the common Aryan origin of the greater portion of the modern European populations, he sets it forth with great diffidence.

He says:--"It would, perhaps, be indulging fancy too far to suppose that the bishops and governors of the churches, who used to play at hand-ball at this season, did it _in a mystical way_, and with reference to the _triumphal joy of the season_."

Mysteries, moralities, or miracle plays were performed at Easter, either by, or with the sanction of, the ecclesiastical authorities. In the "Sleaford-Gild Account Book" there is an entry, under the date 1480, as follows:--"Payd for the Ryitiuall of ye play for the Ascencion, and the wrytyng of spechys, and payntyng of a garment for G.o.d, iij. _s._ viij.

_d._"

In the Red Book of the Corporation of Kilkenny there is an entry at Midsummer, in 1586, which states that one Richard Cogan played the part of Christ. His fee for the performance is not stated, but Henry Moore received eightpence for acting the Devil, while the Kilkenny baker was only rewarded with sixpence for personating the Archangel Michael.

Similar observances obtained until recently at other spring festivals, all having, doubtless, a common origin.[19] They evidently refer to the increasing power of the sun, the pa.s.sing away of the winter storms, and the joy of the people at the prospect of an abundant supply of the products of the earth. Reginald Scot, in his "Discovery of Witchcraft,"

published in 1584, says:--

"In some countries they run out of the doors in time of tempest, blessing themselves with a cheese" (another sun emblem, owing to its form), "whereupon was a cross made with a rope's end, upon Ascension Day.--Item, to hang an egg, laid on Ascension Day, in the roof of the house, preserveth the same from all hurts."

During the last thirty or forty years two Easter customs seem to have declined rapidly in Lancas.h.i.+re and the North of England. Many _troupes_ of boys, and, in some instances, grown-up persons, not very long ago, decorated themselves with ribbons, or party-coloured paper in the most fantastic style, and sallied forth during Easter week "a pace-egging,"

as it was termed. One of their number rejoiced in the euphonious cognomen of "Tosspot." His face was blacked with soot, and he carried a basket on his arm for the purpose of receiving contributions in the shape of "pace" or "Paschall" eggs. Of course, the sovereign subst.i.tute for all commercial articles, current coin of the realm, was equally acceptable to the dingy and somewhat diabolical-looking treasurer; for the said "Tosspot" bore remarkable resemblance, both in complexion and some other characteristics, to the "Old Nick" of the Nors.e.m.e.n. These "pace-egging" gentry generally wore wooden swords, with which rival _troupes_, meeting in the streets, occasionally entered into mimic combat that was not always bloodless in its result. The _troupe_ sometimes played a kind of rude drama, in which I remember a certain knight having mortally wounded an enemy, vociferously called out for a "doctor," offering the sum of ten pounds as a special fee for his immediate appearance. Others sang some barbarous rhymes, evidently modern versions of older strains, in which Lords Nelson and Collingwood figured conspicuously. I remember well, in my younger days, having taken a part in more than one of these performances at Preston. In the neighbourhood of Blackburn, men, with blackened faces, dressed in the skins of animals and otherwise disfigured, paraded the streets and lanes on these occasions, and, I suppose, obtained much "pace-egg" money, from the terror they inspired. It is not very many years ago since I met a _troupe_ of this cla.s.s in the village of Walton-le-dale, near Preston, that levied its "black-mail" with considerable success.

I am inclined to think that the mummery practised at Easter, in Lancas.h.i.+re, resulted merely from the transfer of the May-day games, the orgies of the "Lord of Misrule," the "hobby-horse," the Morris dancers, &c., to this festival. The time of holding of holidays, and the character of the amus.e.m.e.nts, vary in different localities, and they are not unfrequently blended one with another, when the original purport of each has ceased to be remembered or regarded in the light of a religious festival. The May-day mummeries in London, in Brand's days, and even yet, appear to have borne some resemblance to the Lancas.h.i.+re Easter performances. He says:--

"The young chimney sweepers, some of whom are fantastically dressed in girls' clothes, with a great profusion of brick-dust, by way of paint, gilt paper, &c., making a noise with their shovels and brushes, are now the most striking object in the celebration of May-day in the streets of London."

The obtaining of alms, or rather "largesses," as they would term it in "the olden time," appears to have been the chief object of both parties.

Indeed, this element in the performance it appears was not confined to the sweeps of London or the "Tosspots" of Lancas.h.i.+re, for Brand further observes:--

"I remember, too, that in walking that same morning, between Houndslow and Brentford, I was met by two distinct parties of _girls_, with garlands of flowers, who begged money of me, saying, 'Pray, sir, remember the garland.'"

The other custom referred to consisted in the "lifting" of women by men on Easter Monday, and the indulgence in a similar freak, on the following day, by the fair s.e.x, on their masculine friends, by way of retaliation. It was commonly performed in the public streets, and caused much amus.e.m.e.nt; but it was a rude and indelicate piece of practical joking, which can very well be dispensed with, notwithstanding the faith of some that the practice was originally intended to typify the Resurrection of Christ.

Bayard Taylor, in his "Byeways of Europe," gives an interesting account of Andorra, a little republic situated in the heart of the Pyrenees, between France and Spain. This secluded state has enjoyed an independent existence since the days of Charlemagne, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants are of the most simple and primitive character. Mr.

Taylor refers to a singular custom that obtains amongst them, and which bears some resemblance to the Lancas.h.i.+re one just referred to. He says, "Before Easter, the unmarried people make bets, which are won by whoever, on Easter morning, can first catch the other and cry out, 'It is Easter, the eggs are mine!' Tricks, falsehoods, and deceptions of all kinds are permitted; the young man may even surprise the maiden in bed, if he can succeed in doing so. Afterwards they all a.s.semble in public, relate their tricks, eat their Easter eggs, and finish the day with songs and dances."

Cakes and buns are baked at this season, which are supposed to possess supernatural properties. Sir Henry Ellis says, "It is an old belief that the observance of the custom of eating buns on Good Friday protects the house from fire, and several other virtues are attributed to these buns."

In "Poor Robin's Almanack" for 1733, is the following:--

Good Friday comes this month, the old woman runs With one or two a penny hot cross-buns, Whose virtue is, if you believe what's said, They'll not grow mouldy like the common bread.

The baking of cross-buns at Easter is evidently but a legitimate descendant of the cake baking of the olden festivities. Some consider the cross on the buns as an addition since the introduction of Christianity; others think it may be the remains of an older observance.

Dr. Kuhn, speaking of the crosses on ancient boundary and bridal oaks, says an oak formerly grew in a wood near Dahle, around which newly-married couples danced three times, and afterwards cut a cross on it. This cross, he contends, originally represented "Thor's hammer, the consecrator of marriage." The latter was unquestionably one form of the many phallic symbols. Mr. Baring-Gould notices the prohibitions issued at various times against the carrying about of ploughs and s.h.i.+ps, especially on Shrove Tuesday, because they were phallic symbols. A writer in the _Quarterly Magazine_, although he considers the planting of the old boundary oak as a Saxon inst.i.tution, yet regards the placing of the cross thereon as a withdrawal of the tree "from the dominion of Thor or Odin." Kelly, in reply to this, says:--"More or less it did so in Christian times, but previously to then the cross as well as the tree may have belonged to Thor." The cross, in some of its varied forms, has evidently been used as a mythical type from the earliest period of traditional history. I remember, only a very few years ago, when on a visit to Brampton, in c.u.mberland, being shown, in the neighbourhood, the locality on which one of these ancient marriage oaks had grown for ages.

It had only recently been cut down, to the chagrin of many of the neighbouring inhabitants.

A writer in "_Once a Week_," referring to this subject, says, "Do our Ritualists eat hot cross-buns on Good Friday? Perhaps they do not, but consider the consumption of such cakes to be a weak concession to the childish appet.i.tes of those who would not duly observe their Lenten fastings; and who, had they lived in the days of George III., would have been among the crowds who cl.u.s.tered beneath the wooden porticos of the two 'royal,' and rival, bun-houses at Chelsea. But there is the cross-mark on the surface of the bun to commend it to the minds which are favourably disposed to symbolism; and there is the history of the cross-bun itself, which goes back to the time of Cecrops, and to the _liba_ offered to Astarte, and to the Jewish pa.s.sover cakes, and to the eucharistic bread, or cross-marked wafers, mentioned in St. Chrysostom's Liturgy, and thence adopted by the early Christians. So that the Good Friday bun has antiquity and tradition to recommend it; and, indeed, its very name of _bun_ is but the oblique _boun_, from _bous_, the sacred ox, the semblance of whose horns was stamped upon the cake. There, too, they also did duty for the horns of Astarte, in which word some philologists would affect to trace a connection with Easter. The subst.i.tution by the Greeks of the cross-mark in place of the horn-mark would seem to have chiefly been for the easier division of the round bun into four equal parts. Such cross-marked buns were found at Herculaneum."

The "simnels" eaten on Mid-Lent, or "Mothering" Sunday, are, doubtless, but modern representatives of the ancient festive cake. On Simnel Sunday young persons especially visit their aged parents, and make them presents of various kinds, but chiefly of rich cakes. It is said by some to have been originally called "Mothering Sunday" from a practice which formerly prevailed of visiting the mother church or cathedral, for the purpose of making Easter or Lenten offerings.

The word "simnel" has given rise to much discussion amongst etymologists. It is variously spelled _simnell_, _symnel_, or, in Lancas.h.i.+re especially, _simbling_. It is not improbable that it possesses some relations.h.i.+p to the Anglo-Saxon _symel_ or _symbel_, a feast. Bailey and Dr. Cowell derive it from the Latin _simila_, fine flour. The popular notion is that the father of Lambert Simnel, the pretender to the throne in the reign of Henry VII., was a famous baker of these cakes, and that they retain his name in consequence of his great reputation in confectionery art. This, however, cannot be correct, as simnels are referred to long before his time. It is far more probable that the trade gave the name to the man, as in the cases of smith, baker, tailor, glover, etc. These cakes, like brides'-cakes, are generally profusely decorated.

It is not improbable that the name "simnel" was in Saxon times employed to designate a finer or superior kind of bread or cake. It occurs in the "Lay of Havelock the Dane," a French romance, abridged by Geoffroi Gaimer, the Anglo-Norman trouvere. This "Le Lai de Aveloc," Professor Morley says, belongs to the first half of the twelfth century. He considers it to have been founded on "an English tradition that must have been extant in Anglo-Saxon times, for Gaimer speaks of it as an ancient story." The lay says that when the fisherman Grim, the founder of the town of Grimsby, "caught the great lamprey, he carried it to Lincoln, and brought home wastels, _simnels_, his bags full of meal and corn, neats' flesh, sheep and swine's flesh, and hemp for the making of more lines."

Since the above was written, the following paragraph on this subject appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_:--

"SIMNEL CAKES.--A well-known Lancas.h.i.+re antiquary some time since stated that this term 'originally meant the _very finest_ bread, _Pain demain_ is another term for it, on account of its having been used as _Sunday bread_' (if a conjecture may be hazarded, it is possible there may be some connexion with the shew bread and heathen votive offerings, as in India and China) 'at the Sacrament. The name appears in Mediaeval Latin as _simanellus_, and may thus have been derived from the Latin _simila_--fine flour. In Wright's 'Vocabularies' it appears thus:--'_Hic artocopus--symnelle._' This form was in use during the fifteenth century.

In the 'Dictionarius' of John de Garlande, compiled at Paris in the thirteenth century, it appears thus:--'_Simeneus--placentae_--simnels.'

Such cakes were stamped with the figure of Christ or of the Virgin.' Is it not a little singular that this custom of making these cakes, and also the practice of a.s.sembling in one place to eat them, should be confined to Bury? Such is the fact. No other town or district in the United Kingdom is known to keep up such a custom.[20] As stated above, much labour has been expended to trace its origin, but without success."[21]

Mid-Lent Sunday is likewise called Braggat or Braggot Sunday, from the custom of drinking "mulled" or spiced ale on that day. The word is believed to be derived from the ancient British _bragawd_, which signifies a liquor of this cla.s.s. The Braggat ales drunk on Braggat Sunday have, no doubt, intimate connection with the buns and cake of the other spring festivities. The solid and fluid elements, in some form or other, appear to be indispensable in all festive gatherings, religious or otherwise. Bacchus and Ceres, or Dionysos and Demeter, were jointly honoured at the festivals attendant upon the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. Shakspere makes Sir Toby Belch exclaim, on Malvolio's interference with their noisy festive roystering, "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

In an old glossary of the Lancas.h.i.+re dialect, published in 1775, "carlings" are described as "Peas boiled on Care Sunday, _i.e._, the Sunday before Palm Sunday." "Parched" peas, or peas fried in pepper, b.u.t.ter, and salt, form yet a favourite dish amongst the poorer cla.s.ses in the north of England on "Carling Sunday." A tradition, indeed, still exists, which a.s.serts that, during a very severe famine, a vessel opportunely arrived in one of the ports, laden with a cargo of peas, to the great delight of the inhabitants; and the "carling" feast is regarded as a memorial of the event.

Peas and beans have had symbolical or sacred characteristics from the earliest times. Beans were regarded by the Greeks and Romans, according to Plutarch, as highly potent in the invocation of the _manes_ of the departed. Brand says: "There is a great deal of learning in Erasmus's Adages concerning the _religious use of beans_, which were thought to belong to the dead. An observation which he gives us of Pliny, concerning Pythagoras's interdiction of this pulse is highly remarkable.

It is '_that beans contain the souls of the dead_.' For which cause also they were used in the PARENTALIA." He further adds: "Ridiculous and absurd as these superst.i.tions may appear, yet it is certain that our carlings thence deduce their origin."

There is not, after all, anything very ridiculous or absurd about the matter, when the common Aryan origin of these traditionary superst.i.tions is considered. May not the Roman _Parentalia_, or the offering of oblations or sacrifices, consisting of liquors, victims, and garlands, at stated periods, on the tombs of parents, have had some remote connection with the "mothering" customs referred to, on Mid-Lent Sunday? Amongst other objects of the Roman ceremonial, it appears that of an atonement to the ghosts of the departed was included. The storing of peas and beans for the Lenten season was carefully attended to in the middle ages, especially at the religious houses. A French work, printed at Paris, in 1565, ent.i.tled "Quadragesimale Spirituale," gives some curious information on this subject. Speaking of the Lenten fare, the writer says:--

"After salad we eat _fried beanes_, by which we understand confession.

When we would have _beanes well sooden, we lay them in steepe, otherwise they will never seeth kindly_. Therefore, if we propose to amend our faults, it is not sufficient barely to confess them at all adventure, but we must let our confession lie in steepe in the water of Meditation." He further adds: "River water, which continually moveth, runneth and floweth, is _very good for the seething of pease_."

It appears that the modern Greeks have a custom of depositing _parboiled wheat_ with the dead on interment. Gregory says the ceremony was intended to "_signifie the resurrection of the body_." Referring to peas as an element of the Aryan mythology, Walter Kelly says; "The plant and the fruit are in some way or other related to celestial fire. It may be that they were regarded in this light because they belong to the cla.s.s of creeping or climbing plants to which such relations were pre-eminently attributed; at all events, the fact that they represented something in the vegetation of the sky is substantiated by numerous details in their mythical history."

According to Dr. Kuhn and Schwartz, the flying dragons that poison the air and the waters let fall peas in such quant.i.ties that they filled the wells and rendered the water so foul that cattle refused to partake thereof. In the German traditions the Zwergs, the forgers of Thor's lightning hammer, were so fond of peas that they plundered the fields of the husbandman, after rendering themselves invisible by means of their "caps of darkness." Peas with sour crout are yet eaten in Berlin on Thursday (Thor's day), from immemorial habit. Mannhardt speaks of their medical as well as mystical properties, and says that their relation to the lightning is evidenced by the fact of their being used as hazel nuts, and the thunderbolts (certain fossil sh.e.l.ls and meteoric stones) to augment the fertility of the corn seed.

A singular custom formerly existed on Maundy Thursday, or the Thursday preceding Easter, when royal personages distributed alms to poor persons. It was named Maundy Thursday from the baskets (or _maunds_) which contained the gifts. In the "Festival," published in 1511, it is said to have been likewise called "Shere Thursday," because "anciently people would that day shere theyr hedes and clypp theyr berdes, and so make them honest against Easter-day." After the distribution of the alms in meat, drink, clothing, and money, it was customary for royalty, in imitation of the humility of Jesus Christ, to wash the feet of the recipients of their bounty. James II. was the last of our monarchs who performed this ceremony in person. He was likewise the last who successfully (?) "touched" for the cure of the "king's evil," a conclusive reason to the old Jacobites that his successors were all usurpers!

This, however, did not appear to have been the orthodox faith in earlier times. Aubrey, in his "Miscellanies" (1696), gravely relates that the manner in which the king's evil was cured by the "touch of the king does much puzzle our philosophers (?); for, whether our kings were of the house of York or Lancaster, it did the cure _for the most part_!" He further informs us that the seventh son of a seventh son possessed the regal power; but he qualifies the important fact by the condition that it must be "a seventh son, and no daughter between, and in pure wedlock." He likewise adds, "The touch of a dead hand hath wrought wonderful effects." This last superst.i.tion is still current in Lancas.h.i.+re. In the time of James II., the remedial power of the "king's touch," in cases of scrofula, was firmly believed in by others than the vulgar; for, it appears, the corporation of Preston voted the sum of five s.h.i.+llings each to two poor women afflicted with this disease, towards their expense in travelling to Chester, which city his Majesty had honoured with a special visit at the time, to avail themselves of the supposed potency inherent in the royal digits, under such circ.u.mstances. This superst.i.tion was not entirely discountenanced by those in authority until the reign of George III.

This belief in the supernatural authority of monarchs is but a remnant of the long supposed "divine right" of kings to govern, which resulted from the conviction that they could trace their pedigrees back to the deities themselves. Shakspere, even, puts into the mouth of the murderer and usurper, Claudius, King of Denmark, the following sentence:--

Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.

There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will.

This superst.i.tion is by no means confined to civilised or semi-civilised nations. It is almost a universal feeling amongst savage tribes. The ignorant serf of Russia believed, and indeed yet believes, that if the deity were to die the emperor would succeed to his power and authority.

Speke, referring to a very childish but nevertheless very great potentate, who ruled the territory adjacent the Victoria N'yanza, says, "I found that the Waganda have the same absurd notion here as the w.a.n.gambo have in Karague, of Kamrasi's supernatural power in being able to divide the waters of the Nile in the same manner that Moses did the Red Sea."

FOOTNOTES:

[19] The hawthorn, as will be shown in the following chapter, was invested with much superst.i.tious reverence, and especially in connection with the spring festivals; and, singularly enough, Mr. John Ingram, in his delightful "Flora Symbolica," informs us that the hawthorn is, in "florigraphy," an emblem of Hope. This is, evidently, no accidental coincidence.

[20] This is an error. Bury is certainly famous for its simnels, but other towns in Lancas.h.i.+re, and elsewhere, both keep up the custom and boast of the quality of their confectionery.

[21] The harshness and general painfulness of life in old times must have been much relieved by certain simple and affectionate customs which modern people have learned to dispense with. Amongst these was a practice of going to see parents, and especially the female one, on the mid Sunday of Lent, taking for them some little present, such as a cake or a trinket. A youth engaged in this amiable act of duty was said to go _a-mothering_, and thence the day itself came to be called Mothering Sunday. One can readily imagine how, after a stripling or maiden had gone to service, or launched in independent housekeeping, the old bonds of filial love would be brightened by this pleasant annual visit, signalised, as custom demanded it should be, by the excitement attending some novel and perhaps surprising gift. Herrick, in a canzonet addressed to Dianeme, says:--

"I'll to thee a _simnel_ bring, 'Gainst thou go a-mothering; So that, when she blesses thee, Half that blessing thou'lt give me."