If ever thou gave hosen or shoon [shoes],
Every night and awle,
Sit thee down and put them on,
And Christ receive thy sawle.
But if hosen and shoon thou never gave naen,
Every night and awle,
The whinnes shall prick thee to the bare beane,
And Christ receive thy sawle.
From Whinny-Moor that thou mayst pass,
Every night and awle,
To Brig of Dread thou comest at last,
Christ receive thy sawle.
From Brig of Dread, na brader than a thread,
Every night and awle,
To purgatory fire thou com'st at last,
And Christ receive thy sawle.
If ever thou give either milke or drink,
Every night and awle,
The fire shall never make thee shrink,
And Christ receive thy sawle.
But if milk nor drink thou never gave naen,
Every night and awle,
The fire shall burn thee to the bare beane,
And Christ receive thy sawle.
In the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," this song is printed with one or two slight variations, with the title of a "Lyke-Wake Dirge." Sir Walter Scott likewise quotes a passage from a MS. in the Cotton Library, descriptive of Cleveland in the northern part of Yorkshire, in Elizabeth's reign, which aptly illustrates this custom. It is as follows:—
"When any dieth certaine women sing a song to the dead bodie, reciting the journey that the partye deceased must goe, and they are of beliefe (such is their fondnesse) that once in their lives it is good to give a pair of new shoes to a poor man, for as much as after this life they are to pass barefoote through a great launde, full of thorns and furzen, except by the meryte of the almes aforesaid they have redemed the forfeyte; for at the edge of the launde an olde man shall meet them with the same shoes that were given by the partie when he was lyving, and after he had shodde them, dismisseth them to go through thick and thin without scratch or scalle."
According to Mannhardt and Grimm a pair of shoes was deposited in the grave, in Scandinavia and Germany, for this very purpose. In the Henneberg district, on this account, the name todtenschuh, or "dead shoe" is applied to a funeral. In Scandinavia the shoe is named helskö or "hel-shoe."
It is customary yet in some parts of the North of England to place a plate filled with salt on the stomach of a corpse soon after death. Lighted candles too, are sometimes placed on or about the body. Reginald Scot says, in his "Discourse concerning Devils and Spirits," on the authority of Bodin, that "the devil loveth no salt in his meat, for that is a sign of eternity, and used by God's commandment in all sacrifices." Douce, speaking of this practice, particularly in Leicestershire, says it is done with the view of preventing air from getting into the bowels and swelling the body. Herrick, in his "Hesperides," says:—