Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

by Elizabeth Mary Wright

The ceremony of throwing the bride-cake existed in various forms in Scotland and the northern counties of England. When the bride returned from church, she was met on the doorstep and presented with a thin currant cake on a plate, or it might be shortbread or oat-cake. Some of this cake was then thrown over her head, or more commonly it was broken over her head by the bridegroom. In cases where the cake was thrown over the bride’s head, the plate was not infrequently thrown along with it. In Scotland the cake provided was known as the infar-cake, cp. O.E. infær, an entrance. The custom is not yet extinct in Scotland, for I was told by an eye-witness that at a fashionable Scotch wedding only two or three years ago, the bride’s mother-in-law broke a cake of shortbread over the bride’s head on her return from church. The following is a Yorkshire rhyme which accompanies the usual throwing of slippers after a newly-married couple:

A weddin’ a-woo,

A clog an’ a shoe,

A pot full o’ porridge, an’ away they go!

A curious saying applied to an elder brother or sister left behind when a younger member of the family is married, is that he or she must dance in the pig-trough (Shr. Suf.), or in the half-peck (Yks.), or dance at the wedding in his (or her) stocking-feet (Shr.).

Riding the Stang

In olden days, when a marriage resulted in conjugal infelicity, and the husband became a wife-beater, popular disapproval was expressed by a method of punishing the offender known as Riding the Stang. This custom with slight variations and under different names—such as: Rantipole-riding, Skimmington-riding, or simply Riding—was once common practically throughout England, and in many parts of Scotland. Cases where it has been kept up in practice have been recorded as late as the year 1896. The delinquent was caught and tied fast to a stang or pole, and carried round the village in the midst of a jeering crowd; or he was represented by a straw effigy borne on a ladder, or drawn in a cart for three successive nights, accompanied by horn-blowing and shouting. When the procession reached the man’s house, a long nominy or doggerel recounting his offences was recited, the verses varying in different localities. A Lincolnshire nominy runs: He banged her wi’ stick, He banged her wi’ steän, He teeak op his naefe [fist], An’ he knocked her doon. With a ran, tan, tan, &c. On the third night the effigy was burned in the street or on the village green. Sometimes instead of an effigy, two men, one of them dressed in female attire, rode in the cart, giving a dialogue representation of the quarrel, and an imitation of the final beating. In some places the culprit was merely serenaded with rough singing, and the noise of beating on pots and pans. This ceremony was called Randanning, or Rough Music, and is closely allied to Stang-riding, cp. ‘Charivaris de poelles. The carting of an infamous person, graced with the harmony of tinging kettles, and frying-pan Musick,’ Cotgrave.

Death Superstitions

According to a popular superstition once prevalent in many parts of England, dying persons could not pass away peacefully if there were any feathers of game-birds or pigeons in the bed on which they lay. Instances have been recorded where some such feathers have been placed in a small bag, and thrust under the pillow of a dying man to hold him in life until the arrival of some expected relation; and further, instances where, out of pure kindness, a sufferer at the point of death has been removed from his bed, and laid on the floor to die ‘nat’rally’. Formerly, when the moment of death was unmistakably nigh at hand, it was customary to throw open all the doors and windows, so that nothing should hinder the flight of the departing spirit. I myself can remember what seemed to be a remnant of this superstitious observance in a country parish in Herefordshire about twenty-five years ago. The widow of an old farmer had just died, and her daughter told my father that it was well that there was a bolt to the front door, for that the key must not be turned in the lock whilst the body lay in the house. This we took to be a preservation of the letter of the old law. In Yorkshire there exists an idea that the door must not be locked for seven years after a death in the house.

Death Customs