At Persepolis, in Persia, are some sculptures supposed to be as old as the time of Alexander the Great, and on one of these is represented a chief or king, over whose head some servants are holding an umbrella. At Takht-i-Bostan are other sculptures, one of which is a king witnessing a boar hunt attended by an umbrella-bearer. Recent discoveries at Nineveh show that the umbrella was in use there, it being common to the sculpturings, but always represented open. The same is to be seen upon the celebrated Hamilton vases preserved in the British Museum. In many Chinese drawings ladies are attended by servants holding umbrellas over their heads.
Loubère, who went to Siam as envoy from the king of France, describes the use of umbrellas as being governed by curious regulations. Those umbrellas resembling ours are used principally by the officers of state; while those several tiers in height, as if two or more umbrellas were fixed on one stick, are reserved for the king alone. In Ava, a country adjacent to Siam, the king designates himself, among other titles, as "Lord of the Ebbing and Flowing Tide, King of the White Elephant, and Lord of the Twenty-four Umbrellas." This last title, although ridiculous to us, is supposed to relate to twenty-four states or provinces combined under the rule of the king, the umbrella being especially a royal emblem in Ava. The umbrella is also the distinguishing sign of sovereignty in Morocco.
Fashionable Disfigurement.
The custom of dotting the face with black patches, of different patterns, was introduced into England and France from Arabia, and was at its height during the reign of Charles I. The ladies, old and young, covered their faces with black spots shaped like suns, moons, stars, hearts, crosses and lozenges, and some even carried the mode to the extravagant extent of shapening the patches to represent a carriage and horses.
Fine for Insulting a King.
The use of gold and silver was not unknown to the Welsh in 842, when their laws were collected. The man who dared to insult the king of Aberfraw was to pay (besides certain cows and a silver rod) a cup which would hold as much wine as his majesty could swallow at a draught. It was to be made of gold; its cover was to be as broad as the king's face, and the whole as thick as a goose's egg or a ploughman's thumbnail.
True-Lovers' Knots.
Among the ancient Northern nations a knot was the symbol of indissoluble love, faith and friendship. Hence the ancient runic inscriptions are in the form of a knot, and hence, among the Northern English and Scots, who still retain, in a great measure, the language and manners of the ancient Danes, that curious kind of knot exists which is a mutual present between the lover and his mistress, and which, being considered as the emblem of plighted fidelity, is therefore called "a true-love knot." The name is not derived, however, as would be naturally supposed, from the words "true" and "love," but is formed from the Danish verb "trulofa," fidem do, I plight my troth or faith. In Davidson's "Poetical Rhapsody," published in 1611, the following is the opening verse of a poem entitled "The True-Love's Knot"—
"Love is the linke, the knot, the band of unity,
And all that love do love with their beloved to be;
Love only did decree
To change this kind in me."