Aubrey (Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme) says he had the following from old Mr. Frederick Vaughan: ‘The Friar’s Mendicant heretofore would take their opportunity to come to the houses when the good woemen did bake, and would read a Ghospel over the batch, and the good woman would give them a cake, etc. It should seem by Chaucer’s tale that they had a fashion to beg in rhyme—
“Of your white bread I would desire a shiver,
And of your hen, the liver.”’
And Aubrey’s friend, Dr. White Kennet, says in the same book: ‘In Kent and many other parts the women when they have kneaded their dough into a loaf cut ye form of a cross on the top of it.’
I have been favoured by the Rev. T. F. Thiselton-Dyer, whose works on folk-lore are so deservedly well known, with the following notes on superstitions about bread:
‘Throughout the world a special respect has always been paid to bread as the “staff of life.” Hence, according to a trite and common saying: “The man who wastes bread will live to want.” It is not surprising, indeed, that this food of man, which in some form or other is indispensable, should have from time immemorial been invested with an almost sacred character, anyone who is recklessly careless of the household loaf incurring risk of poverty one day himself.
‘At the outset, it may be noticed that, as a precautionary measure against mishaps of any kind, many housewives were formerly in the habit of making the sign of the cross on their loaves of bread before placing them in the ovens, a practice which is still kept up in some parts of the country. Various explanations have been assigned for this custom, the common one being “that it prevents the bread turning out heavy.” In Shropshire one day remarked an elderly maidservant: “We always make a cross on the flour before baking, and on the malt before mashing up for brewing. It’s to keep it from being bewitched.” Some, again, maintain that the sign of the cross “keeps the bread from getting mouldy,” but whatever the true reason, it is persistently adhered to in the West of England. As, however, evil spirits and malicious fairies were generally supposed to be powerless when confronted with the sign of the cross, there is every reason to suppose that this is the origin of this superstition.
‘In days gone by, too, bread was used as a charm against witches, no doubt from its being stamped with the sign of the holy cross. Herrick, for instance, in his Hesperides, alludes to this usage in the following rhyme:
“Bring the holy crust of bread,