BIRTH AND BAPTISMAL CUSTOMS.
Many of the customs attending child-bearing, churching, and christening are not peculiar to Lancashire, but common nearly all over England. The term "the lady in the straw," merely meant the lady confined to her bed, as all beds were anciently stuffed with straw. It was formerly the custom in Lancashire, as elsewhere, for the husband against the birth of the child to provide a large cheese and a cake. These were called "the groaning" cheese and cake; and throughout the north of England the first cut of the sick wife's cheese, or groaning cheese, is taken and laid under the pillows of young women to cause them to dream of their lovers. Amongst customs now obsolete was the giving a large entertainment at the churching. Now it is usually given at the christening.
PRESENTS TO WOMEN IN CHILDBED.
In a note on an entry of Nicholls's Assheton's Journal, Dr. Whitaker and its Editor, the Rev. Canon Raines, say that the custom of making presents to women in childbed, is yet called "prēsĕnting" in Craven. It is now quite obsolete in South Lancashire, although it continued to be observed to the middle of the eighteenth century. In a MS. journal of 1706 is an entry "John Leigh brought my wife a groaning-cake: gave him 6d." Other entries in the same journal show that money gifts ranged from 1s. 6d. to 5s. (the last being to the minister's wife); besides smaller gifts to maids and midwives, and bottles of wine, syrup of ginger, and other creature comforts to the person confined.
TEA-DRINKING AFTER CHILDBIRTH.
In some parts of North Lancashire it is customary to have a tea-drinking after the recovery from childbirth. All the neighbours and friends are invited—sometimes many more than can be comfortably accommodated—and both tea and rum are plentifully distributed. After tea, each visitor pays a shilling towards the expense of the birth feast; and the evening is spent in the usual gossip.
TURNING THE BED AFTER CHILDBIRTH.
An attendant was making a bed occupied by the mother of a child born a few days previously. When she attempted to turn it over, to give it a better shaking, the nurse energetically interfered, peremptorily forbidding her doing so till a month after the confinement, on the ground that it was decidedly unlucky; and said that she never allowed it to be done till then, on any account whatever.[188]