Feelings far removed from those of devotion prevail in the celebration of the Baptist’s festival. Whether it is the inviting temperature of a midsummer night, or some ancient custom connected with the present evening, “Saint John,” says the Spanish proverb, “sets every girl a gadding.” The public walks are crowded after sunset, and the exclusive amusement of this night, flirtation, or in the Andalusian phrase, pelar la Pava, (plucking the hen-turkey) begins as soon as the star-light of a summer sky, unbroken by the partial glare of lamps, enables the different groups to mix with a liberty approaching that enjoyed in a masquerade. Nothing in this kind of amusement possesses more zest than the chat through the iron bars of the lower windows, which begins about midnight. Young ladies, who can compose their mamas to sleep at a convenient hour, glide unperceived to the lower part of the house, and sitting on the window-sill, behind the latticework, which is used in this country instead of blinds, wait, in the true spirit of adventure, (if not pre-engaged to a dull, common-place matrimonial prelude,) for the chance sparks, who, mostly in disguise, walk the streets from twelve till dawn. Such, however, as the mere love of mirth induces to pass the night at the windows, generally engage another female companion, a sister, a friend, and often a favourite maid, to take a share in the conversation, and by a change of characters to puzzle their out-of-doors visitors. These, too, when not seriously engaged, walk about in parties, each assuming such a character as they consider themselves most able to support. One pretends to be a farmer just arrived from the country, another a poor mechanic, this a foreigner speaking broken Spanish, that a Gallego, making love in the still less intelligible dialect of his province. The gentlemen must come provided with no less a stock of sweetmeats (which from the circumstance of being folded each separately in a piece of paper, are called Papelillos) than of lively small talk and wit. A deficiency in the latter is unpardonable; so that a bore, or Majadero,[44] if not ready to quit the post when bidden, is soon left to contemplate the out-side of the window-shutters. The habitual distance at which the lower classes are kept from those above them, prevents any disagreeable meddling on their part; and the ladies who indulge in these frolics, feel perfectly safe from intrusion and impertinence.
The sauntering about the fields, practised by the populace of Madrid, on the same night, is there called “Cogér la Verbena,” gathering Vervain; an appellation evidently derived from an ancient superstition which attributed preternatural powers to that plant when gathered at twelve o’clock on St. John’s Eve. The nocturnal rambles of the present times, much as they might alarm the guardians of public morals, if such an office existed among us, need not give any uneasiness on the score of witchcraft to the Reverend Inquisitors.
SAINT BARTHOLOMEW.
The commemoration of this Apostle takes place on the 24th of August. It is not, however, to record any external circumstance connected with this church festival—which, in fact, is scarcely distinguished by any peculiar solemnity—that I take notice of it, but for a private superstitious practice which strikes me as a most curious modification of one used by the pious housewives in the days of Augustus.
Intermittent fevers, especially the Tertian and Quartan, are very common in most parts of Andalusia. The season when they chiefly attack the inhabitants, is summer; and whether the unbounded use, which all sorts of people, but particularly the poor, make of grapes and melons, contributes to the production of the disease, or whether the mere coincidence of the two facts is, as usual, taken for cause and effect; it is an established opinion in this part of the country that, if fruit is not the original source of the ague, an abstinence from that kind of food is indispensable to avoid a relapse into that treacherous complaint.
That there should be a particular Saint, to superintend the medical department of curing the ague, is so perfectly consistent with the Catholic notions, that a deficiency on that point would more surprise me than to find a toe not under the influence of some heavenly aspect in the Vox Stellarum, which was one of my wonders in England. That province, in fact, is allotted to Saint Bartholomew. Now, ninepence is a sufficient inducement for any of our sons of Esculapius to mount his mule as well as his wig, and dose you with the most compound electuary he is master of; but how to fee a supernatural doctor, would be a puzzling question, were it not that tradition teaches the method of propitiating every individual mentioned in the calendar. Each Saint has a peculiar fancy—from Saint Anthony of Padua, who will often delay the performance of a miracle till you plunge him into a well, or nail his print topsy-turvy upon the wall, to Saint Pasqual Baylon, who is readiest to attend such as accompany their petitions with some lively steps and a final caper. As to Saint Bartholomew, nothing will induce him to cure an ague but a vow to abstain, on the day of his festival, from all food except bread and fruit—the very means which, but for his miraculous interference, would, according to common opinion, cause either a return, or an aggravation of the complaint.
Mark, now, the vow employed by the Roman matrons for the cure of intermittents. It is recorded by Horace, and thus translated by Francis:—
“Her child beneath a quartan fever lies
For full four months, when the fond mother cries,