"Help me to salt,
Help me to sorrow."
A correspondent of Notes and Queries relates how one day he offered to help an old Highland lady at dinner to some salt from the cellar, which stood much nearer to him than to her; when she gravely put back his hand, and drew away her plate, saying at the same time, with a kind of shudder, between her teeth, "Help me to salt, help me to sorrow." The ill-luck may be averted by a second help. Salt has also been considered a powerful safeguard against evil spirits; and in Scotland it was once customary in brewing to throw a handful of salt on the top of the mash to ward off witches. Again, as an interesting illustration of the change which has passed over our domestic manners, we may quote the phrase "to sit above the salt," that is, in a place of honour, whereby a marked and invidious distinction was formerly maintained among those at the same table. A large salt-cellar was usually placed about the middle of a long table, the places above which were assigned to the guests of distinction, those below to inferiors and poor relations. It argues little for the delicacy of our ancestors that they should have permitted such ill-natured distinctions at their board; often, as it has been said, placing their guests "below the salt" for no better purpose than that of mortifying them. Hence Ben Jonson, speaking of the characteristics of an insolent coxcomb, says:—"His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt."
Among the many other odd items of folk-lore associated with the table, we may mention in the next place those relating to the knife. Thus, to let a knife drop is a sign that a visitor is coming to the house; and to lay the knife and fork crosswise on one's plate is an omen that crosses and troubles will soon occur. Equally unlucky, too, is it to give any kind of knife away, for, as Gay in his "Shepherd's Week" says:—
"But woe is me! such presents luckless prove,
For knives, they tell me, always sever love."
Indeed, this superstition is not confined to a knife, but extends to any sharp or cutting instrument, such as a pair of scissors, a razor, &c. To avoid the danger of such a misfortune, some trifling recompense must be made in return. This superstition was confuted by a versifier of the last century—the Rev. Samuel Bishop—who presented a knife to his wife on her fifteenth wedding-day, with a copy of some very clever verses of which the following are a specimen:—
"A knife, dear girl, cuts love, they say,
Mere modish love perhaps it may;
For any tool of any kind
Can separate what was never joined;
The knife that cuts our love in two
Will have much tougher work to do;
Must cut your softness, worth, and spirit,
Down to the vulgar size of merit," &c.
Some consider it unlucky to find a knife, from a notion that it will bring ill-luck to them; while others again often place a knife near a sleeping child as a charm to preserve it from danger, a belief to which Herrick thus refers:—
"Let the superstitious wife
Near the child's heart lay a knife;
Point be up, and haft be down;
While she gossips in the town.
This 'mongst other mystic charms
Keeps the sleeping child from harms."
Even the loaf of bread, too, without which the most frugal board would be incomplete, has not escaped without its quota of folk-lore. Thus, many a housewife still marks the sign of the cross upon her loaf before placing it in the oven, just as the Durham butcher does to the shoulder of a sheep or lamb after taking off the skin—the notion probably being to protect it against the injurious influence of witchcraft. In many parts of Scotland peasants were formerly in the habit of making a cross on their tools, considering that by so doing they would be rendered safe against the mischievous pranks of the fairy folks as they went on their midnight errands. Again, if a loaf accidentally parts in the hand while an unmarried lady is cutting it, this either prognosticates that she will not be married during the next twelve months, or, what is still worse, that there will be a dissension of some kind in the family. Some, too, have a superstitious objection to turning a loaf upside-down after cutting it. Herrick refers to the custom of carrying a crust of bread in the pocket for luck's sake—a practice which is not quite obsolete:—
"If ye fear to be affrighted
When ye are, by chance, benighted;
In your pocket for a trust
Carry nothing but a crust,
For that holy piece of bread
Charms the danger and the dread."