“Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corne,
Make wafers and cakes, for our sheep must be shorne;
At sheepe-shearing, neighbours none other things crave,
But good cheere and welcome like neighbours to have.”
Midsummer Eve appears to have been regarded as a period when the imagination ran riot, and many a curious superstition was associated with this season. Thus, people gathered on this night the rose, St. John’s wort, vervain, trefoil, and rue, all of which were supposed to have magical properties. They set the orpine in clay upon pieces of slate or potsherd in their houses, calling it a “Midsummer man.” As the stalk was found next morning to incline to the right or left, the anxious maiden knew whether her lover would prove true to her or not. Young men sought, also, for pieces of coal, but, in reality, certain hard, black, dead roots, often found under the living mugwort, designing to place these under their pillows, that they might dream of themselves.[674] It was also supposed that any person fasting on Midsummer-eve, and sitting in the church-porch, would at midnight see the spirits of those persons of that parish who would die that year come and knock at the church-door, in the order and succession in which they would die. Midsummer was formerly thought to be a season productive of madness. Thus, Malvolio’s strange conduct is described by Olivia in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 4) as “A very midsummer madness.” And, hence, “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” is no inappropriate title for “the series of wild incongruities of which the play consists.”[675] The Low-Dutch have a proverb that, when men have passed a troublesome night, and could not sleep, “they have passed St. John Baptist’s night”—that is, they have not taken any sleep, but watched all night. Heywood seems to allude to a similar notion when he says:
“As mad as a March hare: where madness compares,
Are not midsummer hares as mad as March hares?”
A proverbial phrase, too, to signify that a person was mad, was, “’Tis midsummer moon with you”—hot weather being supposed to affect the brain.
Dog-days. A popular superstition—in all probability derived from the Egyptians—referred to the rising and setting of Sirius, or the Dog-star, as infusing madness into the canine race. Consequently, the name of “Dog-days” was given by the Romans to the period between the 3d of July and 11th of August, to which Shakespeare alludes in “Henry VIII.” (v. 3), “the dog-days now reign.” It is obvious that the notion is utterly groundless, for not only does the star vary in its rising, but is later and later every year. According to the Roman belief, “at the rising of the Dog-star the seas boil, the wines ferment in the cellars, and standing waters are set in motion; the dogs, also, go mad, and the sturgeon is blasted.” The term Dog-days is still a common phrase, and it is difficult to say whether it is from superstitious adherence to old custom or from a belief of the injurious effect of heat upon the canine race that the magistrates, often unwisely, at this season of the year order them to be muzzled or tied up.
Lammas-day (August 1). According to some antiquarians, Lammas is a corruption of loaf-mass, as our ancestors made an offering of bread from new wheat on this day. Others derive it from lamb-mass, because the tenants who held lands under the Cathedral Church of York were bound by their tenure to bring a live lamb into the church at high mass.[676] It appears to have been a popular day in times past, and is mentioned in the following dialogue in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 3), where the Nurse inquires:
“How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
Lady Capulet.A fortnight, and odd days.
Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen?”
In Neale’s “Essays on Liturgiology” (2d. ed., p. 526), the Welsh equivalent for Lammas-day is given as “dydd degwm wyn,” lamb-tithing day.