[FOLK-LORE FOR SWEETHEARTS.]
BY REV. M. G. WATKINS, M.A.
As marriage and death are the chief events in human life, an enormous mass of popular beliefs has in all nations crystallised round them. Perhaps the sterner and more gloomy character of Kelts, Saxons, and Northmen generally found vent in the greater prominence they have given to omens of death, second-sight, ghosts, and the like; whereas the lighter and sunnier disposition of Southern Europe has delighted more in love-spells, methods of divining a future partner, the whole pomp and circumstance attending Venus and her doves. The writhing of the wryneck so graphically portrayed in Theocritus, or the spells of the lover in his Latin imitator, with their refrain—
Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnim,[4]
may thus be profitably compared with the darker superstitions of St. Mark’s Eve, the Baal fires, and compacts with the evil one, which so constantly recur throughout the Northern mythologies. But there are times and festivities when the serious Northern temperament relaxes; and any one who has the least acquaintance with the wealth of folk-lore which recent years have shown the natives of Great Britain that they possess, well knows that the times of courtship and marriage are two occasions when this lighter vein of our composite nature is conspicuous. The collection of these old-world beliefs amongst our peasantry did not begin a moment too soon. Day by day the remnants of them are fast fading from the national memory. The disenchanting wand of the modern schoolmaster, the rationalistic influences of the press, the Procrustes-like system of standards in our parish schools—these act like the breath of morn or the crowing of a cock upon ghosts, and at once put charms, spells, and the like to flight. Before the nation assumes the sober hues of pure reason and unpitying logic, in lieu of the picturesque scraps of folk-lore and old-wifish beliefs in which imagination was wont to clothe it, no office can be more grateful to posterity than for enthusiastic inquirers to search out and put on record these notes of fairy music which our villagers used to listen to with such content. By way of giving a sample of their linked sweetnesses long drawn out through so many generations of country dwellers—of which the echoes still vibrate, especially in the north and west of the country—it is our purpose to quote something of the legendary lore connected with love and marriage. This must interest everybody. Even the most determined old bachelor probably fell once, at least, in love to enable him to discover the hollowness of the passion; and as for the other sex, they may very conveniently, if illogically, be classed here as they used to be at the Oxford Commemoration, the married, the unmarried, and those who wish to be married. Some of these spells and charms possess associations for each of these divisions, and we are consequently sure of the suffrages of the fair sex.
Folk-lore, like Venus herself, has indeed specially flung her cestus over “the palmer in love’s eye.” She has more charms to soothe his melancholy than were ever prescribed by Burton. She is not above dabbling in spells and the unholy mysteries of the black art to inform him who shall be his partner for life. When sleep at length seals his eyes, she waits at his bedside next morning to tell him the meaning of his dreams. And most certainly the weaker sex has not been forgotten by folk-lore, which, in proportion to their easier powers of belief, provides them with infinite store of solace and prediction. Milkmaids, country lasses, and secluded dwellers in whitewashed farm or thick-walled ancestral grange are her particular charge. The Juliets and Amandas of higher rank already possess enough nurses, confidantes, and bosom friends, to say nothing of the poets and novelists. Perhaps it would be well for them if they never resorted to more dangerous mentors than do their rustic sisters when they listen to old wives’ wisdom at the chimney corner. Yet an exception must be made in favor of some lovers of rank, when we recall the ludicrously simple wooing of Mr. Carteret and Lady Jemima Montagu, and how mightily they were indebted to the good offices of the more skilled Samuel Pepys, who literally taught them when they ought to take each other’s hand, “make these and these compliments,” and the like; “he being the most awkerd man I ever met with in my life as to that business,” as the garrulous diarist adds. For ourselves, we do not profess to be love casuists, and the profusion of receipts which the subject possesses is so remarkable that we shall be unable to preserve much order in our prescriptions. Like those little books which possess wisdom for all who look within them, we can only promise our readers a peep into a budget fresh from fairy-land, and each may select what spell he or she chooses. Autolycus himself did not open a pack stuffed with greater attractions for his customers, especially for the fair sex.
Nothing is easier than to dream of a sweetheart. Only put a piece of wedding-cake under your pillow, and your wish will be gratified. If you are in doubt between two or three lovers, which you should choose, let a friend write their names on the paper in which the cake is wrapped, sleep on it yourself as before for three consecutive nights, and if you should then happen to dream of one of the names therein written, you are certain to marry him.[5] In Hull, folk-lore somewhat varies the receipt. Take the blade-bone of a rabbit, stick nine pins in it, and then put it under your pillow, when you will be sure to see the object of your affections. At Burnley, during a marriage-feast, a wedding-ring is put into the posset, and after serving it out the unmarried person whose cup contains the ring will be the first of the company to be married. Sometimes, too, a cake is made into which a wedding-ring and a sixpence are put. When the company are about to retire, the cake is broken and distributed among the unmarried ladies. She who finds the ring in her portion of cake will shortly be married, but she who gets the sixpence will infallibly die an old maid.
Perhaps your affections are still disengaged, but you wish to bestow them on one who will return like for like. In this case there are plenty of wishing-chairs, wishing-gates, and so forth, scattered through the country. A wish breathed near them, and kept secret, will sooner or later have its fulfilment. But there is no need to travel to the Lake country or to Finchale Priory, near Durham (where is a wishing-chair); if you see a piece of old iron or a horseshoe on your path, take it up, spit on it, and throw it over your left shoulder, framing a wish at the same time. Keep this wish a secret, and it will come to pass in due time. If you meet a piebald horse, nothing can be more lucky; utter your wish, and whatever it may be you will have it before the week be out. In Cleveland, the following method of divining whether a girl will be married or not is resorted to. Take a tumbler of water from a stream which runs southward; borrow the wedding-ring of some gudewife and suspend it by a hair of your head over the glass of water, holding the hair between the finger and thumb. If the ring hit against the side of the glass, the holder will die an old maid; if it turn quickly round, she will be married once; if slowly, twice. Should the ring strike the side of the glass more than three times after the holder has pronounced the name of her lover, there will be a lengthy courtship and nothing more; “she will be courted to dead,” as they say in Lincolnshire; if less frequently, the affair will be broken off, and if there is no striking at all it will never come on.[6] Or if you look at the first new moon of the year through a silk handkerchief which has never been washed, as many moons as you see through it (the threads multiplying the vision), so many years must pass before your marriage. Would you ascertain the color of your future husband’s hair? Follow the practice of the German girls. Between the hours of eleven and twelve at night on St. Andrew’s Eve a maiden must stand at the house door, take hold of the latch, and say three times, “Gentle love, if thou lovest me, show thyself,” She must then open the door quickly, and make a rapid grasp through it into the darkness, when she will find in her hand a lock of her future husband’s hair. The “Universal Fortune-teller” prescribes a still more fearsome receipt for obtaining an actual sight of him. The girl must take a willow branch in her left hand, and, without being observed, slip out of the house and run three times round it, whispering the while, “He that is to be my goodman, come and grip the end of it.” During the third circuit the likeness of the future husband will appear and grasp the other end of the wand. Would any one conciliate a lover’s affections? There is a charm of much simplicity, and yet of such potency that it will even reconcile man and wife. Inside a frog is a certain crooked bone, which when cleaned and dried over the fire on St. John’s Eve, and then ground fine and given in food to the lover, will at once win his love for the administerer.[7] A timely hint may here be given to any one going courting: be sure when leaving home to spit in your right shoe would you speed in your wooing. If you accidentally put on your left stocking, too, inside out, nothing but good luck can ensue.
Among natural objects, the folk lore of the north invariably assigns a speedy marriage to the sight of three magpies together. If a cricket sings on the hearth, it portends that riches will fall to the hearer’s lot. Catch a ladybird, and suffer it to fly out of your hands while repeating the following couplet—
Fly away east, or fly away west,