The old couple seemed well satisfied when we returned, as it was not quite midnight.
Many elderly folks had arrived late in the evening to drink health and long life to the newly-married; they assured us that it was an old custom to tan young married people to bed, or else they would meet with bad luck all their days. The good old souls had arranged for us to stay over night; but as we deemed it best to return home, they made us take more to eat and drink, to keep out the cold and help us on the road, they said. Then amidst hearty leave-takings and promises to visit them again soon, they allowed us to depart.
Well, somehow, we arrived home about daybreak, but often wished that we had stopped at the Grambler till sunrise.
At more modish weddings the guests merely enter the bridal-chamber and throw stockings—in which stones or something to make weight are placed—at the bride and bridegroom in bed. The first one hit, of the happy couple, betokens the sex of their first-born.
It was an old custom, religiously observed, until lately, in Zennor and adjacent parishes on the north coast, to waylay a married couple on their wedding-night and flog them to bed with cords, sheep-spans, or anything handy for the purpose; believing that this rough treatment would ensure them happiness and the "heritage and gift that cometh from the Lord," of a numerous family.
[Madron Well.]
