as a Valentine; and that lady Valentines were honoured not by anonymous
verses, but by substantial gifts. Four days after Pepys had chosen
Martha Batten for his Valentine, he took her to the Exchange, and there,
“upon a pair of embroidered, and six pair of plain white gloves, I laid
out 40_s._” The question of expense troubled the diarist. When, in 1667,
he took his wife for (honorary) Valentine, he wrote down the fact that
it would cost him 5_l._; but he consoled himself by another fact, that
he must have laid out as much “if we had not been Valentines.” The
outlay at the hands of princes and courtiers was enormous. When the
Duke of York was Miss Stewart’s Valentine, he gave her a jewel of about
800_l._ in value; and in 1667, Lord Mandeville, being that lady’s
Valentine, presented her with a ring worth 300_l._ The gifts of Pepys to
his wife look small by the side of presents made by lovers to ladies.
Pepys came to an agreement with Mrs. Pepys to be her Valentine (which
did not preclude others from being so) every year, “and this year,” he
remarks, in 1668, “it is likely to cost 4_l._ or 5_l._ in a ring for
her, which she desires.” In 1669, he bought more useful things for his
cousin Turner, who told him she had drawn him for her Valentine.
Straightway he went to the New Exchange, and bought her a pair of
fashionable “green silk stockings, and garters, and shoe-strings, and
two pairs of jessimy gloves, all coming to about 28_s._” London shops do
not now exhibit green silk stockings, but they tempt buyers with gallant
intentions; and “Valentine gifts” are in windows or on counters at
prices to suit a few and terrify many.
Other old customs have not been revived, but we may learn some of these
from old makers of Notes, and specially from Pepys, as to the old
methods of choosing, or avoiding to choose, Valentines. When he went
early on Valentine’s Day to Sir W. Batten’s, he says he would not go in
“till I asked whether they that opened the doors was a man or a woman;
and Mingo who was there, answered, a woman, which, with his tone, made
me laugh; so up I went, and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I
do only for complacency); and Sir W. Batten, he go in the same manner to
my wife, and so we were very merry.” On the following anniversary the
diarist tells us that Will Bowyer came to be his wife’s Valentine, “she
having (at which I made good sport to myself) held her hands all the
morning, that she might not see the painters that were at work gilding
my chimney-piece and pictures in my dining-room.” It would seem,
moreover, that a man was not free from the pleasing pains of
Valentineship when the festival day was over. On Shrove Tuesday, March
3rd, 1663, after dinner, says Pepys, “Mrs. The. showed me my name upon
her breast as her Valentine, which,” he added, “will cost me 30_s._”
Again, in 1667, a fortnight after the actual day Pepys was with his wife
at the Exchange, “and there bought things for Mrs. Pierce’s little
daughter, my Valentine (which,” he says, “I was not sorry for, it easing
me of something more than I must have given to others), and so to her
house, where we find Knipp, who also challenged me for her Valentine;”
of course, Pepys had to pay the usual homage in acknowledgment of such
choice. Then, as Pepys had a little girl for Valentine, so boys were
welcomed to early gallantry by the ladies. A thoroughly domestic scene
is revealed to us on Valentine’s Day, 1665:
“This morning comes betimes Dickie Pen, to be my wife’s Valentine, and
came to our bedside. By the same token, I had been brought to my bedside
thinking to have made him kiss me; but he perceived me, and would not,
so went to his Valentine--a notable, stout, witty boy.”
When a lady drew a Valentine, a gentleman so drawn would have been
deemed shabby if he did not accept the honour and responsibility. On the
14th February, 1667, we have the following:
“This morning called up by Mr. Hill, who, my wife thought, had come to
be her Valentine--she, it seems, having drawn him; but it proved not.
However, calling him up to our bedside, my wife challenged him.”
Where men could thus intrude, boys like Dickie Pen could boldly go. Thus
in 1667:
“This morning came up to my wife’s bedside little Will Mercer, to be her
Valentine; and brought her name writ upon blue paper, in gold letters,
done by himself very pretty; and we were both well pleased with it.”
The drawing of names and name-inscriptions were remnants of old customs
before the Christian era. Alban Butler, under the head of “St.
Valentine, Priest and Martyr,” says:
“To abolish the heathens’ lewd, superstitious custom of boys drawing the
names of girls in honour of their goddess, Februata Juno, on the 15th of
the month (the drawing being on the eve of the 14th), several zealous
pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day.”
This does not, however, seem to have taken place till the time of St.
Francis de Sales, who, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, as
we are told in his Life, “severely forbade the custom of Valentines, or
giving boys in writing the names of girls to be admired or attended on
by them; and to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the
names of certain saints for them to honour and imitate in a particular
manner.”
To the drawing of names--those of the saints gave way to living objects
of adoration--was first added, in 1667, a custom out of which has sprung
the modern epistolary Valentine. In the February of that year Pepys
writes:
“I do first observe the fashion of drawing of mottoes as well as names;
so that Pierce, who drew my wife’s, did draw also a motto, ‘most
courteous and most fair;’ which, as it may be used, or an anagram made
upon each name, might be very pretty.”
The Valentines of chance were those who drew names; the Valentines by
choice were made by those who could not open their eyes on Valentine’s
morn till the one he or she most desired to see was near. The one by
chance sometimes proved to be the one by choice also, and such were true
Valentines. _N. & Q. 4th S._ vol. xi. p. 129, 130.
Pennant, in his _Tour in Scotland_, tells us that in February young
persons draw Valentines, and from thence collect their future fortune in
the nuptial state; and Goldsmith, in his _Vicar of Wakefield_,
describing the manners of some parties, tells us they sent true-love
knots on Valentine morning.
St. Valentine’s Day is alluded to by Shakspeare and by Chaucer, and also
by the poet Lydgate, the monk of Bury (who died in 1440). One of the
earliest known writers of Valentines was Charles, Duke of Orleans, who
was taken at the Battle of Agincourt. See _Every Day Book_, vol. i. p.
215.
A singular custom prevailed many years ago in the west of England. Three
single young men went out together before daylight on St. Valentine’s
Day, with a clap-net to catch an old owl and two sparrows in a
neighbouring barn. If they were successful and could bring the birds
without injury to the inn before the females of the house had risen,
they were rewarded by the hostess with three pots of purl in honour of
St. Valentine, and enjoyed the privilege of demanding at any house in
the neighbourhood a similar boon. This was done as an emblem that the
owl, being the bird of wisdom, could influence the feathered race to
enter the net of love as mates on that day, whereon both single lads and
maidens should be reminded that happiness could alone be secured by an
early union.--_Every Day Book_, vol. i. p. 227.
CAMBRIDGESHIRE.
In the village of Duxford and other adjoining parishes the custom of
“valentining” is still in feeble existence. The children go in a body
round to the parsonage and the farm-houses, singing:
“Curl your looks as I do mine,
Two before and three behind,
So good morning, Valentine.
Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!”
They start about 9 A.M. on their expedition, which must be finished by
noon; otherwise their singing is not acknowledged in any way. In some
few cases the donor gives each child a halfpenny, others throw from
their doors the coppers they feel disposed to part with amongst the
little band of choristers, which are eagerly scrambled after.--_The
Antiquary_, 1873, vol. iii. p. 103.
DERBYSHIRE.
The following customs, which have nearly died out, were very prevalent
about fifty or sixty years ago:
_Valentine Dealing._--Each young woman in the house would procure
several slips of paper, and write upon them the names of the young men
she knew, or those she had a preference for. The slips when ready were
put into a boot or shoe (a man’s), or else into a hat, and shaken up.
Each lassie then put in her hand and drew a slip, which she read and
retained until every one had drawn. The slips were then put back and the
drawing done over again, which ceremony was performed three times. If a
girl drew the same slip thrice, she was sure to be married in a short
time, and to a person of the same name as that which was written upon
the thrice drawn slip.
_Looking through the Keyhole._--On the early morn of St. Valentine,
young women would look through the keyhole of the house door. If they
saw only a single object or person they would remain unmarried all that
year. If they saw, however, two or more objects or persons, they would
be sure to have a sweetheart, and that in no distant time; but if
fortune so favoured them that by chance they saw a cock and a hen, they
might be quite certain of being married before the year was out.
_Sweeping the girls_ was another real old Derbyshire custom. If a girl
did not have a kiss, or if her sweetheart did not come to see her early
on this morning, it was because she was _dusty_, and therefore it was
needful that she should be well swept with a broom, and then afterwards
equally well kissed by the young men of the house, and those living
near, who used to go round to their intimate friends’ houses to perform
this custom.--_N. & Q. 4th S._ vol. ix. p. 135.
HEREFORDSHIRE.
In many parts the poor and middling classes of children assemble
together in some part of the town or village where they live, and
proceed in a body to the house of the chief personage of the place, who,
on their arrival, throws them wreaths and true lovers’ knots from the
window, with which they adorn themselves. Two or three of the girls then
select one of the youngest among them (generally a boy), whom they deck
out more gaily than the rest, and placing him at their head, march
forward, singing as they go along:
“Good morrow to you, Valentine;
Curl your locks as I do mine,
Two before and three behind.
Good morrow to you, Valentine.”
This they repeat under the windows of all the houses they pass, and the
inhabitant is seldom known to refuse a mite towards the merry
solicitings of these juvenile serenaders.--Hone’s _Year Book_, 1838, p.
201.
KENT.
The following extract is taken from the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1779,
vol. xlix. p. 137: “Being on a visit in a little obscure village in
Kent, I found an odd kind of sport going forward: the girls, from
eighteen to five or six years old, were assembled in a crowd, and
burning an uncouth effigy, which they called an _holly-boy_, and which
it seems they had stolen from the boys, and in another part of the
village the boys were assembled together, and burning what they called
an _ivy-girl_, which they had stolen from the girls; all this ceremony
was accompanied with loud huzzas, noise, and acclamation.”
NORFOLK.
Independent of the homage paid to St. Valentine on this day at Lynn, it
is in other respects a red-letter day amongst all classes of its
inhabitants, being the commencement of its great annual mart. This mart
was granted by a charter of Henry VIII. in the twenty-seventh year of
his reign, “to begin on the day next after the feast of the purification
of the blessed Virgin Mary, and to continue six days next following.”
Since the alteration of the style, in 1752, it has been proclaimed on
Valentine’s Day. About noon, the Mayor and Corporation, preceded by a
band of music, and attended by twelve decrepit old men, called from
their dress “Red Coats,” walk in procession to proclaim the mart,
concluding by opening the antiquated and almost obsolete court of
“Piepowder.” Like most establishments of this nature, it is no longer
attended for the purpose it was first granted, business having yielded
to pleasure and amusement. Formerly Lynn mart and Stourbridge
(Stirbitch) fair, were the only places where small traders in this and
the adjoining counties supplied themselves with their respective goods.
No transactions of this nature now take place, and the only remains to
be perceived are the “mart prices,” still issued by the grocers. Here
the thrifty housewives, for twenty miles round, laid in their annual
store of soap, starch, &c., and the booth of Green, from Limehouse, was
for three generations the emporium of such articles; but these no longer
attend. A great deal of money is however spent, as immense numbers of
persons assemble from all parts. Neither is there any lack of
incitements to unburthen the pockets: animals of every description, tame
and wild, giants and dwarfs, tumblers, jugglers, peep-shows, &c., all
unite their attractive powers, in sounds more discordant than those
which annoyed the ears of Hogarth’s “enraged musician.”
In the early part of the last century, an old building, which, before
the Reformation, had been a hall belonging to the guild of St. George,
after being applied to various uses, was fitted up as a theatre (and, by
a curious coincidence, where formerly had doubtless been exhibited, as
was customary at the guild feasts, religious mysteries and pageants of
the Catholic age, again were exhibited the mysteries and pageants of the
Protestant age) during the mart and a few weeks afterwards, but
apparently with no great success.--_Every Day Book_, vol. ii. p. 223.
In the parish of Ryburgh it is customary for the children to go round to
the houses in the village for contributions, saying:
“God bless the baker;
If you will be the giver,
I will be the taker.”
_N. & Q. 4th S._ vol. v. p. 595.
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
In this county children go from house to house, on the morning of St.
Valentine’s Day, soliciting small gratuities. The children of the
villages go in parties, sometimes in considerable numbers, repeating at
each house the following salutations, which vary in different
districts:[18]
“Good morrow, Valentine!
First it’s yours, and then it’s mine,
So please give me a Valentine.”
“Morrow, morrow, Valentine!
First ’tis yours, and then ’tis mine,
So please to give me a Valentine.
Holly and ivy tickle my toe,
Give me red apples and let me go.”
“Good morrow, Valentine!
Parsley grows by savoury,
Savoury grows by thyme,
A new pair of gloves on Easter day.
Good morrow, Valentine!”
[18] See _History and Antiquities of Weston Favell_ (1827, p. 6).
Brand in his _Pop. Antiq._ mentions this custom as existing in
Oxfordshire.--1849, vol. i. p. 60.
It was formerly customary for young people to _catch_ their parents and
each other on their first meeting on St. Valentine’s morning. _Catching_
was no more than the exclamation, “Good morrow, _Valentine_!” and they
who could repeat this before they were spoken to, were entitled to a
small present from their parents or the elderly persons of the family;
consequently there was great eagerness to rise early, and much
good-natured strife and merriment on the occasion.[19]
[19] The custom was observed at Norfolk.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ vol. i.
p. 60.
In Peterborough and in some of the villages in the northern part of the
county sweet plum buns were formerly given, and I believe are still
made, called Valentine buns; and these buns, I am told, are in some
villages given by godfathers and godmothers to their godchildren on the
Sunday preceding and the Sunday following St. Valentine’s Day.--Baker,
_Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases_, 1854, vol. ii. p. 373.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.
Drawing lots or billets for Valentines is a custom observed in the
neighbourhood of Mansfield, where a few young men and maidens meet
together, and having put each their own name on a slip of paper, they
are all placed together in a hat or basket, and drawn in regular
rotation. Should a young man draw a girl’s name, and she his, it is
considered ominous, and not unfrequently ends in real love and a
wedding.--_Jour. of the Arch. Assoc._ 1853, vol. viii. p. 231.
OXFORDSHIRE.
In this county the following rhymes were used:
“Good morrow, Valentine!
I be thine, and thou be’st mine,
So please give me a Valentine!”
Also
“Good morrow, Valentine!
God bless you ever!
If you’ll be true to me,
I’ll be the like to thee.
Old England for ever!”
Also
“Good morrow, Valentine,
First ’tis yours, then ’tis mine,
So please give me a Valentine.”
_The Antiquary_, 1873, vol. iii. p. 107; Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol.
i. p. 60.
YORKSHIRE.
“On Valentine’s Day,” says Clarkson (_Hist. of Richmond_, 1821, p. 293),
“the ceremony of drawing lots called Valentines is seldom omitted. The
names of a select number of one sex with an equal number of the other
are put into a vessel, and every one draws a name, which is called their
Valentine; and which is looked upon as a good omen of their being
afterwards united.”
MARCH. 1.] ST. DAVID’S DAY.
Various attempts have been made to account for the custom of wearing the
leek. Owen, in his _Cambrian Biography_ (1803), considers it to have
originated from the custom of _cymhortha_, or the neighbourly aid
practised among farmers. He says that it was once customary in some
districts of South Wales for all the neighbours of a small farmer
without means to appoint a day, when they all met together for the
purpose of ploughing his land, or rendering him any service in their
power. On such an occasion each individual carried with him his portion
of leeks to be used in making the pottage for the company. Some also are
of opinion that the practice took its rise in consequence of a victory
obtained by Cadwallo over the Saxons on the 1st of March, 640, when the
Welsh, to distinguish themselves, wore leeks in their hats. Shakespeare
introduces the custom into his play of Henry V., act iv. sc. 7. Fluellin
addressing the monarch says:
“Your grandfather of famous memory, an’t please your majesty, and your
great uncle Edward the plack prince of Wales, as I have read in the
chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.
“_K. Hen._ They did, Fluellin.
“_Flu._ Your majesty says very true: if your majesty is remembered of
it, the Welshmen did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow,
wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty knows, to this
hour is an honourable padge of the service; and I do believe your
majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.”
This allusion by Fluellin to the Welsh having worn the leek in a battle
under the Black Prince, is not, as some writers suppose, wholly decisive
of its having originated in the fields of Cressy or Poictiers, but shows
that when Shakespeare wrote Welshmen wore leeks. In the same play the
well-remembered Fluellin’s enforcement of Pistol to eat the leek he had
ridiculed, further establishes the wearing as a usage.--_Every Day
Book_, vol. i. p. 318.
A contributor to a periodical work, entitled _Gazette of Fashion_ (March
9th, 1822), rejects the notion that wearing leeks on St. David’s Day
originated at the battle between the Saxons and the Welsh in the sixth
century; and considers it more probable that leeks were a Druidic symbol
employed in honour of the British _Ceudven_, or Ceres. In which
hypothesis he thinks there is nothing strained in presuming that the
Druids were a branch of the Phœnician priesthood. Both were addicted to
oak worship; and during the funereal rites of Adonis at Byblos, leeks
and onions were exhibited in “pots with other vegetables, and called the
gardens of that deity.”
In the fifteenth century, the celebration of St. David’s Day was
honoured with the patronage of royalty; and numerous entries of
payments, such as the following, are recorded in the “Privy Purse
Expenses of Henry the Seventh,” a monarch whose liberality is not
proverbial:
“March 1 (1492). Walshemen on Saint David Day, £2.” “March 6 (1494). To
the Walshemen towardes their feste, £2.”--_Med. Ævi Kalend._, vol. i. p.
168.
From _Poor Robin’s Almanack_ for 1757 it appears that, in former times
in England, a Welshman was burnt in effigy on this anniversary:
“But it would make a stranger laugh
To see th’ English hang poor Taff:
A pair of breeches, and a coat,
Hat, shoes, and stockings, and what not,
All stuffed with hay to represent
The Cambrian hero thereby meant:
With sword sometimes three inches broad,
And other armour made of wood,
They drag hur to some publick tree,
And hang hur up in effigy.”
To this custom Pepys probably alludes in his Diary for 1667 (Bohn’s
Edition, 1858, vol. iii. p. 761):
“In Mark Lane I do observe (it being St. David’s Day) the picture of a
man dressed like a Welshman, hanging by the neck upon one of the poles
that stand out at the top of the merchant’s houses, in full proportion;
and very handsomely done, which is one of the oddest sights I have seen
a good while.”
Brand, in his _Pop. Antiq._ (1849, vol. i. p. 105), thinks that from
this custom arose the practice, at one time in vogue amongst
pastrycooks, of hanging or skewering _taffies_ or Welshmen of
gingerbread for sale on St. David’s Day.
The goat has by time-honoured custom been attached to the regiment of
the Royal Welsh (23rd) Fusiliers, and the following extract, taken from
the _Graphic_ (No. 171, March, 8th, 1873), shows how St. David’s Day is
observed by the officers and men of this regiment:
The drum-major, as well as every man in the regiment, wears a leek in
his busby; the goat is dressed with rosettes and ribbons of red and
blue. The officers have a party, and the drum-major, accompanied by the
goat, marches round the table after dinner, carrying a plate of leeks,
of which he offers one to each officer or guest who has never eaten one
before, and who is bound to eat it up, standing on his chair, with one
foot on the table, while a drummer beats a roll behind his chair. All
the toasts given are coupled with the name of St. David, nor is the
memory of Toby Purcell forgotten. This worthy was gazetted major of the
regiment when it was first raised, and was killed in the Battle of the
Boyne.
MIDDLESEX.
St. David’s Day is observed in London, says Hampson (_Med. Ævi Kalend._
vol. i. p. 168), by the Charitable Society of Ancient Britons, who were
established in 1714, in behalf of the Welsh Charity School in Gray’s Inn
Road. On this occasion each man wears an artificial leek in his hat.
OXFORDSHIRE.
On St. David’s Day at Jesus College, Oxford, an immense silver gilt
bowl, containing ten gallons, which was presented to the College by Sir
Watkin Williams Wynne in 1732, is filled with “swig,” and handed round
to those who are invited to sit at the festive and hospitable
board.--Hone’s _Year Book_, 1838, p. 265.
WALES.
At Tenby one of the benefit clubs marched through the town bearing the
leek in their hats. In the evening a ball took place, at which
artificial leeks were worn by both sexes.--Mason, _Tales and Traditions
of Tenby_, 1858, p. 19.
MARCH 1.] SIMNEL SUNDAY.
Simnel Sunday is better known as Mid-Lent or Mothering Sunday, and was
so called because large cakes called Simnels were made on this day.
Bailey in his _Dictionary_ (fol. 1764, by Scott,) says, _Simnel_ is
probably derived from the Latin _Simila_, fine flour, and means a sort
of cake, or bun, made of fine flour, spice, &c.
Frequent mention is made of the Simnel in the household allowances of
Henry the First.
“Cancellarius v solidos in die et i Siminellum dominicum, et ii salum,
et i sextarium de vino claro, et i sext. de vino expensabili, et unum
grossum cereum, et xl frusta Candell.”--_Libr. Nigr. Scaccarii_, p. 341.
The “Siminellum Dominicum,” Hearne thinks, was a better kind of
bread[20] and that “Siminellum Salum,” from ~sal~, cibus, victus, was
the ordinary bread; if it be not the Latin _Salis_ (Siminellum Salinum),
in which case it denotes that more salt is contained in it than in the
other. If the derivation from Simnel be not satisfactory, perhaps the
Anglo-Saxon ~symbel~, a feast or banquet, whence ~simbel~, ~dæg~, a
festival day, may suffice.--_Med. Ævi Kalend._ vol. i. p. 177.
[20] Alderman Wilkinson of Burnley, a well known able Lancashire
antiquary, some time since stated that it “originally meant the _very
finest_ bread. _Pain demain_ is another term for it, on account of its
having been used as Sunday bread.”
In Wright’s _Vocabularies_ it appears thus:--‘_Hic artæcopus, a
symnylle_.’ This form was in use during the fifteenth century.
In the _Dictionarius_ of John de Garlande, compiled at Paris in the
thirteenth century, it appears thus:--“_Simeneus_ = placentæ =
simnels.” Such cakes were signed with the figure of Christ, or of the
Virgin.