LOVE AND COURTSHIP.
Love-tests--Plants used in Love-charms--The Lady-bird--The
Snail--St. Valentine's Day--Midsummer Eve--Hallowe'en--Omens on
Friday.
No event in human life has, from the earliest times, been associated
with a more extensive folk-lore than marriage, which is indeed no
matter of surprise, considering that this is naturally looked upon as
the happiest epoch--the _summum bonum_--of each one's career in this
world. Hence, to write a detailed account of the charms, omens, and
divinations, as well as of the superstitions and customs, connected
with marriage, including its early stages of love and courtship,
would require a volume for itself, so varied and widespread is this
subject of universal interest.
In the present chapter, however, have been collected together,
in as condensed a form as possible, some of the principal items
of folk-lore connected with love and courtship, as we find them
scattered here and there throughout the country. Commencing, then,
with love-divinations, these are of every conceivable kind, the
anxious maiden apparently having left no stone unturned in her
anxiety to ascertain her lot in the marriage state. Hence in her
natural longings to raise the veil of futurity, the aspirant to
matrimony, if she be at all of a superstitious turn of mind, seldom
lets an opportunity pass by without endeavouring to gain from it
some sign or token of the kind of husband that is in store for her.
As soon, too, as the appointed one has at last presented himself,
she is not content to receive with unreserved faith his professions
of love and life-long fidelity; but, in her sly moments, when he is
not at hand, she proves the genuineness of his devotion by certain
charms which, while they cruelly belie his character, only too often
unkindly deceive the love-sick maiden.
In the first place, we may note that love-tests have been derived
from a variety of sources, such as plants, insects, animals,
birds, not to mention those countless other omens obtained from
familiar objects to which we shall have occasion to allude. At the
outset, however, it may not be uninteresting to quote the following
account of love-charms in use about one hundred and fifty years
ago, and which was written by a young lady to the editor of the
_Connoisseur_:--
"Arabella was in love with a clever Londoner, and had tried all the
approved remedies. She had seen him several times in coffee grounds
with a sword by his side; he was once at the bottom of a tea-cup in
a coach and six, with his two footmen behind it. On the last May
morning she went into the fields to hear the cuckoo; and when she
pulled off her left shoe, she found a hair in it the exact colouring
of his. The same night she sowed hempseed in the back yard, repeating
the words:--
'Hempseed I sow, hempseed I hoe,
And he that is my true love,
Come after me and mow.'
After that she took a clean shift and turned it, and hung it on the
back of a chair; and very likely he would have come and turned it,
for she heard a step, and being frightened could not help speaking,
and that broke the spell. The maid Betty recommended her young
mistress to go backwards, without speaking a word, into the garden on
Midsummer Eve, and gather a rose, keep it in a clean sheet of paper
without looking in it till Christmas Day, it will be as fresh as in
June; and if she sticks this rose in her bosom, he that is to be her
husband will come and take it out. Arabella had tried several other
strange fancies. Whenever she lies in a strange bed, she always ties
her garters nine times round the bed-post, and knits nine knots in
it, saying all the time:--
'This knot I knit, this knot I tie,
To see my love as he goes by,
In his apparel and array,
As he walks in every day.'
On the last occasion Mr. Blossom drew the curtains and tucked up the
clothes at the bed's feet. She has many times pared an apple whole,
and afterwards flung the peel over her head, and on each occasion the
peel formed the first letter of his Christian name or surname."
Referring to the use of plants in love-charms, they are very
numerous. One popular one consists in taking the leaves of yarrow,
commonly called "nosebleed," and tickling the inside of the nostrils,
repeating at the same time these lines:--
"Green 'arrow, green 'arrow, you bear a white blow,
If my love love me, my nose will bleed now;
If my love don't love me, it 'ont bleed a drop;
If my love do love me, 'twill bleed every drop."
Some cut the common brake or fern just above the root to ascertain
the initial letters of the future wife's or husband's name; and
the dandelion, as a plant of omen, is much in demand. As soon as
its seeds are ripe they stand above the head of the plant in a
globular form, with a feathery top at the end of each seed, and
then are without any difficulty detached. When in this condition
the flower-stalk must be carefully plucked, so as not to injure the
globe of seeds, the charm consisting in blowing off the seeds with
the breath. The number of puffs that are required to blow every seed
clean off indicates the number of years that must elapse before
the person is married. Again, nuts and apples are very favourite
love-tests. The mode of procedure is for a girl to place on the bars
of the grate a nut, repeating this incantation:--
"If he loves me, pop and fly;
If he hates me, live and die."
As may be imagined, great is the dismay if the anxious face of the
inquirer gradually perceives the nut, instead of making the hoped-for
pop, die and make no sign. Again, passing on to insects, one means of
divination is to throw a lady-bird into the air, repeating meanwhile
the subjoined couplet:--
"Fly away east, and fly away west,
Show me where lives the one I like best."
Should this little insect chance to fly in the direction of the house
where the loved one resides, it is regarded as a highly-favourable
omen. The snail, again, was much used in love-divinations, many an
eager maiden anxious of ascertaining her lover's name following the
example of Hobnelia, who, in order to test the constancy of her
Lubberkin, did as follows:--
"Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found,
For always snails near sweetest fruit abound.
I seized the vermin, home I quickly sped,
And on the hearth the milk-white embers spread;
Slow crawled the snail, and, if I right can spell,
In the soft ashes marked a curious L.
Oh! may this wondrous omen lucky prove,
For 'L' is found in Lubberkin and Love."
Three magpies are said to prognosticate a wedding; and in our rural
districts the unmarried of either sex calculate the number of years
of single blessedness still allotted to them by counting the cuckoo's
notes when they first hear it in the spring.
Some days are considered specially propitious for practising
love-divinations. Foremost among these is St. Valentine's Day, a
festival which has been considered highly appropriate for such
ceremonies, as there is an old tradition that on this day birds
choose their mates, a notion which is frequently alluded to by the
poets, and particularly by Chaucer, to which reference is made also
in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_:--
"Good morrow, friends, St. Valentine is past;
Begin the wood-birds but to couple now."
Thus, the Devonshire young ladies have a fancy that on St.
Valentine's Day they can, if they wish, make certain of their future.
If so disposed, they go into the churchyard at midnight, with some
hempseed in their hand, which, after they have walked round the
church a certain number of times, they scatter on either side as they
return homewards, repeating a certain charm. It is supposed that the
true lover will be seen taking up the hempseed just sown, attired for
the ceremony in a winding-sheet. Another species of love-divination
once observed consisted in obtaining five bay leaves, four of which
the anxious maiden pinned at the four corners of her pillow, and
the fifth in the middle. If she was fortunate enough to dream of
her lover, it was a sure sign that he would be married to her in
the course of the year. Again, some young people would boil an egg
hard, and, after taking out the contents, fill the shell with salt,
the charm consisting in eating the shell and salt on going to bed at
night without either speaking or drinking after it. A further method
of divination was practised in the following way:--The lady wrote
her lovers' names upon small pieces of paper, and, rolling them up
in clay, put them into a tub of water. The first that rose to the
surface was to be not only her Valentine, but, in all probability,
her future husband.
Another time, which has been equally popular from time immemorial for
such superstitious practices, is Midsummer Eve. People gathered on
this night the rose, St. John's wort, trefoil, and rue, each of which
was supposed to have magical properties. They set orpine in clay
upon pieces of slate in their houses, under the name of a Midsummer
man. As the stalk next morning was found to incline to the right or
left, the anxious maiden knew whether her lover would prove true to
her or not.
Hallowe'en, again, has been supposed to be the time, of all other
times, when supernatural influences prevail, and on this account is
regarded as a night of sure divination in love matters. All kinds
of devices have, therefore, been resorted to at this season, and in
the North of England many superstitions still linger on, where this
festival is known as "nutcrack-night," from nuts forming a prominent
feature in the evening feast. Once more, Christmas Eve is well known
to love-sick swains and languishing maidens as an excellent day
for obtaining a glimpse into futurity. Numerous are the spells and
ceremonies by which this is attempted. Thus in some places, at "the
witching hour of night," the young damsel goes into the garden and
plucks twelve sage leaves, under the belief that she will see the
shadowy form of her future husband approach her from the opposite
end of the ground. In trying this delicate mode of divination great
care must be taken not to break or damage the sage-stalk, as should
this happen serious consequences might ensue. The following barbarous
charm was also much practised in days gone by:--The heart was taken
from a living pigeon, stuck full of pins, and laid on the hearth, and
while it was burning, the form of the young person's future partner
was believed to become visible to mortal eye.
Friday has been held a good day of the week for love omens, and in
Norfolk the following lines are repeated on three Friday nights
successively, as on the last one it is believed that the young lady
will dream of her future husband:--
"To-night, to-night, is Friday night,
Lay me down in dirty white,
Dream who my husband is to be;
And lay my children by my side,
If I'm to live to be his bride."
There are numerous other modes of matrimonial divination which still
find favour in the eyes of those who prefer the married state to
that of virginity. Thus the seeds of butter-dock must be scattered
on the ground by a young unmarried girl half an hour before sunrise
on a Friday morning in a lonesome place. She must strew the seeds
gradually on the grass, saying these words:--
"I sow, I sow!
Then, my own dear,
Come here, come here,
And mow, and mow."
After this she will see her future husband mowing with a scythe at a
short distance from her. She must, however, display no symptoms of
fear, for should she cry out in alarm he will immediately vanish.
This method is said to be infallible, but it is regarded as a bold,
desperate, and presumptuous undertaking. Some girls, again, make
a hole in the road where four ways meet, and apply their ear to
it, with the hope of learning of what trade their future husband
is to be. It is unnecessary, however, to illustrate this part of
our subject further, for the preceding pages amply show how varied
and extensive are the omens and divinations connected with an
event without which life is considered in the eyes of most persons
incomplete. Although these may seem trivial and often nonsensical,
yet they have often exercised an important influence over that period
of anxious suspense which intervenes between courtship and marriage,
often tantalising and damping in a cruel manner the hopes of many an
ardent lover.