ARTICLES OF DRESS.
New Clothes at Easter and Whitsuntide--Wearing of Clothes--The
Clothes of the Dead--The Apron, Stockings, Garters, &c.--The
Shoe--The Glove--The Ring--Pins.
One would scarcely expect to find a host of odd fancies attached to
such matter-of-fact necessities as articles of dress, but yet they
hold a prominent place in our domestic folk-lore. However trivial at
first sight these may seem, they are nevertheless interesting, in
so far as they illustrate certain features of our social history,
and show from another point of view how superstition is interwoven
with all that appertains to human life. Beginning, then, with a
well-known piece of folk-lore, most persons wear new clothes on
Easter-Day, mindful of the old admonition:--
"At Easter let your clothes be new,
Or else be sure you will it rue"
--a notion that still retains its hold on the popular mind, few being
found bold enough to transgress this long-rooted custom. In the North
of England, so strong is the feeling on this point, that young people
rarely omit visiting the nearest market-town prior to Eastertide, to
buy some new article of dress or personal ornament, as otherwise they
believe the birds--notably rooks--will spoil their clothes. A similar
fancy prevails with regard to Whitsuntide, and many would consider
that they had forfeited their good luck for the next twelve months if
they did not appear in "new things" on Whitsunday.
The superstitions relating to clothes are very numerous, varying
in different localities. Thus, according to a Suffolk notion, "if
you have your clothes mended on your back, you will be ill-spoken
of," or as they say in Sussex, "you will come to want." Again, many
before putting on a new coat or dress, take care to place some money
in the right-hand pocket, as this insures its always being full. If
by mistake, however, the money is put in the left-hand pocket, then
the person will never have a penny so long as the coat lasts. It
is also a very prevalent belief that if one would secure luck with
any article of dress, it must be worn for the first time at church.
Equal attention, too, is paid by many to the way they put on each
article of dress--as, in case of its being accidentally inside out,
it is considered an omen of success. It is necessary, however, if one
wishes the omen to hold good, to wear the reversed portion of attire
with the wrong side out till the regular time comes for taking it
off. If reversed earlier, the luck is immediately lost. The idea of
the "hind-side before" is so closely related to that of "inside out,"
that one can hardly understand their being taken for contrary omens;
yet, "It is worthy of remark, in connection with this superstition,"
says a correspondent of Chambers's "Book of Days," "that when
William the Conqueror, in arming himself for the battle of Hastings,
happened to put on his shirt of mail with the hind-side before,
the bystanders seem to have been shocked by it, as by an ill-omen,
till William claimed it as a good one, betokening that he was to be
changed from a duke to a king." Another piece of superstition tells
us that the clothes of the dead never last very long, but that as
the body decays, so in the same degree do the garments and linen
which belonged to the deceased. Hence, in Essex there is a popular
saying to the effect that "the clothes of the dead always wear full
of holes." When therefore a person dies, and the relatives, it may
be, give away the clothes to the poor, one may frequently hear a
remark of this kind, "Ah, they may look very well, but they won't
wear; they belong to the dead." A similar belief prevails in Denmark,
where a corpse is not allowed to be buried in the clothes of a living
person, lest as the clothes rot in the grave, that person to whom
they belonged should waste away and perish. In accordance also with
a superstition prevalent in the Netherlands, the rings of a dead
friend or relative are never given away, as it is a sure sign that the
giver too will soon die. An absurd notion exists in many parts--one
much credited by our country peasantry--that if a mother gives away
all the baby's clothes in her possession, she will be sure to have
another addition to her family, although the event may be contrary
to all expectation. Among other items of folk-lore associated with
clothes, we may mention that in the North of England to put a button
or hook into the wrong hole while one is dressing in the morning, is
held to be a warning that some misfortune will happen in the course
of the day; and in Northamptonshire it is said that servants who go
to their places in black will never stay the year out. A Dorsetshire
superstition is that if a gentleman accidentally burns the tail
of his coat, or a lady the hem of her skirt, during a visit at a
friend's house, it is a proof they will repeat their visit.
Another article of dress that has its superstitions is the apron,
which some women turn before the new moon, to insure good luck
for the ensuing month. In Yorkshire, when a married woman's apron
falls off, it is a sign that something is coming to vex her;
when, however, the apron of an unmarried girl drops down, she is
frequently the object of laughter, as there is considered no surer
sign than that she is thinking about her sweetheart. Again, if a
young woman's petticoats are longer than her dress, this is a proof
that her mother does not love her so much as her father, a notion
which extends as far as Scotland. This piece of folk-lore may have
originated in the mother not attending so much to the child's dress
as was her duty, whereas, however much the father may love his child,
he may at the same time be perfectly ignorant of the rights and
wrongs of female attire: an excuse which does not hold good in the
case of the mother. Some of the descriptions of plants in use among
the rural peasantry refer to the petticoat. Thus, the poppy is said
to have a red petticoat and a green gown; the daffodil, a yellow
petticoat and green gown, and so on; these fancies being the subject
of many of our old nursery rhymes, as, for instance:--
"Daffadown-dilly is come up to town,
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown."
Passing on in the next place to stockings, it is lucky, as with
other articles of dress, to put one wrong-side out, but unlucky
to turn it on discovering one's mistake. Some, too, consider it a
matter of importance as to which foot they put the stocking on first
when dressing themselves in the morning--the luck of the day being
supposed in a great measure to depend on this circumstance--as to
clothe the left foot before the right one is a sign of misfortune.
"Flinging the stocking" was an old marriage custom, being really a
kind of divination, which Misson, in his "Travels through England,"
thus describes:--"The young men, it seems, took the bride's
stockings, and the girls those of the bridegroom, each of whom,
sitting at the foot of the bed, threw the stocking over their heads,
endeavouring to make it fall upon that of the bride or her spouse;
if the bridegroom's stocking, thrown by the girls, fell upon the
bridegroom's head, it was a sign that they themselves would soon be
married; and similar luck was derived from the falling of the bride's
stockings, thrown by the young men."
There is a superstitious notion in some places that when the bride
retires to rest on her wedding-night, her bridesmaids should lay
her stockings across, as this act is supposed to guarantee her
future prosperity in the marriage state. Another use to which the
stocking has been put is its being hung up to receive presents
at Christmas-time, a custom which, as Mr. Henderson points out,
the Pilgrim Fathers carried to America, and bequeathed to their
descendants.
It is curious to find even the garter an object of superstition,
being employed by young women in their love divinations on Midsummer
Eve, a period, it must be remembered, considered most propitious for
such ceremonies. Their mode of procedure is this:--The maiden anxious
to have a peep of her future husband must sleep in a county different
from that in which she usually resides, and on going to bed must take
care to knit the left garter about the right stocking, repeating the
following incantation, and at every pause knitting a knot:--
"This knot I knit
To know the thing I know not yet;
That I may see
The man that shall my husband be;
How he goes, and what he wears,
And what he does all days and years."
On retiring to rest the wished-for one will appear in her dreams,
wearing the insignia of his trade or profession.
Again, as a popular object of superstition the shoe is unrivalled,
and antiquaries are still undecided as to why our forefathers
invested this matter-of-fact article of dress with such mysterious
qualities, selecting it as the symbol of good fortune, one of the
well-known uses in which it has been employed being the throwing of
it for luck, constant allusions to which practice occur in our old
writers. Thus, Beaumont and Fletcher, in _The Honest Man's Fortune_,
refer to it:--
"Captain, your shoes are old; pray put 'em off,
And let one fling 'em after us."
And Ben Jonson, in his _Masque of the Gipsies_, represents one of the
gipsies as saying:--
"Hurle after an old shoe,
I'll be merry what e'er I doe."
This custom, which was once so prevalent, has not yet died out, for
in Norfolk, whenever servants are going after new situations, a shoe
is thrown after them, with the wish that they may succeed in what
they are going about. Some years ago, when vessels engaged in the
Greenland whale fishery left Whitby, in Yorkshire, the wives and
friends of the sailors threw old shoes at the ships as they passed
the pier-head. Indeed, this practice is frequently observed in towns
on the sea-coast, and a correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ informs
us that one day, when at Swansea, he received a shoe on his shoulder
which was intended for a young sailor leaving his home to embark upon
a trading voyage. Tennyson has not omitted to speak of this piece of
superstition:--
"For this thou shalt from all things seek
Marrow of mirth and laughter;
And wheresoe'er thou move, good luck
Shall throw her old shoe after."
As an emblem of good luck, the shoe is thrown with much enthusiasm
after a bridal couple. Various explanations have been given of this
popular custom. Some think that it was originally intended as a sham
assault on the bridegroom for carrying off the bride; and hence
a survival of the old ceremony of opposition to the capture of a
bride. Others again are of opinion that the shoe was in former times
a symbol of the exercise of dominion and authority over her by her
father or guardian; the receipt of the shoe by the bridegroom, even
if accidental, being an omen that the authority was transferred to
him. Thus, in the Bible, the receiving of a shoe was an evidence
and symbol of asserting or accepting dominion or ownership; whereas
the giving back of the shoe was the symbol of resigning it. Another
reason for throwing the shoe is given in the following old rhyme:--
"When Britons bold
Wedded of old,
Sandals were backward thrown,
The pair to tell
That, ill or well,
The act was all their own."
Throwing the shoe after the wedded pair was, also, no doubt intended
as an augury of long life to the bride. In Yorkshire the ceremony
of shoe-throwing is termed "thrashing," and the older the shoe the
greater the luck; and in some parts of Kent the mode of procedure is
somewhat peculiar. After the departure of the bride and bridegroom
the single ladies are drawn up in one row, and the bachelors in
another. When thus arranged, an old shoe is thrown as far as
possible, which the fair sex run for: the winner being considered to
have the best chance of marriage. She then throws the shoe at the
gentlemen, when the first who gets it is believed to have the same
chance of matrimony. A somewhat similar custom prevails in Germany,
where the bride's shoe is thrown among the guests at the wedding,
the person who succeeds in catching it being supposed to have every
prospect of a speedy marriage.
Many auguries are still gathered from the shoe. Thus young girls
on going to bed at night place their shoes at right angles to one
another, in the form of the letter T, repeating this rhyme:--
"Hoping this night my true love to see,
I place my shoes in the form of a T."
As in the case of the stocking, great importance is attached by many
superstitious persons as to which shoe they put on first, in allusion
to which Butler, in his "Hudibras," says:--
"Augustus, having b' oversight
Put on his left shoe 'fore his right,
Had like to have been slain that day
By soldiers mutin'ing for pay."
An old writer speaking of Jewish customs tells us that "some of them
observe, in dressing themselves in the morning, to put on the right
stocking and right shoe first without tying it. Then afterwards to
put on the left shoe, and so return to the right; that so they may
begin and end with the right one, which they account to be the most
fortunate." A Suffolk doggrel respecting the "wear of shoes" teaches
us the following:--
"Tip at the toe: live to see woe;
Wear at the side: live to be a bride;
Wear at the ball: live to spend all;
Wear at the heel: live to save a deal."
Among some of the many charms in which the shoe has been found
efficacious, may be mentioned one practised in the North of England,
where the peasantry, to cure cramp, are in the habit of laying
their shoes across to avert it. Mrs. Latham, in her "West Sussex
Superstitions," published in the "Folk-lore Record," tells us of
an old woman who was at a complete loss to understand why her
"rheumatics was so uncommon bad, for she had put her shoes in the
form of a cross every night by the side of her head, ever since she
felt the first twinge." In the same county, a cure for ague consists
in wearing a leaf of tansy in the shoe.
It is curious that the shoe should have entered into the
superstitions associated with death. According to an Aryan tradition,
the greater part of the way from the land of the living to that of
death lay through morasses, and vast moors overgrown with furze and
thorns. That the dead might not pass over them barefoot, a pair of
shoes was laid with them in the grave. Hence a funeral is still
called in the Henneberg district "dead-shoe," and in Scandinavia
the shoe itself is known as "hel-shoe." There are countless other
items of folk-lore connected with the shoe: thus in days gone by
the phrase, "Over shoes, over boots" was equivalent to the popular
phrase, "In for a penny, in for a pound," an allusion to which we
find in Taylor's "Workes" (1630):--
"Where true courage roots,
The proverb says, once over shoes, o'er boots."
Again, "to stand in another man's shoe" is a popular expression
for occupying the place or laying claim to the honours of another.
"Looking for dead men's shoes" is still an every-day phrase denoting
those who are continually expecting some advantage which will
accrue to them on the death of another. The shoe-horn, too, from its
convenient use in drawing on a tight shoe, was formerly applied in a
jocular metaphor to subservient and tractable assistants. Thus, for
instance, Shakespeare in _Troilus and Cressida_ (Act v., sc. 1) makes
Thersites in his railing mood give this name to Menelaus, whom he
calls "a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's
(Agamemnon's) leg." It was also employed as a contemptuous phrase for
danglers after young women.
A further article of dress that has had much honour conferred upon
it is the glove, holding as it does a conspicuous place in many of
our old customs and ceremonies. Thus in days gone by it was given,
by way of delivery or investiture, in sales or conveyances of lands
and goods. It was also employed as the token of a challenge to
fight, a symbolical staking, perhaps of the prowess of the hand to
which the glove belonged. Hence to hang up a glove in church was a
public challenge, very much as a notice affixed to a church-door is
a public notice. _Apropos_ of this custom, a story is given in the
life of the Rev. Bernard Gilpin, of the diocese of Durham, who died
in 1583. It appears that he observed a glove hanging high up in his
church, and ascertaining that it was designed as a challenge to any
one who should dare to displace it, he desired his sexton to do so.
"Not I, sir, I dare do no such thing," he replied. Whereupon the
parson called for a long staff, and taking it down himself, put it in
his pocket. Preaching afterwards on the subject, he denounced this
unseemly practice, saying, "Behold, I have taken it down myself," and
producing the glove, he exhibited it to the whole congregation as a
spectacle of honour. This custom, we are told, does not appear to
have been much older in this country than the thirteenth century, for
Matthew Paris, in writing of the year 1245, speaks of it expressly as
French. Noblemen wore their ladies' gloves in front of their hats, a
practice mentioned by Drayton as having been in vogue at the battle
of Agincourt:--
"The noble youth, the common rank above,
On their courveting coursers mounted fair,
One wore his mistress' garter, one her glove,
And he her colours whom he most did love;
There was not one but did some favour wear;
And each one took it on his happy speed,
To make it famous by some knightly deed."
The gift of a pair of gloves was at one time the ordinary perquisite
of those who performed some small service; and in process of time,
to make the reward of greater value, the glove was "lined" with
money; hence the term "glove-money." Relics of the old custom still
survive in the presentation of gloves to those who attend weddings
and funerals. It is difficult, however, to discover the connection
between gloves and a stolen kiss. Our readers, for example, may
recollect how, in Sir Walter Scott's "Fair Maid of Perth," Catharine
steals from her chamber on St. Valentine's morn, and catching Henry
Smith asleep, gives him a kiss; then we have the following:--"Come
into the booth with me, my son, and I will furnish thee with a
fitting theme. Thou knowest the maiden who ventures to kiss a
sleeping man, wins of him a pair of gloves." Gloves are still given
to a judge at a maiden assize, a custom which, it has been suggested,
originated in a Saxon law, which forbade the judges to wear gloves
while sitting on the Bench. Hence, to give a pair of gloves to a
judge was tantamount to saying that he need not trouble to come to
the Bench, but might wear gloves. Again, in bygone times gloves
were worn as a mark of distinction by sovereigns, ecclesiastical
dignitaries, and others; their workmanship being excessively costly,
richly embroidered as they were and decorated with jewels. "The
association of gloves with ecclesiastical dignity survived," says
Mr. Leadam in the _Antiquary_, "the Reformation in England; for
although they ceased to be worn in the services of the Church, yet
as late as the reign of Charles II. bishops upon their consecration
were accustomed to present gloves to the archbishop, and to all who
came to their consecration banquet. The lavender gloves with golden
fringes which do often adorn their portraits, may still remind our
modern prelates of the ancient glories of their predecessors." It
was also customary to hang a pair of white gloves on the pews of
unmarried villagers who had died in the flower of their youth, and at
several towns in England it has been customary from time immemorial
to announce a fair by hoisting a huge glove upon a pole--a practice
which exists at Macclesfield, Portsmouth, Southampton, and Chester;
the glove being taken down at the conclusion of the fair. Hone,
in his description of Exeter Lammas Fair, says:--"The charter for
this fair is perpetuated by a glove of immense size, stuffed and
carried through the city on a very long pole, decorated with ribbons,
flowers, &c., and attended with music, parish beadles, and the
nobility. It is afterwards placed on the top of the Guildhall, and
then the fair commences; on the taking down of the glove the fair
terminates." Mr. Leadam also quotes a passage from the "Speculum
Saxonicum" which throws light on the origin of this custom:--"No one
is allowed to set up a market or a mint, without the consent of the
ordinary or judge of that place; the king ought also to send a glove
as a sign of his consent to the same." The glove, therefore, was
the king's glove, the earliest form of royal charter, the original
sign-manual. Among other items of folk-lore connected with this
useful article of dress, we may mention that the term "right as my
glove" is a phrase, according to Sir Walter Scott, derived from the
practice of pledging the glove as the sign of irrefragable faith.
Gloves, too, were in olden times fashionable new year's gifts, having
been far more expensive than now-a-days. When Sir Thomas More was
Lord Chancellor, he happened to determine a case in favour of a lady
named Croaker, who, as a mark of her gratitude, sent him a new year's
gift in the shape of a pair of gloves with forty angels in them. But
Sir Thomas returned the money with the following letter:--"Mistress,
since it were against good manners to refuse your new year's gift,
I am content to take your gloves, but as for the lining I utterly
refuse it." In the time of Queen Elizabeth, the rural bridegroom wore
gloves in his hat as a sign of good husbandry; and on the "Border"
to bite the glove was considered a pledge of deadly vengeance,
in allusion to which Sir Walter Scott, in his "Lay of the Last
Minstrel," says:--
"Stern Rutherford right little said,
But bit his glove and shook his head."
The ring, apart from its eventful history, has from the most remote
period been surrounded, both in this and other countries, not only
with a most extensive legendary lore, but with a vast array of
superstitions, a detailed account of which would be impossible in a
small volume like the present one; so we must confine ourselves to
some of the most popular.
In the first place, then, certain mysterious virtues have been
supposed to reside in rings, not so much on account of their shape as
from the materials of which they have been composed. Thus, they have
been much worn as talismans or charms, being thought to be infallible
preservatives against unseen dangers of every kind. Referring to some
of these, we find, for instance, that the turquoise ring was believed
to possess special properties, a superstition to which Dr. Donne
alludes:--
"A compassionate turquoise, that doth tell,
By looking pale, the wearer is not well."
Fenton, too, in his "Secret Wonders of Nature," describes the
stone:--"The turkeys doth move when there is any peril prepared to
him that weareth it." The turquoise ring of Shylock, which, we are
told in the _Merchant of Venice_ (Act iii., sc. 1), he would not part
with for a "wilderness of monkeys," was, no doubt, valued for its
secret virtues.
The carbuncle, again, amongst other properties, was said to give out
a natural light, to which it has been supposed Shakespeare alludes in
_Titus Andronicus_ (Act ii., sc. 3), where, speaking of the ring on
the finger of Bassianus, he says:--
"Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,
Which, like a taper in some monument,
Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
And shows the ragged entrails of the pit."
A piece of popular superstition makes it unlucky to wear an opal
ring, although this lovely stone has always been an object of
peculiar admiration from the beautiful variety of colours which it
displays, and in the Middle Ages was even thought to possess the
united virtues of all the gems with whose distinctive colours it was
emblazoned. The diamond was believed to counteract poison, a notion
which prevailed to a comparatively late period; though, according to
another belief, it was considered the most dangerous of poisons, and
as such we find it enumerated among the poisons administered to Sir
Thomas Overbury, when a prisoner in the Tower. An emerald ring was
thought to insure purity of thought; and a toadstone ring was worn
as an amulet to preserve new-born children and their mothers from
fairies.
Among the omens associated with rings, we may briefly note that to
lose a ring which has been given as a pledge of affection is unlucky;
as also is the breaking of a ring on the finger; while further
superstitions relating to the wedding-ring have been noticed at
length in our chapter on marriage. In days gone by, too, "medicated
rings" were held in great repute, and were much used for the cure of
diseases, instances of which we find among the remedies still in use
for cramp, epilepsy, and fits. Silver seems to have been considered
highly efficacious; and rings made of lead, mixed with quicksilver,
were worn as charms against headaches and other complaints.
Dactylomancy, or divination by rings, is not quite forgotten among
eager aspirants after matrimony, one mode being to suspend a ring by
a thread or hair within a glass tumbler, notice being taken as to how
many times it strikes the sides of the glass without being touched.
Once more, there is an old piece of folk-lore on the colours of
stones in "keepsake rings":--
"Oh, green is forsaken,
And yellow is forsworn,
But blue is the prettiest colour that's worn."
Passing from the ring to another article of dress--perhaps the most
insignificant--namely, the pin, we nevertheless find it invested with
all kinds of curious superstitions. Thus, it is said that on seeing
a pin, one should always pick it up for the sake of good luck, as
those who omit to do so run into imminent danger of being overtaken
by misfortune, a notion embodied in the following rhyme:--
"See a pin and pick it up,
All the day you'll have good luck;
See a pin and let it lie,
All the day you'll have to cry."
Why, however, North-country people are so persistent in their refusal
to give one another a pin, it is not easy to discover. When asked for
a pin, they invariably reply, "You may take one; but, mind, I do not
give it." One of the most popular species of enchantment to which
pins have been applied is that sometimes employed in counteracting
the evil effects of witchcraft. One mode is by "pin-sticking," a
case of which recently occurred in the parish of Honiton Clyst,
in Devonshire. A landlord having lost one of his tenants, certain
repairs and improvements were found necessary to prepare for the
next. In carrying out the work a chimney had to be explored, when,
in the course of the operation, there was found carefully secreted a
pig's heart stuck all over with thin prickles, evidently a substitute
for pins. This is supposed to have been done by the direction of some
"wise" or cunning person, as a means of taking revenge on the witch
to whose incantations the party considered some mischief due, in the
belief that the heart of the ill-wisher would be pierced in like
manner, until it eventually became as pulseless as that of the pig.
It appears, too, that pins were largely used in a particular species
of sorcery. Whenever, for instance, some malevolent individual wished
to carry out her ill-natured designs, she made a clay image of the
person she intended to harm, baptised the said image with the name
of the party whom it was meant to represent, and stuck it full of
pins or burnt it. Where the pins were placed the person whom it
represented was afflicted with pain, and as the figure wasted, so he
was said to waste away. Shakespeare alludes to this superstition, and
in _Richard III._ (Act iii., sc. 4) makes the Duke of Gloucester say
to Hastings:--
"Then be your eyes the witness of this ill,
See how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, withered up!
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch
Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me."
Pins, too, have been in extensive demand for divination, and here and
there throughout the country we find "wishing wells," into which if
the passers-by only drop a crooked pin and breathe their wish, it is
said they may rest assured of its fulfilment at some future date.
So much, then, for our illustrations of the folk-lore of dress, a
subject which, interesting though it is, we have now discussed at
sufficient length.