(Vol. iii., p. 449.; Vol. iv., p. 381.; Vol. v., p. 67.)
At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and many other places in the North of England, grey
peas, after having been steeped a night in water, are fried with butter,
given away, and eaten at a kind of entertainment on the Sunday preceding
Palm Sunday, which {612} was formerly called Care or Carle Sunday, as may
be yet seen in some of our old almanacks. They are called _carlings_,
probably, as we call the presents at fairs, _fairings_. Marshal, in his
_Observations on the Saxon Gospels_, tells us that "the Friday on which
Christ was crucified is called in German both Gute Freytag and Carr
Freytag;" that the word _karr_ signifies a satisfaction for a fine or
penalty; and that Care or Carr Sunday was not unknown to the English in his
time, at least to such as lived among old people in the country.
In the old Roman calendar I find it observed on this day (the 12th of
March), that a dole is made of soft beans. I can hardly entertain a doubt
but that our custom is derived from hence. It was usual among the Romanists
to give away beans in the doles at funerals; it was also a rite in the
funeral ceremonies of heathen Rome. There is a great deal of learning in
Erasmus's _Adages_ concerning _the religious use of beans_, which were
thought to belong to the dead. An observation which he gives us of Pliny
concerning Pythagoras's interdiction of the pulse, is highly remarkable. It
is "that beans contain the souls of the dead." For which cause also they
were used in the Parentalia. Plutarch also, he tells us, held that pulse to
be of the highest efficacy for invoking the manes. Ridiculous and absurd as
these superstitions may appear, it is yet certain that our _carlings_
deduce their origin from thence. On the interdiction of this pulse by
Pythagoras, the following occurs in Spencer _De Leg. Hebr._, lib. i. p.
1154.:--
"Quid enim Pythagoras, ejusque præceptores, Ægypti Mystæ, adeo
leguminum, fabarum imprimis, esum et aspectum fugerent; nisi quod cibi
mortuorum coenis et exequiis proprii, adeoque polluti et abominandi
haberentur," &c.--Brand's _Observations on Popular Antiquities_,
Ellis's ed., vol. i. pp. 95-99.
In the notes in loco is mentioned "a practice of the Greek church, not yet
out of use, to set boyled corne before the singers at their commemorations
of the dead," v. _Gregorii Opusc._, p. 128. The length of this reply will
not admit of my here enumerating the other emblems of the resurrection of
the body used by the fathers and other writers. I shall therefore conclude
with an extract from Rennel's _Geographical System of Herodotus_, p. 632.,
relating to the Pythagorean prohibition of beans:--
"The Bengalese have the _Nymphæa nelumbo_ in their lakes and
inundations; and its fruit certainly resembles at all points that of
the second species of water-lily described by Herodotus; that is, it
has the form of the orbicular wasp's nest; and contains kernels of the
size and shape of a small bean. Amongst the Bramins this plant is held
_sacred_; but the kernels, which are of a better flavour than almonds,
are almost universally eaten by the Hindoos.
"It may, however, be a question whether it has always been the case;
and whether in the lapse of time that has taken place since the days of
Pythagoras (who is supposed to have visited India, as well as Chaldæa,
Persia, and Egypt), a relaxation in discipline may not have occasioned
the law to be dispensed with; instances enough of a like kind being to
be met with elsewhere. _Kyamos_ in the Greek language appears to
signify, not only a bean, but also the fruit or bean of the _Nymphæa
nelumbo_. Is it not probable then that the mystery of the famous
inhibition of Pythagoras, an enigma of which neither the ancients nor
the moderns have hitherto been able to give a rational solution, may be
discovered in those curious records of Sanscrit erudition, which the
meritorious labours of some of our countrymen in India are gradually
bringing to light?"