“What should I tell what sophisters on Cathrins day devise?
Or else the superstitious toyes that maisters exercise.”
Anciently women and girls in Ireland kept a fast every Wednesday and
Saturday throughout the year, and some of them also on _St. Catharine’s_
day; nor would they omit it though it happened on their birthday, or
they were ever so ill. The reason given for it was that the girls might
get good husbands, and the women better ones, either by the death,
desertion, or reformation of their living ones.[392]
* * * * *
St. Catharine was esteemed the saint and patroness of spinsters, and her
holiday observed by young women meeting on this day, and making merry
together, which they call “Cathar’ning.”[393] Something of this still
remains in remote parts of England.
* * * * *
Our correspondent R. R. (in November, 1825,) says, “On the 25th of
November, St. Catharine’s day, a man dressed in woman’s clothes, with a
large wheel by his side, to represent St. Catharine, was brought out of
the royal arsenal at Woolwich, (by the workmen of that place,) about six
o’clock in the evening, seated in a large wooden chair, and carried by
men round the town, with attendants, &c. similar to St. Clement’s. They
stopped at different houses, where they used to recite a speech; but
this ceremony has been discontinued these last eight or nine years.”
* * * * *
Much might be said and contemplated in addition to the notice already
taken of the demolition of the church of St. Catharine’s, near the
Tower. Its destruction has commenced, is proceeding, and will be
completed in a short time. The surrender of this edifice will, in the
end, become a precedent for a spoliation imagined by very few on the day
when he utters this foreboding.
_25th of November, 1825._
* * * * *