baptised, she would, on her coming to the years of discretion, most certainly
have a strong beard, and the boy would have none.”
Following up the course of human life through the honeyed days of “wooing and
wedding,” we find it darkened still by the clouds of Superstition. If a maiden
desired to call up the image of her future husband, she read the third verse,
seventeenth chapter of the Book of Job after supper, washed the supper dishes,
and retired to bed without uttering a single word, placing before her pillow the
Bible, with a pin thrust through the verse she had read. It is curious to observe
the use of the Bible in these wild and foolish customs: was it not an indirect
testimony to the reverence, not always intelligent, perhaps, but certainly sincere,
in which the holy book was held? Nor are we certain that it is not sometimes
turned to worse purposes in these “enlightened days,” when a pseudo-science
seeks to convert it into the battle-field of audacious theories, and an ignorant
intolerance too often professes to discover in its bright and blessed pages an
excuse for its uncharitable follies.
But we must continue our resumé. It is curious to read that the wedding-dress
might not be “tried on” before the wedding-day, and if it did not fit, it might not
be cut or altered, but was adjusted in the best manner possible. The bride, on the
way to church, was forbidden to look back, for to do so was to ensure a
succession of disasters and quarrels in the married state. It was considered
inauspicious, moreover, if she did not “greet” or weep on the marriage-day; a
superstition obviously connected with the wide-spread idea of the necessity of
propitiating the Fates which inspired the advice of Amasis to the too fortunate
Polycrates,[66] that he should fine himself for his success by throwing some
costly thing into the sea. It was thought well to marry at the time of the growing
moon, and among fisher-folk a flowing tide was regarded as “lucky.” These
customs were puerile enough, undoubtedly, but before we censure them too
severely we may ask whether our modern bridals are wholly free from
superstitious observances; whether we do not still pretend to “bribe” the fickle
Fortune by showers of rice and old slippers rained on the departing couple!
It is needless to say that the “last scene of all” was invested with all the attributes
of grotesque terror the wayward popular imagination could invent. Before it took
place the light of the “death-candle”—the Welsh call it the “corpse-candle”—
might be seen hovering from chamber to chamber; or the cock crowed before
midnight; or the “dead-drap,” a sound as of water falling monotonously and
lingeringly, broke the silence of the night; or three dismal and fatal knocks were
heard, at regular intervals of one or two minutes’ duration; or over the doomed