108

BRIDE FAVOURS.

A KNOT, among the ancient northern nations, seems to have been the symbol of love, faith, and friendship, pointing out the indissoluble tie of affection and duty. Thus the ancient Runic inscriptions, as we gather from Hickes's Thesaurus,' are in the form of a knot. Hence, among the northern English and Scots, who still retain, in a great measure, the language and manners of the ancient Danes, that curious kind of knot, a mutual present between the lover and his mistress, which, being considered as the emblem of plighted fidelity, is therefore called a true-love knot: a name which is not derived, as one would naturally suppose it to be, from the words "true," and "love," but formed from the Danish verb stitutions of Richard Bishop of Salisbury, in 1217, cited by Du Cange, in his Glossary, v. Annulus, says: "Nec quisquam annulum de junco vel quacunque vili materia vel pretiosa, jocando manibus innectat muliercularum, ut liberius cum eis fornicetur: ne dum jocari se putat, honoribus matrimonialibus se astringat." Douce refers Shakespeare's expression, "Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger," which has so long puzzled the commentators, to this custom. "L'official marie dans l'eglise de St. Marine ceux qui ont forfait a leur honneur, ou ils sont epouses ensemble par le curè du lieu avec un anneau de paille."-Sausal, Antiq. de Paris, i. 429. "Pour faire observer, sans doute," adds the editor of Le Voyageur a Paris, iii. 156, "au mari, combien etoit fragile la vertu de celle qu'il choisissait." Compare also the Traité des Superstitions, par M. Thiers, iii. 462, where Bishop Poore's Constitution is also quoted.

1 Gramın. Island., p. 4: "In his autem monumentis, ut in id genus fere omnibus, inscriptionum Runæ in nodis sive gyris nodorum insculptæ leguntur, propterea quod apud veteres septentrionales gentes nodus amoris, fidei, amicitiæ symbolum fuisse videtur, ut quod insolubilem pictatis et affectus nexum significavit. Hinc apud boreales Anglos, Scotosque, qui Danorum veterum tum sermonem, tum mores magna ex parte adhuc retinent, nodus in gyros curiose ductus, fidei et promissionis quam Amasius et Amasia dare solent invicem, symbolum servatur, quodque ideo vocant a true-love knot, a veteri Danico trulofa-fidem do.-Hinc etiam apud Anglos Scotosque consuetudo reportandi capitalia donata curiose in gyros nodosque torta a solennibus nuptiis plane quasi symbola insolubilis fidei et affectus, quæ sponsum inter et sponsam esse debent." Many of these Runic knots are engraved in Sturleson's History of Stockholm. The following is found in Selden's Uxor Hebraica (Opera, iii. 670): “Quin et. post benedictionem per vittæ candidæ permissione et purpureæ unum invicem vinculum (modum amatorium, a true-loves knot), copulabantur, inquit Isidorus, videlicet, ne compagem conjugalis unitatis disrumpant."

Trulofa, fidem do, I plight my troth, or faith. Thus we read, in the Islandic Gospels, the following passage in the first chapter of St. Matthew, which confirms, beyond a doubt, the sense here given-"til einrar Meyar er trulofad var einum. Manne," &c.; i. e. to a virgin espoused, that is, who was promised or had engaged herself to a man, &c. Hence, evidently, the bride favours, or the top-knots, at marriages, which have been considered as emblems of the ties of duty and affection between the bride and her spouse, have been derived.

Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, says: "The true-lover's knot is much magnified, and still retained in presents of love among us; which, though in all points it doth not make out, had, perhaps, its original from Nodus Herculanus, or that which was called Hercules his knot, resembling the snaky complication in the caduceus, or rod of Hermes, and in which form the zone or woollen girdle of the bride was fastened, as Turnebus observes in his Adversaria."

The following beautiful madrigal, entitled "The True-love's Knot," occurs in Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 1611, p. 216:

"Love is the linke, the knot, the band of unity,

And all that love, do love with their belov'd to be:
Love only did decree

To change his kind in me.

For though I lov'd with all the powers of my mind,
And though my restles thoughts their rest in her did finde,
Yet are my hopes declinde,

Sith she is most unkinde.

For since her beauties sun my fruitles hope did breede,
By absence from that sun I hop't to sterve that weede;
Though absence did, indeede,

My hopes not sterve, but feede.

For when I shift my place, like to the stricken deere,
I cannot shift the shaft which in my side I beare:
By me it resteth there,

The cause is not elsewhere.

So have I seene the sicke to turne and turne againe,
As if that outward change could ease his inward paine :
But still, alas! in vaine,

The fit doth still remaine.

Yet goodnes is the spring from whence this ill doth grow,
For goodnes caus'd the love, which great respect did owe;
Respect true love did show;

True love thus wrought my woe."

Gay, in his Pastoral called the Spell, thus beautifully describes the rustic manner of knitting the true-love knot:

"As Lubberkin once slept beneath a tree,

I twitch'd his dangling garter from his knee;
He wist not when the hempen string I drew;
Now mine I quickly doff, of inkle blue;
Together fast I tie the garters twain,

And, while I knit the knot, repeat this strain—
Three times a true-love's knot I tie secure :
Firm be the knot, firm may his love endure."

Another species of knot divination is given in the Connoisseur, No. 56: "Whenever I go to lye in a strange bed, I always tye my garter nine times round the bed-post, and knit nine knots in it, and say to myself: This knot I knit, this knot I tye, to see my love as he goes by, in his apparel'd array, as he walks in every day.' This is of course intended for poetry.

I find the following passage in the Merry Devil of Edmonton, 4to. 1631:

"With pardon, sir, that name is quite undon,

This true-love knot cancelles both maide and nun."

Bride favours appear to have been worn by the peasantry of France, on similar occasions, on the arm. In England these knots of ribands were distributed in great abundance formerly, even at the marriages of persons of the first distinction. They were worn at the hat (the gentleman's I suppose), and consisted of ribands of various colours. If I mistake not, white ribands are the only ones used at present. Ozell, in a note to his translation of Misson, p. 350, says the favour was a large knot of ribbands, of several colours, gold, silver, carnation, and white. This is worn upon the hat for some weeks." Another note, in p. 351, says: "It is ridiculous to go to a wedding without new cloaths. If you are in mourning, you throw it off for some days, unless you are in mourning for some near relation that is very lately dead." Misson, p. 350, says: Formerly in France they gave livrées de nóces, which was a knot of ribbands, to be worn by the guests upon their arms; but that is practis'd now only among peasants. In England it is done still among the greatest noblemen. These ribbands they call favours, and give them not only to those that are at the wedding, but to five hundred people besides;

they send them about, and distribute them at their own houses. 'Tother day, when the eldest son of M. de Overkerque marry'd the Duke of Ormond's sister, they dispers'd a whole inundation of those little favours. Nothing else was here to be met with, from the hat of the king down to that of the meanest servant. Among the citizens and plain gentlemen, which is what they call the gentry, they sometimes give these favours; but it is very common to avoid all manner of expence as much as possible."

In Paradoxical Assertions and Philosophical Problems, by R. H., 1664, p. 19, we read: " I shall appeal to any enamoreto but newly married, whether he took not more pleasure in weaving innocent true-love knots than in untying the virgin zone, or knitting that more than Gordian knot which none but that invincible Alexander, Death, can untye?"

To the variety of colours in the bride favours used formerly, the following passage, wherein Lady Haughty addresses Morose, in Jonson's play of the Silent Woman, evidently alludes:

"Let us know your bride's colours and yours at least."

The bride favours have not been omitted in the northern provincial poem of the Collier's Wedding:

"The blithsome, bucksome country maids,
With knots of ribbands at their heads,
And pinners flutt'ring in the wind,

That fan before and toss behind."

And speaking of the youth, with the bridegroom, it says:

"Like streamers in the painted sky,

At every breast the favours fly."

In a curious old book, called the Fifteen Comforts of Marriage, a conference is introduced at pp. 44, 47, and 48, concerning bridal colours in dressing up the bridal bed by the bridemaids-not, say they, with yellow ribbands, these are the emblems of jealousy-not with fueille mort, that signifies fading love-but with true-blue, that signifies constancy, and green denotes youth-put them both together, and there's youthful constancy. One proposed blew and black, that signifies constancy till death; but that was objected to, as those colours will never match. Violet was proposed, as signifying

religion; this was objected to as being too grave: and at last they concluded to mingle a gold tissue with grass-green, which latter signifies youthful jollity. For the bride's favours, topknots, and garters, the bride proposed blew, gold-colour, popingay-green, and limon-colour,-objected to, gold-colour signifying avarice—popingay-green wantonness. The younger bridemaid proposed mixtures,-flame-colour-flesh-colourwillow-and milk-white. The second and third were objected to, as flesh-colour signifies lasciviousness, and willow forsaken. It was settled that red signifies justice, and sea-green inconstancy. The milliner, at last, fixed the colours as follows: for the favours, blue, red, peach-colour, and orange-tawny: for the young ladies' top-knots, flame-colour, straw-colour (signifying plenty), peach-colour, grass-green, and milk-white; and for the garters, a perfect yellow, signifying honour and joy.

The following allusion to bride favours is from Herrick's Hesperides, p. 252:

"What posies for our wedding-rings,

What gloves we'll give, and ribbanings."

In the Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1733, iii. 545, are "Verses sent by a young lady, lately married, to a quondam lover, inclosing a green ribbon noozed:" I

"Dear D.

In Betty lost, consider what you lose,

And, for the bridal knot, accept this nooze;
The healing ribbon, dextrously apply'd,

Will make you bear the loss of such a bride."

There is a retort courteous to this very unladylike intimation, that the discarded lover may go hang himself, but it is not worth inserting.

Thus Cunningham:

A top-knot he bought her, and garters of green :
Pert Susan was cruelly stung:

I hate her so much, that, to kill her with spleen,
I'd wed, if I were not too young.