refuses to come. She is entertained with ale and whisky, or brandy, and the marriage is concluded on. The second day after the marriage, a creeling, as it is called, takes place. The young wedded pair, with their friends, assemble in a convenient spot. A small creel, or basket, is prepared for the occasion, into which they put some stones: the young men carry it alternately, and allow themselves to be caught by the maidens, who have a kiss when they succeed. After a great deal of innocent mirth and pleasantry, the creel falls at length to the young husband's share, who is obliged to carry it generally for a long time, none of the young women having compassion upon him. At last, his fair mate kindly relieves him from his burden; and her complaisance in this particular is considered as a proof of her satisfaction with the choice she has made. The creel goes round again; more merriment succeeds; and all the company dine together and talk over the feats of the field. Perhaps the French phrase, Adieu panniers, vendanges sont faites,' may allude to a similar custom." [In Guernsey, when a young man offers himself to a young lady, and is accepted, the parents of the parties give what is termed a flouncing; that is, they invite their friends to a feast. The young lady is led round the room by her future fatherin-law, and introduced to his friends, and afterwards the young man is paraded in like manner by his future father-inlaw; then there is an exchange of rings and some articles of plate, according to the rank of the parties. After this, it is horrid for the damsel to be seen walking with any other male person, and the youth must scarce glance at anything feminine; in this way they court for years. After this ceremony, if the gentleman alters his mind, the lady can claim half his property; and if the fickle lass should repent, the gentleman can demand the half of hers. The natives of Guernsey keep themselves very secluded; they have three classes of society -the sixties, the forties, and the twenties. The first, in their evening visiting carry a lantern with three lights; the second, one with two; and the third one. In Wales, there is a custom called bundling, in which the betrothing parties go to bed in their clothes. It has given rise to many actions for seduction.] 99 PEASCOD WOOING. [IT is somewhat surprising that a custom of a very singular character, which was common in this country some centuries ago, and is still partly retained in some counties, should have altogether escaped the notice of all writers on our popular customs and superstitions; and the commentators on Shakespeare have entirely misunderstood a passage in the works of our great dramatic poet, from not having been aware that our ancestors were frequently accustomed in their love affairs to employ the divination of a peascod, by selecting one growing on the stem, snatching it away quickly, and if the good omen of the peas remaining in the husk were preserved, then presenting it to the lady of their choice. Touchstone, in As You Like it, act ii. scene 4, thus alludes to this practice: "I remember, when I was in love, I broke my sword upon a stone, and bid him take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her batler, and the cow's dugs that her pretty chapped hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took two cods, and, giving her them again, said, with weeping tears, 'Wear these for my sake.' Mr. Davy, of Ufford, in Suffolk, informs me that the efficacy of peascods in the affairs of sweethearts is not yet forgotten among our rustic vulgar. The kitchen-maid, when she shells green peas, never omits, if she finds one having nine peas, to lay it on the lintel of the kitchen-door, and the first clown who enters it is infallibly to be her husband, or at least her sweetheart. Anderson mentions a custom in the North, of a nature somewhat similar. A Cumbrian girl, when her lover proves unfaithful to her, is, by way of consolation, rubbed with peas-straw by the neighbouring lads; and when a Cumbrian youth loses his sweetheart, by her marriage with a rival, the [In the south of Scotland the superstition about the cod with nine peas in it is equally prevalent; and the present statement will explain a line in a beautiful Scottish pastoral, perhaps little understood: "If you meet a bonnie lassie, Gie her a kiss and let her gae; If you meet a dirty hussey, Fic, gae rub her o'er wi' strae !"] same sort of comfort is administered to him by the lasses of the village. "Winter time for shoeing, peascod time for wooing," is an old proverb in a MS. Devon Gl. The divination by peascods, alluded to by Mr. Davy, is thus mentioned by Gay: "As peascods once I pluck'd, I chanced to see One that was closely fill'd with three times three; The latch mov'd up, when who should first come in, But perhaps the passage in Shakespeare is best illustrated by the following passage from Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, p. 71, which seems to have escaped the notice of all writers on this subject: "The peascod greene, oft with no little toyle And rend it from the stalke to bring it to her, Grose tells us that "a scadding of peas" is a custom in the North of boiling the common gray peas in the shell, and eating them with butter and salt, first shelling them. A bean, shell and all, is put into one of the pea-pods; whoever gets this bean is to be first married.] RING AND BRIDECAKE. AMONG the customs used at marriages, those of the RING and BRIDECAKE seem of the most remote antiquity. Confarreation and the ring' were used anciently as binding ceremo 1 "Annulus sponsæ dono mittebatur a viro qui pronubus dictus. Alex. ab Alexandro, lib. ii. c. 5. Et, mediante annulo contrahitur matrimonium papanorum." Moresini Papatus, p. 12. It is farther observable that the joining together of the right hands in the marriage ceremony is from the e authority: "Dextra data, acceptaque invicem, Persæ et Assyrii dus matrimonii ineunt. Alex. ab Alexandro, lib. ii. cap. 5. Papatus Yanet." Ibid. p. 50. nies by the heathens' in making agreements, grants,2 &c., whence they have doubtless been derived to the most solemn of our engagements. The ceremony used at the solemnization of a marriage was called confarreation, in token of a most firm conjunction between the man and the wife, with a cake of wheat or barley. This, Blount tells us, is still retained in part with us, by that which is called the bridecake used at weddings. Moffet, in his Health's Improvement, p. 218, informs us that "the English, when the bride comes from church, are wont to cast wheat upon her head; and when the bride and bridegroom return home, one presents them with a pot of butter, as presaging plenty, and abundance of all good things." This ceremony of confarreation has not been omitted by the learned Moresin : "SUMANALIA, panis erat formam rotæ factus; hoc utuntur papani in nuptiis, &c." Papatus, p. 165. Nor has it been overlooked by Herrick in his Hesperides. At p. 128, speaking to the bride, he says:3 "While some repeat Your praise, and bless you, sprinkling you with wheat." The connexion between the bridecake and wedding is strongly marked in the following custom, still retained in Yorkshire, where the former is cut into little square pieces, thrown over the bridegroom's and bride's head, and then put through the ring. The cake is sometimes broken over the Quintus Curtius tells us, lib. i. de Gest. Alexandri M., "Et rex medio cupiditatis ardore jussit afferri patrio more PANEM (hoc erat apud Macedones sanctissimum coeuntium pignus) quem divisum gladio uterque libabat." 2 The following extract is from an old grant, cited in Du Cange's Glossary, v. Confarreatio: "Miciacum concedimus et quicquid est fisci nostri intra fluminum alveos et per sanctam confarreationem et annulum inexceptionaliter tradimus." 3 It was also a Hebrew custom. See Selden's Uxor Hebraica, lib. ii. cap. xv. Opera, iii. 633. In the same volume, p. 668, is a passage much to our purpose: "Quanquam sacra quæ fuere in confarreatione paganica, utpote Christianismo plane adversantia, sub ejusdem initia, etiam apud Paganos evanuêre-nihilominus farris ipsius usus aliquis solennis in libis conficiendis, diffringendis, communicandis, locis saltem in nonnullis semper obtinuit. Certè frequentissimus apud Anglos est et antiquitus fuit liborum admodum grandium in nuptiis usus, quæ BRIDECAKES, id est, liba sponsalitia seu nuptialia appellitant. Ea quæ tum a sponsis ipsis confecta tum ab propinquis amicisque solenniter muneri nuptiali data." bride's head, and then thrown away among the crowd to be scrambled for. This is noted by the author of the Convivial Antiquities, f. 68, in his description of the rites of marriages in his country and time: "Peracta re divina sponsa ad sponsi domum deducitur, indeque panis projicitur, qui a pueris certatim rapitur." In the North, slices of the bridecake are put through the wedding ring: they are afterwards laid under pillows, at night, to cause young persons to dream of their lovers. Douce says this custom is not peculiar to the north of England. It seems to prevail generally. The pieces of the cake must be drawn nine times through the wedding ring. Aubrey, in the Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme, MS. Lansd. 226, f. 109, says: "When I was a little boy (before the civil wars), I have seen, according to the custome then, the bride and bridegroome kisse over the bridecakes at the table. It was about the latter end of dinner; and the cakes were layd one upon another, like the picture of the shewbread in the old Bibles. The bridegroom waited at dinner." The supposed Heathen origin of our marriage ring had well-nigh caused the abolition of it during the time of the Commonwealth. The facetious author of Hudibras (III. ii. 303) gives us the following chief reasons why the Puritans wished it to be set aside: "Others were for abolishing That tool of matrimony, a ring, With which th' unsanctify'd bridegroom Is marry'd only to a thumb (As wise as ringing of a pig That us'd to break up ground and dig); The bride to nothing but her will, That nulls the after-marriage still.” The following thought on the marriage ring, in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 72, is well expressed : ' In Swinburne's Treatise of Spousals, p. 207, we read: "The first inventor of the ring, as is reported (he cites Alberic de Rosa in suo Dictionar. v. Annulus), was one Prometheus. The workman which made i |