No event in human life has, from the earliest times, been associated with a more extensive folk-lore than marriage, which is indeed no matter of surprise, considering that this is naturally looked upon as the happiest epoch – the summum bonum– of each one's career in this world. Hence, to write a detailed account of the charms, omens, and divinations, as well as of the superstitions and customs, connected with marriage, including its early stages of love and courtship, would require a volume for itself, so varied and widespread is this subject of universal interest.
In the present chapter, however, have been collected together, in as condensed a form as possible, some of the principal items of folk-lore connected with love and courtship, as we find them scattered here and there throughout the country. Commencing, then, with love-divinations, these are of every conceivable kind, the anxious maiden apparently having left no stone unturned in her anxiety to ascertain her lot in the marriage state. Hence in her natural longings to raise the veil of futurity, the aspirant to matrimony, if she be at all of a superstitious turn of mind, seldom lets an opportunity pass by without endeavouring to gain from it some sign or token of the kind of husband that is in store for her. As soon, too, as the appointed one has at last presented himself, she is not content to receive with unreserved faith his professions of love and life-long fidelity; but, in her sly moments, when he is not at hand, she proves the genuineness of his devotion by certain charms which, while they cruelly belie his character, only too often unkindly deceive the love-sick maiden.
In the first place, we may note that love-tests have been derived from a variety of sources, such as plants, insects, animals, birds, not to mention those countless other omens obtained from familiar objects to which we shall have occasion to allude. At the outset, however, it may not be uninteresting to quote the following account of love-charms in use about one hundred and fifty years ago, and which was written by a young lady to the editor of the Connoisseur: —
"Arabella was in love with a clever Londoner, and had tried all the approved remedies. She had seen him several times in coffee grounds with a sword by his side; he was once at the bottom of a tea-cup in a coach and six, with his two footmen behind it. On the last May morning she went into the fields to hear the cuckoo; and when she pulled off her left shoe, she found a hair in it the exact colouring of his. The same night she sowed hempseed in the back yard, repeating the words: —
'Hempseed I sow, hempseed I hoe,
And he that is my true love,
Come after me and mow.'
After that she took a clean shift and turned it, and hung it on the back of a chair; and very likely he would have come and turned it, for she heard a step, and being frightened could not help speaking, and that broke the spell. The maid Betty recommended her young mistress to go backwards, without speaking a word, into the garden on Midsummer Eve, and gather a rose, keep it in a clean sheet of paper without looking in it till Christmas Day, it will be as fresh as in June; and if she sticks this rose in her bosom, he that is to be her husband will come and take it out. Arabella had tried several other strange fancies. Whenever she lies in a strange bed, she always ties her garters nine times round the bed-post, and knits nine knots in it, saying all the time: —
'This knot I knit, this knot I tie,
To see my love as he goes by,
In his apparel and array,
As he walks in every day.'
On the last occasion Mr. Blossom drew the curtains and tucked up the clothes at the bed's feet. She has many times pared an apple whole, and afterwards flung the peel over her head, and on each occasion the peel formed the first letter of his Christian name or surname."
Referring to the use of plants in love-charms, they are very numerous. One popular one consists in taking the leaves of yarrow, commonly called "nosebleed," and tickling the inside of the nostrils, repeating at the same time these lines: —
"Green 'arrow, green 'arrow, you bear a white blow,
If my love love me, my nose will bleed now;
If my love don't love me, it 'ont bleed a drop;
If my love do love me, 'twill bleed every drop."
Some cut the common brake or fern just above the root to ascertain the initial letters of the future wife's or husband's name; and the dandelion, as a plant of omen, is much in demand. As soon as its seeds are ripe they stand above the head of the plant in a globular form, with a feathery top at the end of each seed, and then are without any difficulty detached. When in this condition the flower-stalk must be carefully plucked, so as not to injure the globe of seeds, the charm consisting in blowing off the seeds with the breath. The number of puffs that are required to blow every seed clean off indicates the number of years that must elapse before the person is married. Again, nuts and apples are very favourite love-tests. The mode of procedure is for a girl to place on the bars of the grate a nut, repeating this incantation: —
"If he loves me, pop and fly;
If he hates me, live and die."
As may be imagined, great is the dismay if the anxious face of the inquirer gradually perceives the nut, instead of making the hoped-for pop, die and make no sign. Again, passing on to insects, one means of divination is to throw a lady-bird into the air, repeating meanwhile the subjoined couplet: —
"Fly away east, and fly away west,
Show me where lives the one I like best."
Should this little insect chance to fly in the direction of the house where the loved one resides, it is regarded as a highly-favourable omen. The snail, again, was much used in love-divinations, many an eager maiden anxious of ascertaining her lover's name following the example of Hobnelia, who, in order to test the constancy of her Lubberkin, did as follows: —
"Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found,
For always snails near sweetest fruit abound.
I seized the vermin, home I quickly sped,
And on the hearth the milk-white embers spread;
Slow crawled the snail, and, if I right can spell,
In the soft ashes marked a curious L.
Oh! may this wondrous omen lucky prove,
For 'L' is found in Lubberkin and Love."
Three magpies are said to prognosticate a wedding; and in our rural districts the unmarried of either sex calculate the number of years of single blessedness still allotted to them by counting the cuckoo's notes when they first hear it in the spring.
Some days are considered specially propitious for practising love-divinations. Foremost among these is St. Valentine's Day, a festival which has been considered highly appropriate for such ceremonies, as there is an old tradition that on this day birds choose their mates, a notion which is frequently alluded to by the poets, and particularly by Chaucer, to which reference is made also in A Midsummer Night's Dream: —
"Good morrow, friends, St. Valentine is past;
Begin the wood-birds but to couple now."
Thus, the Devonshire young ladies have a fancy that on St. Valentine's Day they can, if they wish, make certain of their future. If so disposed, they go into the churchyard at midnight, with some hempseed in their hand, which, after they have walked round the church a certain number of times, they scatter on either side as they return homewards, repeating a certain charm. It is supposed that the true lover will be seen taking up the hempseed just sown, attired for the ceremony in a winding-sheet. Another species of love-divination once observed consisted in obtaining five bay leaves, four of which the anxious maiden pinned at the four corners of her pillow, and the fifth in the middle. If she was fortunate enough to dream of her lover, it was a sure sign that he would be married to her in the course of the year. Again, some young people would boil an egg hard,