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"Let us know your bride's colours and In Jonson's Tale of a Tub Turf is introyours at least."

The bride favours have not been omitted in "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," &c. And, speaking of the youth, with the bridegroom, it says:

"Like streamers in the painted sky, At every breast the favours fly." Bride Knives.—Strange as it may appear, it is however certain that knives were formerly part of the accoutrements of a bride. This perhaps will not be difficult to account for, if we consider that it anciently formed part of the dress for women to wear a knife or knives sheathed and suspended from their girdles: a finer and more ornamented pair of which would very naturally be either purchased or presented on the occasion of a marriage. Among the women's trinkets, about 1540, in the Four P's of John Heywood, occur:

"Silke swathbonds, ribands, and sleevelaces,

Girdles, knives, purses, and pin-cases." From a passage in the "Raigne of Edward the third," 1596, there appear to have been two of them. So in the Lottery for 1601, No. xi. is:

"A Pair of Knives." Fortune doth give these paire of knives

to you,

To cut the thred of love if't be not true."

In Rowlands' "Well met, Gossip" (first printed in 1602) the Widow says:

"For this you know, that all the wooing

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duced as saying: "We shall all ha' bride1601, the three following occur, in a list laces or points I zee." In the Lottery of of prizes for ladies: A dozen of points, a scarfe, and a lace. Herrick, in his " Epithalamie on Sir Clipseby Crew and his Lady," thus cautions the bridegroom's men against offending the delicacy of the new-married lady:

"We charge ye that no strife (Farther than gentleness tends) get place

Among ye, striving for her lace:" And it is observed, in the account of the marriage of Jack of Newbury, that his bride was led to church between two sweet boys, "with bride-laces and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves." In the second part of Dekker's "Honest Whore," 1630, signat. K 3 verso, we read: "Looke yee, doe you see the bride-laces that I give at my wedding will serve to tye rosemary to both your coffins when you come from hanging." Heywood's Woman Killed with Kindness, 1607, alludes to the nosegays and bride-laces worn by the country lasses on this occasion in their hats.

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Bridegroom Men. These appear anciently to have had the title of brideSponsi amici appellantur etiam knights. "Paranymphi ejusmodi (Matt. ix. 15) filii thalami nuptialis; quâ de re optimè vir præstantissimus Hugo Grotius. Singulare habetur et apud nos nomen ejusmodi eorum quos Bride-Knights id est, Ministros Sponsalitios qui Sponsam deducere solent, appellitamus.' Seldeni "Uxor Hebraica"; Opera, tom. iii. p. 638. He gives, ibid. a chapter "de Paranymphis Hebreorum Sponsi Amicis, in utroque Foedere dictis et in Novo Filiis Thalami nuptialis." Those who led the bride to church by the arms, as if committing an act of force, were always bachelors; Fletcher's "Scornful Lady," 1616, (Dyce's B. and F. vol. iii. p. 16). But she was to be conducted home by two married persons. Polydore Vergil informs us that a third married man, in coming home from church, preceded the bride, bearing, instead of a torch, a vessel cf silver or gold. "In Anglia servatur ut duo pueri, velut Paranymphi, id est, Auspices, qui olim pro nuptiis celebrandis Auspicia capiebant, nubentem ad Templum et inde domum duo viri deducant, et tertius loco facis Vasculum aureum vel argenteum præferat." In "A Pleasant History of the First Founders," we read: "At Rome the manner was that two children should lead the bride, and a third bear before her a torch of white-thorn in honour of Ceres, which custome was also observed here in England, saving that, in place of the torch, there was carried before the bride a bason

of gold or silver; a garland also of corn eares was set upon her head, or else she bare it on her hand, or, if that were omitted, wheat was scattered over her head in token of fruitfulness; as also before she came to bed to her husband, fire and water were given her, which, having power to purifie and cleanse, signified that thereby she should be chast and pure in her body. Moresin relates that to the bachelors and married men who led the bride to and from church, she was wont to present cloves for that service during the time of dinner. It was part of the bridegroom man's office to put him to bed to the bride, after having undressed him.

Bride Maids. The use of bride maids at weddings appears as old as the time of the Anglo-Saxons: among whom, as Strutt informs us, "The bride was led by a matron, who was called the bride's woman, followed by a company of young maidens, who were called the bride's maids." ́ The bride's maids and bridegroom men are both mentioned by the author of the "Convivial Antiquities" in his description of the rites of marriages in his country and time. "Antequam eatur ad Templum Jentaculum Sponsæ et invitatis apponitur, Serta atque Corolla distribuuntur. Postea certo ordine Viri primum cum Sponso, deinde Puellæ cum Sponsa, in Templum procedunt.” - Antiquitat. Convivial, fol. 68.

This

bride wain at his house at Crossley near Mary Port on Thursday, May 7th, next, (1789), where he will be happy to see his friends and wellwishers, for whose amusement there will be a saddle, two bridles, a pair of gands d'amour gloves, which whoever wins is sure to be married within the twelve months, a girdle (Ceinture de Venus) possessing qualities not to be described, and many other articles, sports, and pastimes, too numerous to mention, but which can never prove tedious in the exhibition, &c." A short time after a match is solemnized, the parties give notice as above, that on such a day they propose to have a bride-wain. In consequence of this, the whole neighbourhood for several miles round assemble at the bridegroom's house, and join in all the various pastimes of the country. meeting resembles our wakes and fairs: and a plate or bowl is fixed in a convenient place, where each of the company contributes in proportion to his inclination and ability, and according to the degree of respect the parties are held in and by this very laudable custom a worthy couple have frequently been benefited at setting out in life, with a supply of money of from ten to fourscore pounds. Eden, in "The State of the Poor," 1797, observes "The custom of a general feasting at weddings and christenings is still continued in many villages in Scotland, in Wales, and in Cumberland: Districts, which, as the refinements of legislation and manners are slow in reaching them, are most likely to "With the phant'sies of hey-troll exhibit vestiges of customs deduced from Troll about the bridal bowl, remote antiquity, or founded on the simple And divide the broad bride cake dictates of Nature: and indeed it is not Round about the bride's stake." singular, that marriages, births, christenings, housewarmings, &c., should be occaBride-Wain. In Cumberland the sions in which people of all classes and all Penny Wedding of the earlier Scots and descriptions think it right to rejoice and the Bid-Ale of Wales had the appellation make merry. In many parts of these disof a bride-wain, a term which will be best tricts of Great Britain as well as in explained by the following extract from Sweden and Denmark, all such instituthe Glossary, 1710, to Douglas's Virgil, v. tions, now rendered venerable by long use, Thig: "There was a custom in the High- are religiously observed. It would be lands and North of Scotland, where new deemed ominous, if not impious, to be marmarried persons, who had no great stock, ried, have a child born, &c., without someor others low in their fortune, brought thing of a feast. And long may the cuscarts and horses with them to the houses of tom last: for it neither leads to drunkentheir relations and Friends, and received ness and riot, nor is it costly; as alas! is from them corn, meal, wool, or whatever so commonly the case in convivial meetings else they could get. The subsequent is ex-in more favoured regions. On all these tracted from the "Cumberland Packet," a newspaper:

Bride-Stake.-Around this bridestake the guests were wont to dance as about a may-pole. Thus Jonson :

"Bride Wain.

There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe and taper clear,
And pomp and feast and revelry,
With mask and antient pageantry.

George Hayton, who married Ann, the daughter of Joseph and Dinah Collin of Crossley Mill, purposes having a

occasions, the greatest part of the provisions is contributed by the neighbourhood: some furnishing the wheaten flour for the pastry; others, barley or oats for bread or cakes; some, poultry for pies; some, milk for the frumenty; some eggs; some bacon; and some, butter; and, in short, every article necessary for a plentiful repast. Every neighbour, how high or low soever, makes it a point to contribute something. "At a daubing (which is the erection of a

house of clay), or at a bride-wain, (which is the carrying of a bride home) in Cumberland, many hundreds of persons are thus brought together, and as it is the custom also, in the latter instance, to make presents of money, one or even two hundred pounds are said to have been sometimes collected. A deserving young couple are thus, by a public and unequivocal testimony of the goodwill of those who best know them, encouraged to persevere in the paths of propriety, and are also enabled to begin the world with some advantage. The birth of a child, also, instead of being thought or spoken of as bringing on the parents new and heavy burthens, is thus rendered, as it no doubt always ought to be, a comfort and a blessing: and in every sense an occasion of rejoicing." "I own,' adds this honourable advocate in the cause of humanity, "I cannot figure to myself a more pleasing, or a more rational way of rendering sociableness and mirth subservient to prudence and virtue." Vol. i.. p 598. In Cumberland, among the lower but not poorest, class, the entertainment consists of cold pies, furmety, and ale. "At the close of the day," says the author of the "Westmoreland and Cumberland Dialect," 1839, the bride and bridegroom are placed in two chairs, in the open air or in a large barn, the bride with a pewter dish on her knee, half covered with a napkin; into this dish the company put their offerings, which occasionally amount to a considerable sum."

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full of the Holy Ghost, finally reposed at Rome: whose body was after translated into Suevia. Her principal festivity is. celebrated upon the seaventh of October." According to Porter's" Flowers of the Lives of the Saincts," 1632, p. 118, Brigitt's Day (Virgin of Kildare, in Ireland), was February the first. Her Most Devout Prayers were printed at Antwerp in 1659, See also Moore's "Diarium Historicum," 1590, p. 111, where we read under 239, Julii, Emortualis Dies S. Brigittæ Reg. Sueciæ, 1372." In the "Fifteen O's" the first O is introduced by a large woodcut representing a man crowned delivered out of purgatory by an angel, through the mediation of St. Bridget, who is kneeling at a small altar before him. Vallancey, ,"speaking of Ceres, tells us : "Mr. Rollin thinks this deity was the same Queen of Heaven to whom the Jewish women burnt incense, poured out drink offerings, and made cakes for her with their own hands"; and adds: "This Pagan custom is still preserved in Ireland on the Eve of St. Bridget, and which was probably transposed to St. Bridget's Eve from the festival of a famed poetess of the same name in the time of Paganism. In an ancient glossary now before me she is described: 'Brigit, a poetess, the daughter of Dagha; a goddess: of Ireland.' On St. Bridget's Eve every farmer's wife in Ireland makes a cake, called bairin-breac, the neighbours are invited, the madder of ale and the pipe go round, and the evening concludes with mirth and festivity.'

Bride's Pie.-The bride's pie should also be noticed as an important part of the wedding-feast, at least in some places or districts. It is thus referred to by Carr, in the "Dialect of Craven," 1828: "The bride's pie was so essential a dish on the dining-table, after the celebration of the marriage, that there was no prospect of happiness without it. This was always made round, with a very strong crust ornamented with various devices. In the middle of it was a fat laying hen, full of eggs, probably intended as an emblem of fecundity. It was also garnished with minced and sweet meats. It would have been deemed an act of neglect and rudeness, if any of the party omitted to partake of it." In the old song of "Arthur of Bradley," we read:

"And then did they foot it and toss it,
Till the cook had brought up the posset;
The bride-pye was brought forth,
A thing of mickle worth,
And so all, at the bed-side,

Took leave of Arthur and his bride."

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Bridling Cast, The. This seems to have been rather more common in Scotland than among the Southerners; it was the cup of drink offered to a visitor, at the gate, after mounting to depart. Skelton refers to it in the Bowge of Courte," printed before 1500:

What, loo, man, see here of dycea bale !

A brydelynge caste for that is in thy
male."

Weber says, in a note to his edition of
Beaumont and Fletcher, “A bridling cast
was probably similar to what is at present
in Scotland, and particularly in the High-
lands, called the door-drink, which is often
administered after the guest is seated upon
In Fletcher's
his horse, or while the horse is bridling."
Young Loveless says:
"Scornful Lady," 1616,.

"Let's have a bridling cast before you

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Church was observed, Mr. Miall Green, a which party could carry it to the house of yacht owner and resident of Kensington, his respective captain; to Dundraw, perbeing chosen for the second year in suc-haps, or West-Newton, a distance of two cession. The regalia, consisting of a trun- or three miles: every inch of which ground cheon and a handsome chain formed of was keenly disputed. All the honour acgold models of oysters and silver models of cruing to the conqueror at foot-ball was sprats, was carried by a yacht captain. It that of possessing the ball. Details of was incidentally mentioned by the new these matches were the general topics of mayor that according to an ancient statute conversation among the villagers, and the freedom of certain of the Cinque were dwelt on with hardly less satisfaction Ports, which included Brightlingsea, were than their ancestors enjoyed in relating entitled to wreck the house of any freeman their feats in the Border Wars. "Our who refused mayoral honours. Daily Tele- Bromfield sports were sometimes celegraph, Tuesday, December 2, 1902. brated in indigenous songs: one verse only Bring the Basket. See More of one of them we happen to remember: Sacks to the Mill. "At Scales, great Tom Barwise gat the Bromfield School.-Hutchinson Ba' in his hand,

tells us: "Till within the last twenty or thirty years, it had been a custom, time out of mind, for the scholars of the FreeSchool of Bromfield, about the beginning of Lent, or in the more expressive phraseology of the country, at Fasting's Even, to bar out the Master; i.e., to depose and exclude him from his school, and keep him out for three days. During the period of this expulsion, the doors of the citadel, the school, were strongly barricadoed within and the boys, who defended it like a besieged city, were armed, in general, with bore-tree or elder pop-guns. The Master, meanwhile, made various efforts, both by force and stratagem, to regain his lost authority. If he succeeded, heavy tasks were imposed, and the business of the school was resumed and submitted to; but it more commonly happened that he was repulsed and defeated. After three days' siege, terms of capitulation were proposed by the Master and accepted by the boys. These terms were summed up in an old formula of Latin Leonine verses stipulating what hours and times should, for the year ensuing, be allotted to study, and what to relaxation and play. Securities were provided by each side for the due performance of these stipulations: and the paper was then solemnly signed by both Master and scholars. One of the articles always stipulated for and granted, was, the privilege of immediately celebrating certain games of long standing; viz. a foot-ball match and a cockfight. Captains, as they were called, were then chosen to manage and preside over these games: one from that part of the parish which lay to the westward of the school; the other from the east. Cocks and foot-ball players were sought for with great diligence. The party, whose cocks won the most battles, was victorious in the cock-pit; and the prize, a small silver bell, suspended to the button of the victor's hat, and worn for three successive Sundays. After the cock-fight was ended, the football was thrown down in the churchyard; and the point then to be contested was,

And t' wives aw ran out, and shouted, and bann'd:

Tom Cowan then pulch'd and flang him 'mang t' whins,

And he bledder'd, Od-white-te, tou's broken my shins."

The

History of Cumberland, ii., 322. writer thought this might be the basis of the (now obsolete) institution of the Terra Filius at Oxford. It was a practice common to Eton.

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Bromfield Sports.-Hutchinson, speaking of the parish of Bromfield, and a custom in the neighbourhood of Blencogo, tells us: "On the common, to the east of that village, not far from Ware - Brig, near pretty large rock of granite, called St. Cuthbert's Stane, is a fine copious spring of remarkably pure and sweet water, which (probably from its having been anciently dedicated to the same St. Cuthbert), is called Helly-Well, i.e. Haly, or Holy Well. It formerly was the custom for the youth of all the neighbouring villages to assemble at this well early in the afternoon of the second Sunday in May, and there to join in a variety of rural sports. It was the village wake, and took place here, it is possible, when the keeping of wakes and fairs in the churchyard was discontinued. And it differed from the wakes of later times chiefly in this, that though it was a meeting entirely devoted to festivity and mirth, no strong drink of any kind was ever seen there; nor anything ever drank. but the beverage furnished by the Naiad of the place. A curate of the parish, about the year 1770, on the idea that it was a profanation of the Sabbath, saw fit to set his face against it; and having deservedly great influence in the parish, the meetings at Helly-Well have ever since been discontinued." Cumberland, ii., 323.

Broom. An usage connected with marriage, and also with the broom, and of which the origin and significance do not appear to be very obvious, existed some years ago, it seems, in some parts of Eng

land. A man, when his wife left home for a short time, hung out a broom from one of the windows. Now a broom hung from the mast of a ship has a very different meaning from the one that must have been here intended that the mistress of the establishment was away. An old woman in the Isle of Thanet adopted an odd method, so recently as 1850, of signifying her disapproval of her nephew's choice of a wife. She pronounced an anathema on the newly-married pair at the church-gate, procured a new broom, swept her house with it, and then hung it over the door. This was intended to be equivalent to cutting off with a shilling.

Broose.-Compare Riding.

Brougham, Westmoreland.Every year, on the 2nd of April, the rector and churchwardens distribute the Countess of Pembroke's charity upon a stone tablet near the pillar, about two miles from Penrith. It and the pillar date from 1656, having been instituted and raised, the latter in the park at Whitfield,

for the

on

as a permanent memorial last parting of the Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery that site with her mother, the Countess Dowager of Cumberland, April 2, 1616. The charity consists of a sum of £4' distributed here to the poor of Brougham. This custom was still observed in Beckwith the Elder's day; he died in 1799; and the monument is engraved in Pennant's Journey to Alston Moor, 1801.

Browny. -There were thought to have been a sort of domestic fairies, called brownies, who were extremely useful, and were said to have performed all sorts of domestic drudgery. The early Scotish poet, Dunbar, who died about 1515, in his Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, speaks of two spirits called Black-Belly and Bawsy Brown. Warton thought it not unlikely that the latter might be identical with Brownie.

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"The spirit called Brownie,' (says King James)" appeared like a rough man, and haunted divers houses without doing any evill, but doing as it were necessarie turnes up and downe the house; yet some were so blinded as to beleeve that their house was all the sonsier as they called it, that such spirits resorted there." Demonology, 127. Martin, speaking of the Shetland Isles, says: "It is not long since every family of any considerable substance in those Islands was haunted by a spirit they called Browny, which did several sorts of work: and this was the reason why they gave him offerings of the various products of the place. Thus some, when they churned their milk, or brewed, poured some milk and wort through the hole of a stone called Browny's Stone." He also says: "A spirit by the country people called Browny, was

frequently seen in all the most con-
siderable families in these Isles and North
of Scotland, in the shape of a tall man:
but within these twenty or thirty years
past, he is seen but rarely." Speaking of
three chapels in the Island of Valay, he
says: "Below the chappels there is a flat
thin stone, called Brownie's Stone, upon
which the antient inhabitants offered a
cow's milk every Sunday: but this custom
is now quite abolished." Western Islands,
p. 391. Johnson, in his Tour to the Heb-
rides, observes, that of Browny men-
tioned by Martin nothing has been
heard for many years. Browny was
a sturdy fairy who, if he was fed
and kindly treated, would as they
say do a great deal of work. They
labour for themselves." We are told by
now pay him no wages, and are content to
Pinkerton that "The Brownie was a very
obliging spirit, who used to come into
houses by night, and for a dish of cream to
perform lustily any piece of work that
might remain to be done: sometimes he
would work, and sometimes eat till he
bursted: if old clothes were laid for him,
he took them in great distress, and never
Heron's Journey, 1799,
more returned."
ii., 227. Borlase informs us that in his
time (a century since) the Cornish invoked
a spirit whom they called Browny (a sort
of Robin Goodfellow), when their bees be-
gan to swarm, thinking that "their crying
Browny, Browny, will prevent their re-
turning into their former hive, and make
them pitch and form a new colony." Anti-
quities of Cornwall, 1769, p. 168. Milton,
in a passage of his Allegro, seems to de-
pict Browny rather than Robin Good-
fellow :-

"Tells how the druging Goblin swet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night 'ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flale hath thresh'd the corn
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lays him down the lubbar-fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's
length

Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings."

Buckler-Play. The following order was made by the Government of James I. in 1609: "That all plaies, bear-baitings, games, singing of ballads, buckler-play, or such like causes of assemblies of people be utterly prohibited, and the parties offending severely punished by any Alderman or Justice of the Peace." Misson says: "Within these few years you should often see a sort of gladiators marching thro' the streets, in their shirts to the waste, their sleeves tuck'd up, sword in hand, and preceded by a drum, to gather spectators. They gave so much a head to see the fight, which was with cutting swords, and a kind

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