52 NATIONAL FAITHS produced his Night Raven with the following distich on the title: "All those whose deeds doe shun the Light, Are my companions in the night." Gay, too, in his pastoral called Dirge," has noted this omen : "The "The boding raven on her cottage sat, Its being accounted unlucky to destroy of were as it is scarcely necessary to observe "The martin and the swallow Are God Almighty's birds to hollow"; 'Tis counted ominous, I know not why." 1 are cited: signified. says: 66 When are considered as ominous. they appear in the fields, a storm from the south-east generally follows; and when the storm begins to abate, they fly back to the Such after all shore.' Stat. Acc., i., 32. has always been, and is, pretty much the belief and experience all along our English coasts. We still attach credit to the symptoms of hard weather at sea, when the gulls fly landward, and are seen up the Thames. A traveller of the 18th century remarked that a bird, which he calls caldelia, appeared on the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia just before a storm, like the petrel with us. Smith's Travels, 1792, p. 11 Dallaway, when he visited the Bosphorus, was struck by the large flocks of seabirds, like swallows, but, says he, "because they are never known to rest, they are called halcyons, and by the French ames damnées," which flew in a train from one sea to the other, and were looked upon as ominous by the inhabitants. It is held extremely portentous, says Grose, to kill a cricket, a ladybug, a swallow, martin, robin redbreast, or wren; perhaps from the idea of its being a breach of hospitality; all these birds and insects alike taking refuge in houses. Grose enumerates among unlucky things the killing of any of these birds or insects; and Park mentions that when he was a boy, he remembered a different version of a familiar distich: "Tom Tit and Jenny Wren, Were God Almighty's cock and hen." Persons killing any of the above-mentioned birds or insects, or destroying their rests, will infallibly within the course of the year break a bone, or meet with some other dreadful misfortune. On the contrary, it is deemed lucky to have martins or swallows build their nests in the eaves of a house, or in the chimneys. Compare Divination and Wren. Bishop in the Pan..-Tyndale, in his Obedyence of a Christian Man, 1528, p. 109, says: "When a thynge speadeth not well, we borrowe speach and saye the byshope hath blessed it, because that nothynge speadeth well that they medyll wythall. If the podech be burned to, or the meate ouer rosted, we saye the byshope hath put his fote in the pote, or the bishope hath played the coke, because the bishopes burn who they lust and whosouer displeaseth them." In Tusser's "Husbandry," under April, are the following lines: "Blesse Cisley (good Mistress) that Bushop doth ban, For burning the milke of hir cheese to the pan." : On which Hillman has the following note: "When the Bishop passed by (in former times) every one ran out to partake of his blessing, which he plentifully bestow'd as he went along and those who left their milk upon the fire, might find it burnt to the pan when they came back, and perhaps ban or curse the Bishop as the occasion of it, as much or more than he had blessed them hence it is likely it grew into a custom to curse the bishop when any such disaster happen'd, for which our author would have the mistress bless, Anglice correct, her servant, both for her negligence and unmannerliness." Bishops were in Tusser's time still much in the habit of burning heretics. : Bishopping.-This is what is now generally known as Confirmation, a term which was not understood in early times. In the Privy Purse Expenses of the Prin cess Mary, under December, 1536, we have: "Itm Payed for the fascion of a Tablet geven to my lady Carowes (Carew's) Doughter beeng my ladyes goddoughter at the byshoppyng. vjs.' There is another and very different process, known technically as bishopping. In the printing business it used, before the introduction of the roller, to be the duty of the pressman to see to the bishopping of the balls, made of sheepskin attached to a stock, which are used to ink the type before printing. These balls, which are of considerable size, must be kept soft and moist to receive the ink, and this result is, or used to be, obtained by wrapping them after employment, against the following occasion, in a blanket dipped in urine. The practice was a sort of christening, and the term perhaps owed itself to the resentment of the printer at the old animosity of the episcopal order against the typographical art. Bishops Stortford.--The following very extraordinary septennial custom at Bishops Stortford, Herts, and in the adjacent neighbourhood, on Old MichaelOct. 18, 1787: "On the morning of this mas Day. I find in a London newspaper day, called Ganging Day, a great number of young men assemble in the fields, when a very active fellow it nominated the leader. This person they are bound to follow, who, for the sake of diversion, generally chooses the route through ponds, ditches, and places of difficult passage. Every person they meet is bumped, male persons taking them up by their arms, or female; which is performed by two other and swinging them against each other. The women in general keep at home for this period, except those of less scrupulous character, who, for the sake of partaking of a gallon of ale and a plumb-cake, which every landlord or publican is obliged to furnish the revellers with, generally spend the best part of the night in the fields, if the weather is fair; it being strictly according to ancient usage not to partake of the cheer any where else." Bisley, Surrey.-See St. John the Baptist's Well. Black Belly and Bawsy Brown. See Browny. Black Knight of Ashton. Hazlitt's Proverbs, 1882. See Black Monday. Easter Monday, 1360, when the cold was so intense, that the English troops before Paris, under Edward III., suffered severely. The expression must have been subsequently employed in a somewhat vague sense, and among other uses, by schoolboys, as it was an usual day for returning from the holidays. Compare Nares, 1859, in v. Black Veil.-Prior to the assumption of this in the Romish Church, the recluse goes through on an appointed day all the forms of ordinary marriage, the physical or fleshly husband excepted: she is attired in white satin, wears a wreath of flowers, receives a wedding ring, and presides at a breakfast, where there is bride-cake. During the day she receives her girl-friends, and all is gaiety. It is her final experience of the world and those whom she knows. She has already taken the white veil, which is regarded as the Betrothal, as distinguished from this -the wedding. The two services usually occupy an hour and a half to two hours. Blank. This is no doubt the same as La Blanque of the early French drama and poetry, and was a game of hazard, at which even the lower orders in both countries were fond of playing, and in which serious losses were sometimes incurred. In the Interlude of Youth, printed two or three times about 1550, there is the following highly curious enumeration : Sir, I can teach you to play at the dice, Also at the cards I can teach you to play, Pink, and drink, and also at the blank, Hazlitt's Dodsley, ii., 34-5. It is, as will appear, somewhat uncertain whether the writer intended to include blank among the games at cards or not, as he catalogues subject to the exigencies of rhyme. Blaze's Day, St.-(February 3.) Hospinian describes this Saint as a Cappadocian Bishop who, in the persecution under Diocletian and Maximian, fled to a cavern and led the life of a hermit. He also followed the medical profession, and healed both men and animals. He was discovered, however, and cast into prison, from which, after enduring many tortures, he was led to the place of execution. After his martyrdom and canonization, candles were offered at his altar, which were said to possess the unusual property of curing diseases in human and other creatures. Minshew, in his "Dictionary," under the word Hock-tide, speaks of "St. Blaze his day, about Candlemas, when country women goe about and make good cheere, and if they find any of their neighbour women a spinning that day, they burn and make a blaze of fire of the distaffe, and thereof called S. Blaze his Day." Percy tells us "The anniversary of St. Blasius is the 3rd of February, when it is still the custom in many parts of England to light up fires on the hills on St. Blayse night: a custom antiently taken up, perhaps for no better reason than the jingling resemblance of his name to the word Blaze.' Notes to Northumb. Household Book, 1770, p. 333. Scot, in his "Discovery of Witchcraft," gives us a charm used in the Romish Church upon St. Blaze's Day that will fetch a thorn out of any place of one's body, a bone out of the throat, etc, to wit, "Call upon God and remember St. 'Blaze." The following is the account of St. Blaze in the "Popish Kingdome," fol. 47 b. : "Then followeth good Sir Blaze, who I divers barrels oft have seene, drawne Through one small blessed bone of this same Martyr heare: And caryed thence to other townes and cities farre away, Ech superstition doth require such earnest kinde of playe." The following lines occur in an early MS. among Coles's MSS. in the British Museum : "Imber si datur, Virgo dum purificatur, Inde notatur quod hyemps abinde fugatur: Si sol det radium, frigis, erit nimium." A village in North Cornwall is called after this saint. of rags at wells was a singular species of Blessing of Clouts.-The leaving popular superstition. Grose tells us that "Between the towns of Alten and Newton, near the foot of Rosberrye Toppinge there is a well dedicated to St. Oswald. The neighbours have an opinion that a shirt or shift taken off a sick person and thrown into that well, will show whether the person will recover or die; for if it floated it denoted the recovery of the party; if it sunk, there remained no hope of their life: and to reward the Saint for his intelligence, they tear off a rag of the shirt, and leave it hanging on the briars thereabouts; where," says the writer," I have seen such numbers as might have made a fayre rheme in a paper myll." Pennant tells us, They visit the Well of Speye, in Scotland, for many distempers, and the Well of Drachaldy for as many, offering small pieces of money and bits of rags. Pinkerton, speaking of the River Fillan in the Vale of Strathfillan, says, "In this river is a pool consecrated by the antient superstition of the inhabitants of this country. The pool is formed by the eddying of the stream round a rock. Its waves we were many years since consecrated by Fillan, one of the saints who converted the antient inhabitants of Caledonia from Paganism to the belief of Christianity. It has ever since been distinguished by his name, and esteemed of sovereign virtue in curing madness. About two hundred persons afflicted in this way are annually brought to try the benefits of its salutary influence. These patients are conducted by their friends, who first perform the ceremony of passing with them thrice through a neighbouring cairn; on this cairn they then deposit a simple offering of clothes, or perhaps a small bunch of heath. More precious offerings used once to be brought. The patient is then thrice immerged in the sacred pool. After the immersion, he is bound hand and foot, and left for the night in a chapel which stands near. If the maniac is found loose in the morning, good hopes are conceived of his full recovery. If he still remains bound, his cure is doubtful. It sometimes happens that death relieves him, during his confinement, from the troubles of life." Heron's Journey through part of Scotland, i., 282. In the "Statistical Account of Scotland,' "" read: -"A spring in the Moss of Melshach, Aberdeenshire, of the chalybeate kind, is still in great reputation among the common people. Its sanative qualities extend even to brutes. As this spring probably obtained vogue at first in days of ignorance and superstition, it would appear that it became customary to leave at the well part of the clothes of the sick and diseased, and harness of the cattle, as an offering of gratitude to the divinity who bestowed healing virtues on its waters. And now, even though the superstitious principle no longer exists, the accustomed offerings are still presented." (This was in or about 1794.) Stat. Acc. xiii., 76. We read "of a well called Craiguck, co. Ross, issuing from a rock near the shore of Bennetsfield, resorted to in the month of May by whimsical or superstitious persons, who, after drinking, commonly leave some threads or rags tied to a bush in the neighbourhood." Stat. Acc. of Scotland, xv., 613. Macaulay, speaking of a consecrated well in St. Kilda, called Tobirnimbuadh, or the spring of diverse virtues, says, that near the fountain stood an altar, on which the distressed votaries laid down their oblations. Before they could touch sacred water with any prospect of success, it was their constant practice to address the Genius of the place with supplication and prayers. No one approached him with empty hands. But the devotees were abundantly frugal. The offerings presented by them were the poorest acknowledgments that could be made to a superior Being, from whom they had either hopes or fears. Shells and pebbles, rags of linen or stuffs worn out, pins, needles, or rusty nails, were generally all the tribute that was paid; and sometimes. though rarely enough, copper coins of the smallest value. Among the heathens of Italy and other countries, every choice fountain was consecrated, and sacrifices were offered them, as well as to the deities that presided over them. Hist. Acct. In the "Marriage of Wit and Wisdom," circâ 1570, Indulgence says to Wit: "Well, yet before the goest, hold heare My blessing in a clout; Well fare the mother at a neede, And be a man neuer so greedy to wyn, He can haue no more of the foxe but the skyn. Well (quoth he) if ye list to bring it out, Ye can geue me your blessing in a clout Ye can geue me your blessing in a clout." Davies of Hereford seems to allude to Folly," (1611), he gives the proverb: the usage, where in his "Scourge of "God-fathers oft give their blessings in a clout." The only other example of this usage which "To a Lady with Child that asked "And why an honour'd ragged shirt, that shows Like tatter'd ensigns, all its bodies blows? ex handsome piece of cloth on one of the boughs." Popish Church for the blessing of clouts in the way of cure of diseases. Can it have originated thence? This absurd custom (observed Mr. Brand) is not Blindman's Buff. This sport is tinct even at this day : 1 have for- found among the illuminations of the Mismerly frequently observed shreds or bits sal, cited by Strutt in his "Manners and of rag upon the bushes that overhang a Customs." It is known to be an amusewell in the road to Benton, a village in the ment with which the ancients were famivicinity of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which, the Greeks; and it is supposed to have origliar. It is the Muinda and Kollabismos of from that circumstance, is now or was very inated in the traditional story of Polylately called the Rag-Well. This name is undoubtedly of long standing: probably it phemus. Taylor, the water-poet, neverthehas been visited for some disease or other, less, maintains in his Great Eater of Kent, and these rag-offerings are the relics of 1630, that the invention was due to Grethe then prevailing popular superstition. gory Dawson, an Englishman! See Levin's It is not far from another holy spring at Manipulus, 1570, p. 293. Jamieson, in his Jesmond, at the distance of about a mile Dictionary, gives us a very curious acfrom Newcastle. Pilgrimages to this well count of this game, which in Scotland apand chapel at Jesmond were so frequent, pears to have been called belly-blind. In that one of the principal streets of the the Suio-Gothic it is called blind-hoc, i.e. great commercial town aforesaid is sup blind goat; and, in German, blind kuhe, posed to have its name partly from hav-i.q. blind cow. The French call it Cligneing an inn in it, to which the pilgrims that musset, from cligner, to wink, and mussé flocked thither for the benefit of the sup-hidden; also, Colin-maillard, equivalent posed holy water used to resort. St. Mary's to "Collin the buffon," and the old Greek Well, in this village (Jesmond), which is Kollabismos is their Capifolèt. said to have had as many steps down to it "This game," says Jamieson, as there are Articles in the Creed, was thus defined: Ludi genus qui hic lately inclosed by Mr. Coulson for a bath quidem manibus expansis oculos ing place; which was no sooner done than tegit, ille vero postquam percussit, quærit the water left it. This occasioned strange num verberavit." Pollux ap. Scapul. It whispers in the village and the adjacent was also used among the Romans. But complaces. The well was always esteemed of pare St. John's Manners and Customs of more sanctity than common wells, and Ancient Greece, 1842, i., 149-50. Jamieson therefore the failing of the water could be adds, under Blind Harie, (another name looked upon as nothing less than a just for Blindman's-buff in Scotland): "It may revenge for so great a profanation. But be observed that this sport in Isl. is desigalas! the miracle's at an end, for the water rated kraekis-blinda. Verelius supposes returned a while ago in as great abundance that the Ostrogoths had introduced this as ever. Thus far Bourne. Brand's New-game into Italy; where it is called giuoco castle, i., 339 and Appendix, 622. i.. seems, "is suos della cieca, or the play of the blind." Chacke-blynd man and Jockie-blind man are other Scotish appellations for the same tavus Adolphus, at the very time that he game. "We are told that the great Gusproved the scourge of the house of Austria, and when he was in the midst of his triumphs, used in private to amuse himself in playing at Blindman's Buff with his Trav. v. Colin Maillard, pour une_galanColonels." "Cela passoit," says the Dict. terie admirable." Using rags as charms, it was not confined to England or Europe, for I read the following passage in Hanway's Travels into Persia," vol. p. 177: "After ten days' journey we arrived at a desolate caravanserai, where we found nothing but water. I observed a tree with a number of rags tied to the branches: these were so many charms, which passengers coming from Ghilan, a province remarkable for agues, had left there, in a fond expectation of leaving their disease also on the same spot." Mungo Park, in his "Travels," observes: "The company advanced as far a large tree, called by the natives Neema Taba. It had a very singular appearance, being covered with innumerable rags or scraps of cloth, which persons travelling across the wilderness had at differ-buffet." ent times tied to its branches: a custom so generally followed, that no one passes it without hanging up something." Park followed the example, and suspended a as Day, in his Humour characters playing at the game, which one out of Breath, 1608, introduces one of his of them says that he learned when a student at Padua. A lady is told, when she is caught, that she must be hoodwinked or give a kiss to her captor as a ransom. Wodroephe, in his Spared Hours of a Soldier, 1623, says that it is "to winke and strike.' Dr. Walker, in his Paramiologia, 1672, gives the form "Blindman's Gay says concerning it : "As once I play'd at Blindman's Buff, it hap't About my eyes the towel thick was wrapt. |