England in the Days of Old Part 13

Pd. to the Painter for 2 doz. of Lyvereys 0 0 20."

The following is a curious note drawn from the original accounts of St.

Giles', Cripplegate, London:--

"1571. Item, paide in charges by the appointment of the parisshoners, for the settinge forth of a gyaunt morris-dainsers, with vj calyvers and iij boies on horseback, to go in the watche befoore the Lade Maiore uppon Midsomer even, as may appeare by particulars for the furnishinge of same, vj. li. ixs. ixd."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MORRIS DANCE, FROM A PAINTED WINDOW AT BETLEY.]

We learn from the churchwardens' accounts of Great Marlow that dresses for the Morris-dance were lent out to the neighbouring parishes down to 1629.

Some interesting pictures ill.u.s.trating the usages of bygone ages include the Morris-dance, and gives us a good idea of the costumes of those taking part in it. A painted window at Betley, Staffordshire, has frequently formed the subject of an ill.u.s.tration, and we give one of it.

Here is shown in a spirited style a set of Morris-dancers. It is described in Steven's "Shakespeare" (_Henry IV._, Part I.) There are eleven pictures and a Maypole. The characters are as follow:--1, Robin Hood; 2, Maid Marion; 3, Friar Tuck; 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11, Morris-dancers; 5, the hobby-horse; 8, the Maypole; 9, the piper; and 12, the fool. Figures 10 and 11 have long streamers to the sleeves, and all the dancers have bells, either at the ankles, wrists, or knees. Tollett, the owner of the window, believed it dated back to the time of Henry VIII., _c._ 1535. Douce thinks it belongs to the reign of Edward IV., and other authorities share his opinion. It is thought that the figures of the English friar, Maypole, and hobby-horse have been added at a later period.

Towards the close of the reign of James I., Vickenboom painted a picture, Richmond Palace, and in it a company of Morris-dancers form an attractive feature. The original painting includes seven figures, consisting of a fool, hobby-horse, piper, Maid Marion, and three dancers. We give an ill.u.s.tration of the first four characters and one of the dancers, from a drawing by Douce, produced from a tracing made by Grose. The bells on the dancer and the fool are clearly shown.

We also present a picture of a Whitsun Morris-dance. In the olden time, at Whitsuntide, this diversion was extremely popular.

Many allusions to the Morris-dancers occur in the writings of Elizabethan authors. Shakespeare, for example, in Henry V., refers to it thus:--

"And let us doit with no show of fear; No! with no more than if we heard that England Were busied with a Whitsun Morris-dance."

In _All's Well that Ends Well_, he speaks of the fitness of a "Morris-dance for May-day." We might cull many quotations from the poets, but we will only make one more and it is from Herrick's "Hesperides,"

describing the blessings of the country:--

"Thy _Wakes_, thy Quintals, here thou hast Thy maypoles, too, with garlands grac'd Thy _Morris-dance_, thy Whitsun-ale; Thy shearing flat, which never fail."

In later times the Morris-dance was frequently introduced on the stage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MORRIS DANCERS, TEMP. JAMES I. (_From a Painting by Vickenboom._)]

As might be expected, the Puritans strongly condemned this form of pleasure. Richard Baxter, in his "Divine Appointment of the Lord's Day,"

gives us a vivid picture of Sunday in a pleasure-loving time. "I have lived in my youth," says Baxter, "in many places where sometimes shows of uncouth spectacles have been their sports at certain seasons of the year, and sometimes _morrice-dancings_, and sometimes stage plays and sometimes wakes and revels.... And when the people by the book [of Sports] were allowed to play and dance out of public service-time, they could hardly break off their sports that many a time the reader was fain to stay till the piper and players would give over; and sometimes the _morrice-dancers_ would come into the church in all their linen, and scarfs, and antic dresses, with morrice-bells jingling at their legs. And as soon as common prayer was read did haste out presently to their play again." Stubbes, in his "Anatomie of Abuses" (1585), writes in a similar strain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WHITSUN MORRIS DANCE.]

The pleasure-loving Stuarts encouraged Sunday sports, and James I., in his Declaration of May 24th 1618, directed that the people should not be debarred from having May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting up of May poles.

During the Commonwealth, dancing round the Maypole and many other popular amus.e.m.e.nts were stopped, but no sooner had Charles II. come to the throne of the country than the old sports were revived. For a fuller account of this subject the reader would do well to consult Brand's "Popular Antiquities," and the late Alfred Burton's book on "Rush-Bearing," from both works we have derived information for this chapter.

The Folk-Lore of Midsummer Eve.

The old superst.i.tions and customs of Midsummer Eve form a curious chapter in English folk-lore. Formerly this was a period when the imagination ran riot. On Midsummer Day the Church holds its festival in commemoration of the birth of St. John the Baptist, and some of the old customs relate to this saint.

On the eve of Midsummer Day it was a common practice to light bonfires.

This custom, which is a remnant of the old Pagan fire-worship, prevailed in various parts of the country, but perhaps lingered the longest in Cornwall. We gather from Borlase's "Antiquities of Cornwall," published in 1754, that at the Midsummer bonfires, the Cornish people attended with lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and made their perambulations round the fires, afterwards going from village to village carrying their torches before them. He regarded the usage as a survival of Druidical superst.i.tions. In the same county it was a practice on St.

Stephen's Down, near Launceston, to erect a tall pole with a bush fixed at the top of it, and round the pole to heap fuel. After the fire was lit, parties of wrestlers contested for prizes specially provided for the festival. According to an old tradition, an evil spirit once appeared in the form of a black dog, and since that time the wrestlers have never been able to meet on Midsummer Eve without being seriously injured in the sport.

About Penzance, not only did the fisher-folk and their friends dance about the blazing fire, but sang songs composed for the joyous time. We give a couple of verses from one of these songs:--

"As I walked out to yonder green One evening so fair, All where the fair maids may be seen, Playing at the bonfire.

Where larks and linnets sing so sweet, To cheer each lively swain, Let each prove true unto her lover, And so farewell the plain."

Mr. William Bottrell, one of the most painstaking writers on Cornish folk-lore, in an article written in 1873, a.s.serts that not a few old people living in remote and primitive districts, "believe that dancing in a ring over the embers, around a bonfire, or leaping (singly) through its flames, is calculated to insure good luck to the performers, and serve as a protection from witchcraft and other malign influences during the ensuing year." Mr. Bottrell laments the decay of these pleasing old Midsummer observances. He tells us that within "the memory of many who would not like to be called old, or even aged, on a Midsummer's eve, long before sunset, groups of girls--both gentle and simple--of from ten to twenty years of age, neatly dressed and decked with garlands, wreaths, or chaplets of flowers, would be seen dancing in the streets."

Some of the ancient Midsummer rites are still observed in Ireland. We have from an eyewitness some interesting items on the subject. People a.s.semble and dance round fires, the children jump through the flames, and in former times coals were carried into corn fields to prevent blight. The peasants are not, of course, aware that the ceremony is a remnant of the worship of Baal. It is the opinion of not a few that the famous round towers of Ireland were intended for signal fires in connection with this worship.

In the pleasant pages of T. Crofton Croker's "Researches in the South of Ireland," are particulars of a custom, observed on the eve of St. John's Day, of dressing up a broomstick as a figure, and carrying it about in the twilight from one cabin to the other, and suddenly pushing it in at the door, a proceeding which causes both surprise and merriment. The figure is known as Bredogue.

The superst.i.tious inhabitants of the Isle of Man formerly, on Midsummer Eve, lighted fires to the windward side of fields, so that the smoke might pa.s.s over the corn. The cattle were folded, and around the animals was carried blazing gra.s.s or furze, as a preventative against the influence of witches. Many other strange practices and beliefs prevailed.

In Wales, in the earlier years of the present century, it was customary to fix sprigs of the plant called St. John's wort over the doors of the cottages, and sometimes over the windows, in order to purify the houses and drive away all fiends and evil spirits. It was the common custom in England in the olden time for people to repair to the woods, break branches from the trees, and carry them to their homes with much delight, and place them over their doors. The ceremony, it is said, was to make good the Scripture prophecy respecting the Baptist, that many should rejoice at his birth.

Midsummer Eve has ever been famous as a time suitable for love divinations, and surely a few notes on love-lore cannot fail to find favour with our fair readers. In a popular story issued at the commencement of this century, from the polished pen of Hannah More, the heroine of the tale says that she would never go to bed on this night without first sticking up in her room the common plant called "Orpine,"

or, more generally, "Midsummer Men," as the bending of the leaves to the right or the left indicate to her if her lover was true or false. The following charming lines refer to the ceremony, and are translated from the German poet, and given in Chambers's "Book of Days," so we may infer that the same superst.i.tion prevails in that country:--

"The young maid stole through the cottage door, And blushed as she sought the plant of power: 'Thou silver glow-worm, oh, lend me thy light, I must gather the mystic St. John's wort to-night-- The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide If the coming year shall make me a bride.'

And the glow-worm came With its silvery flame, And sparkled and shone Through the night of St. John.

"And soon as the young maid her love-knot tied, With noiseless tread, To her chamber she sped, Where the sceptral moon her white beams shed: 'Bloom here, bloom here, thou plant of power, To deck the young bride in her bridal hour!'

But it droop'd its head, that plant of power, And died the mute death of the voiceless flower; And a wither'd wreath on the ground it lay, More meet for a burial than a bridal day.

And when a year was pa.s.sed away, All pale on her bier the young maid lay; And the glow-worm came With its silvery flame, And sparkled and shone Through the night of St. John, And they closed the cold grave o'er the maid's cold clay."

We gather from Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," that in Sweden it was the practice to place under the head of a youth or maiden nine kinds of flowers, with a full belief that they would dream of their sweethearts.

In England, in past times, the moss-rose was plucked with considerable ceremony on this eve for love divinations. Says the writer of a poem ent.i.tled "The Cottage Girl":--

"The moss-rose that, at fall of dew, Ere eve its duskier curtain drew, Was freshly gathered from its stem, She values as the ruby gem; And, guarded from the piercing air, With all an anxious lover's care, She bids it, for her shepherd's sake, Await the New Year's frolic wake: When faded in its altered hue, She reads--the rustic is untrue!

But if its leaves the crimson paint, Her sick'ning hopes no longer faint; The rose upon her bosom worn, She meets him at the peep of morn, And lo! her lips with kisses prest, He plucks it from her panting breast."

"On the continent," says Dyer, in his "Folk-Lore of Plants," "the rose is still thought to possess mystic virtues in love matters, as in Thuringia, where the girls foretell their future by means of rose leaves." It appears from a contributor to Chambers's "Book of Days," that there was brought some time ago under the notice of the Society of Antiquarians a curious little ring, which had been found in a ploughed field near Cawood, Yorkshire. It was inferred from its style and inscription to belong to the fifteenth century. The device consisted of two orpine plants joined by a true-love knot, with this motto above: _Ma fiancee velt_, _i.e._, "My sweetheart is willing or desirous." We are told that the stalks of the plants were bent to each other, in token that the parties represented by them were to come together in marriage. The motto under the ring was _Joye l'amour feu_. It is supposed that it was originally made for some lover to give to his mistress on Midsummer Eve, as the orpine plant is connected with that time. The dumb cake is another item of Midsummer folk-lore:--

"Two make it, Two bake it, Two break it;"

a third put it under their pillows, and this was all done without a word being spoken. If this was faithfully carried out it was believed that the diviners would dream of the men they loved.

Sowing hempseed on this eve was once a general custom. We have noted particulars of the ceremony as carried out at Ashbourne, Derbyshire. At this village, when a young maiden wished to discover who would be her future husband, she repaired to the churchyard, and as the clock struck the witching hour of midnight, she commenced running round the church, continually repeating the following lines:--

"I sow hempseed, hempseed I sow; He that loves me best Come after me and mow."

After going round the church a dozen times without stopping, her lover was said to appear and follow her. The closing scene of this spell is well described in a poem by W. T. Moncrieff:--

"Ah! a step. Some one follows. Oh, dare I look back?

Should the omen be adverse, how would my heart writhe.