The Lifting of the Bride. 231
offered his hand as a support to the bride in her leap, but not infrequently an independent bride preferred to jump over unassisted. The bridegroom then distributed largesse in accordance with his circumstances, and the crowd scrambled for it. The name ' Petting Stick ' I have always understood to be connected with the bride's attitude towards the ceremony, since ' taking the pet ' in North Country parlance signifies a sort of sullen hanging-back with the object of being ' fussed ' with and persuaded, and no other expression can half so well describe this par- ticular species of ill-humour."
There are numerous printed accounts of the custom, but none which I have seen are, I think, quite so graphic as those which I owe to the kindness of correspondents who have kindly communicated with me on the subject. Thus Henderson^ speaks of the "petting" or " louping stone at Belford, Embleton, and Bamburgh. Hutchinson "" writes of a cross near the ruins of the church in Holy Island : " It is now called the petting stone. Whenever a marriage is celebrated at the church, after the ceremony the bride is to step upon it, and if she cannot stride to the end thereof it is said the marriage will prove unfortunate." So wdth the socket stone of St. Ethelwold's Cross in Durham Cathedral Cemetery: "Whenever a marriage is celebrated at the church, after the ceremony the bride has to step over it."'^
In the cases of Rothbury and Ford noted above, it will be seen that a part, or a modification or addition, of the rite was to bar the church door against the married pair until they submitted to pay blackmail. We have numerous instances of similar proceedings. Thus, in Wales : " After leaving the church where the marriage was celebrated, the
' Folklore of the Northern Comities, 38.
- History of Durham, i., 33, quoted by Brand, Observations, ii., 167; Denham Tracts, ii., 213.
' Allen's note in Hogg, Legend of St. Ciithbert, quoted in Second Series Notes and Queries, v. , 264 seq.
