The Lifting of the Bride. 251
obnoxious to their comrades suffer more severely.^ So, in Yorkshire, it is or used to be the custom to shake in a sheet every newly married woman the first time she came a-gleaning; and in Fife and Kinross to seize and " dump " any person who happens to pass the harvest field. This is called "Dumping," or " Benjie," and "head-money" is demanded from the victims."
It seems clear that all or most of these customs, which as we have seen are associated with the seasons of sowing and reaping, are survivals of those forms of Saturnalian observances which in all parts of the world take place at the sowing or first springing of the seed and the garnering of the harvest, when more or less sexual licence is tolerated.^
The conclusion which I venture to suggest is that these customs connected with " lifting " fall into two classes. What may be called the " Petting Stone " group of rites are probably fertility charms. Those connected with the thres- hold are based either on the same belief, or are intended as protectives against various forms of evil influences which beset the bride at the commencement of her married life. Quite distinct are the Spring and Autumn "lifting" rites, which probably fall within the Saturnalia class. All three seem to be worn-down survivals of customs which, when viewed in the light of similar usages among people whom we are pleased to call " savages," lead us back to a series of conceptions dating from the very infancy of humanity.
W. Crooke.
' Second Series Notes and Queries, iv., 144.
- Ibid., ii., 352; Folk-Lore, vii., 52.
- Frazer, Golden Bough, Second Edition, iii., 78, 306.
