shoe and delivered it to his neighbour,” the kinsman plucked off his shoe, as a public renunciation of Ruth and of his own claim of pre-marriage. It may be inquired, however, whether there is any connexion between this custom and the usage of Swedish brides, to let a shoe slip off or drop a handkerchief, in the hope that the bridegroom, from politeness, will stoop to pick it up. If he does so it will be his lot to submit, i.e. to bend his back all through his married life. A good deal of Swedish bridal Folk-Lore points to the desire for mastery, e.g. the bride must endeavour to see her bridegroom before he sees her, to place her foot before his during the marriage ceremony, to sit down first in the bridal chair, and all that she may bear sway.[1]
The northern counties of England have, however, their own exclusively local wedding customs. I am informed by the Rev. J. Barmby, that a wedding in the Dales of Yorkshire is indeed a thing to see; that nothing can be imagined comparable to it in wildness and obstreperous mirth. The bride and bridegroom may possibly be a little subdued, but his friends are like men bereft of reason. They career round the bridal party like Arabs of the desert, galloping over ground on which, in cooler moments, they would hesitate even to walk a horse—shouting all the time, and firing volleys from the guns they carry with them. Next they will dash along the road in advance of the party, carrying the whisky-bottle, and compelling everyone they meet to pledge the newly-married pair. “One can guess,” he adds, “what the Border mosstroopers were by seeing the Dalesmen at a wedding.” In the higher parts of Northumberland as well as on the other side of the Border the scene I am informed is, if possible, still more wild. In Northumberland the men of the party all start off from the church-door on horse-back, galloping like madmen through moss and over moor, till they reach the place where the wedding breakfast is to be held, and he who arrives first may claim a kiss of the bride. Such a wedding is called “a riding wedding,” and the race to the young couple’s new home after the marriage “running the braize, or brooze.” In rural parts, too,
- ↑ Thorpe’s Mythology, vol. ii. p. 108.
