THE FOLK-LORE OF A COUNTRY PARISH.
Our country parish is quite a stronghold for superstitions, and most certainly does its best to preserve “the fast-fading relics of the old mythologies.” It will not by any means get rid of its folk-lore fancies, but nourishes them with a tenderness that would be surprising to your fine men of the world and your sceptical dwellers in cities, who pooh-pooh our little idealities, and delight to amuse themselves with our marvels and mysteries. Let them do so, say I! It but little affects our parish, which goes on its way much as it did some scores of years ago—save that we have done with our witches, and no longer oblige our elderly females to sink or swim in the parish duck-pond.
But our country parish believes in many things that are not admitted into the creeds of the more enlightened towns. Permit me to divulge a few of the superstitious fancies that still abide with us: and believe me when I tell you that my tales are strictly true ones, and that their facts came within my own cognisance.
And first—which is beginning pretty nearly at the beginning—as to a baptismal superstition. It is not often that our parish church can produce more than one baptism at a time; but, the other Sunday afternoon, there was the unusual number of three christenings—two boys and a girl. The parents of one boy were in a very respectable class of life: the parents of the two other children were in humble circumstances. The parties at the font had been duly placed by the officiating clergyman (Mr. Milkinsop, our esteemed curate); and, as it happened, the girl and her sponsors were placed last in order.
When the first child—who was the boy of the poor parents—was about to be baptised, the woman who carried the little girl elbowed her way up to Mr. Milkinsop, in order that the child she carried might be the first to be baptised. To do this she had (very contrary to the usual custom of the poor, who—in all essential points at least—are generally as refined as their superiors) rudely to push past “her betters”—i.e., the sponsors of the second boy. As she did so, she whispered to one of the sponsors, by way of apology:—
“It’s a girl, so it must be christened first!”
And christened first it was. But the peculiar manner in which this was brought about, showed that the woman was influenced by some peculiar feeling; and, on the next day, an opportunity was taken to discover her motive.
This was her explanation.
“You see, sir, the parson baint a married man, and consequentially is disfamiliar with children, or he’d never a put the little girl to be christen’d after the little boys. And, though it sadley fluster’d me, sir, to put myself afore my betters in the way which I was fossed to do, yet, sir, it was a doing of a kindness to them two little boys in me a setting of my little girl afore’em.”
“Why so?” it was asked.
“Well, sir! I har astonished as you don’t know,” was the reply of this specimen of our country parish. “Why, sir, if them little boys had been christen’d afore the little girl, they’d have had her soft chin, and she’d have had their hairy beards—the poor little innocent! But, thank goodness! I’ve kep’ her from that misfortin’!”
And the woman really believed that she had done so; and, moreover, the generality of her neighbours shared her belief.
So let this fragment of folk-lore from our country parish prove a warning to clergymen—more especially to bachelors like Mr. Milkinsop—who would desire to stand well in the opinions of their poorer neighbours.
If twins are born in our country parish, it is believed that of the little bipeds—like the quadrupedal martin-heifers and free-martins—only one will prove the father (or mother) of a family.
If any of our women are seen abroad, and pursuing their ordinary out-of-door occupations, before they have been “churched,” they at once lose caste in the eyes of their neighbours.
On the subject of marriage we have also our little peculiarities. Not a maiden in our parish will attend church on the three Sundays on which her banns are proclaimed. And this, not from bashfulness or mock-modesty; but because they deem such a proceeding to be eminently unlucky. When Mr. Milkinsop once asked one of these damsels what was the particular kind of ill-luck that she expected would have resulted from her attendance at church on those three particular Sundays, she informed the reverend gentleman that the offspring of such marriages would be born deaf and dumb. And, to clench this statement, and prove its truth by a forcible example, she adduced the instance of a young woman of her acquaintance who would persist in going to church to hear her banns “asked out,” and whose six children were in consequence all born deaf and dumb. No wonder, then, that our village maidens stay away from church on those three interesting Sundays, when such sad results are known to follow a deviation from our country parish superstition.
Why or wherefore, when these young damsels present themselves before Mr. Milkinsop to be united in the bonds of wedlock to the husbands of their choice, they should carry a sprig of gone as a bridal bouquet is a mystery which I have been unable to solve. A young lady fresh from school, and therefore well versed in the mystical language of flowers, informs me that gorse is an emblem of “enduring affection.” I am also aware of the old adage (for do we not use it in our country parish, where the glorious gorse grows in such large tracts that, when covered with its golden bloom, it might induce a second Linnaeus to throw himself upon his knees and kiss the earth for producing flowers so beautiful)—I am aware, I say, of the old adage that says, “When the gorse is out of blossom, kissing is out of fashion;” by which is meant that kissing is popular all the year round. But, still, I confess that this adage and that emblem do not, as I believe, account for the appearance of the sprig of gorse in the bridal bouquet, and that some further meaning lurks behind, which the damsels are unwilling should be brought to prominent notice. I therefore am