Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (year 2 reading books .txt) 📖
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[679] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 57; Morley’s “Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair,” 1859.
[680] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 21.
[681] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 47; Douce has given a representation of this instrument of torture from Millœus’s “Praxis Criminis Persequendi,” Paris, 1541.
[682] “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 95.
[683] Cf. “1 Henry IV.” (i. 3):
Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home.”
[684] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 16-33.
[685] See “British Popular Customs,” pp. 372, 373. In Lincolnshire this day is called “Hally-Loo Day.”
[686] See Butler’s “Lives of the Saints.”
[687] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 868; Brady’s “Clavis Calendaria.”
[688] Nich. Harpsfield, “Hist. Eccl. Anglicana,” p. 86.
[689] See “British Popular Customs,” p. 404.
[690] Puling, or singing small, as Bailey explains the word.
[691] See Swainson’s “Weather-Lore,” 1873, pp. 141-143.
[692] See “British Popular Customs,” p. 409.
[693] See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 25; “The Church of Our Fathers,” by D. Rock, 1853, vol. iii. p. 215; Gent. Mag., 1777, vol. xliii. p. 158; see Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. pp. 601, 602; Brady’s “Clavis Calendaria.”
[694] Drake’s “Shakespeare and his Times,” vol. i. p. 198.
[695] See Sandy’s “Christmastide, its History, Festivities, and Carols;” also Athenæum, Dec. 20, 1856.
[696] His blunder for comedy.
[697] See “British Popular Customs,” 1876, pp. 459, 463; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 943; “Antiquarian Repertory,” vol. i. p. 218.
[698] This was a deep draught to the health of any one, in which it was customary to empty the glass or vessel.
[699] See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, pp. 441-449.
[700] See “British Popular Customs,” pp. 461, 469, 478, 480.
[701] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. i. pp. 1-15.
CHAPTER XII. BIRTH AND BAPTISM.As every period of human life has its peculiar rites and ceremonies, its customs and superstitions, so has that ever all-eventful hour which heralds the birth of a fresh actor upon the world’s great stage. From the cradle to the grave, through all the successive epochs of man’s existence, we find a series of traditional beliefs and popular notions, which have been handed down to us from the far-distant past. Although, indeed, these have lost much of their meaning in the lapse of years, yet in many cases they are survivals of primitive culture, and embody the conceptions of the ancestors of the human race. Many of these have been recorded by Shakespeare, who, acting upon the great principle of presenting his audience with matters familiar to them, has given numerous illustrations of the manners and superstitions of his own country, as they existed in his day. Thus, in “Richard III.” (iii. 1), when he represents the Duke of Gloster saying,
he alludes to the old superstition, still deeply rooted in the minds of the lower orders, that a clever child never lives long. In Bright’s “Treatise of Melancholy” (1586, p. 52), we read: “I have knowne children languishing of the splene, obstructed and altered in temper, talke with gravity and wisdom surpassing those tender years, and their judgments carrying a marvellous imitation of the wisdome of the ancient, having after a sort attained that by disease, which others have by course of yeares; whereof I take it the proverb ariseth, that ‘they be of shorte life who are of wit so pregnant.’” There are sundry superstitious notions relating to the teething of children prevalent in our own and other countries. In “3 Henry VI.” (v. 6), the Duke of Gloster, alluding to the peculiarities connected with his, birth, relates how
‘O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!’
And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.”
It is still believed, for instance, in many places, that if a child’s first tooth appears in the upper jaw it is an omen of its dying in infancy; and when the teeth come early it is regarded as an indication that there will soon be another baby. In Sussex there is a dislike to throwing away the cast teeth of children, from a notion that, should they be found and gnawed by any animal, the child’s new tooth would be exactly like the animal’s that had bitten the old one. In Durham, when the first teeth come out the cavities must be filled with salt, and each tooth burned, while the following words are repeated:
God send me my tooth again.”
In the above passage, then, Shakespeare simply makes the Duke of Gloster refer to that extensive folk-lore associated with human birth, showing how careful an observer he was in noticing the whims and oddities of his countrymen.
Again, one of the foremost dangers supposed to hover round the new-born infant was the propensity of witches and fairies to steal the most beautiful and well-favored children, and to leave in their places such as were ugly and stupid. These were usually called “changelings.” Shakespeare alludes to this notion in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), where Puck says:
A lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling.”
And further on, in the same scene, Oberon says:
To be my henchman.”
As a fairy is, in each case, the speaker, the changeling in this case denotes the child taken by them. So, too, in the “Winter’s Tale” (iii. 3), in the passage where the Shepherd relates: “it was told me, I should be rich by the fairies; this is some changeling:—open’t.” As the child here found was a beautiful one, the changeling must naturally mean the child stolen by the fairies, especially as the gold left with it is conjectured to be fairy gold. The usual signification, however, of the term changeling is thus marked by Spenser (“Fairy Queen,” I. x. 65).
There as thou slepst in tender swadling band,
And her base elfin brood there for thee left:
Such men do chaungelings call, so chaunged by faeries theft.”
Occasionally fairies played pranks with new-born children by exchanging them. To this notion King Henry refers (“1 Henry IV.” i. 1) when, speaking of Hotspur compared with his own profligate son, he exclaims:
That some night-tripping fairy had exchang’d
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call’d mine Percy, his Plantagenet!”
To induce the fairies to restore the stolen child, it was customary in Ireland either to put the one supposed of being a changeling on a hot shovel, or to torment it in some other way. It seems that, in Denmark, the mother heats the oven, and places the changeling on the peel, pretending to put it in, or whips it severely with a rod, or throws it into the water. In the Western Isles of Scotland idiots are supposed to be the fairies’ changelings, and, in order to regain the lost child, parents have recourse to the following device. They place the changeling on the beach, below high-water mark, when the tide is out, and pay no heed to its screams, believing that the fairies, rather than suffer their offspring to be drowned by the rising water, will convey it away, and restore the child they had stolen. The sign that this has been done is the cessation of the child’s screaming. The most effectual preservative, however, against fairy influence, is supposed to be baptism; and hence, among the superstitious, this rite is performed as soon as possible.
A form of superstition very common in days gone by was the supposed influence of the “Evil eye,” being designated by the terms “o’erlooked,” “forelooked,” or “eye-bitten,” certain persons being thought to possess the power of inflicting injury by merely looking on those whom they wished to harm. Even the new-born child was not exempt from this danger, and various charms were practised to avert it. In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5), Pistol says of Falstaff:
This piece of folk-lore may be traced back to the time of the Romans, and, in the late Professor Conington’s translation of the “Satires of Persius,” it is thus spoken of: “Look here! a grandmother or a superstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle, and is charming his forehead against mischief by the joint action of her middle-finger and her purifying spittle; for she knows right well how to check the evil eye.”[702] Is is again alluded to in the “Merchant of Venice” (iii. 2), where Portia, expressing to Bassanio her feelings of regard, declares:
They have o’erlook’d me, and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours;”
and in “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 1), Aaron speaks of Tamora as:
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.”
This superstition, however, is not yet obsolete, but lingers on in many country places.
We may also compare a similar phrase made use of by Cleopatra (“Antony and Cleopatra,” iii. 7), in answer to Enobarbus:
the word forespeak having anciently had the meaning of charm or bewitch, like forbid in “Macbeth” (i. 3):
Among the numerous customs associated with the birth of a child may be mentioned the practice of giving presents at the announcement of this important event. In “Henry VIII.” (v. 1), on the old lady’s making known to the king the happy tidings of the birth of a princess, he says to Lovell:
The old lady, however, resents what she considers a paltry sum:
An ordinary groom is for such payment.
I will have more, or scold it out of him.”
It was an ancient custom—one which is not quite out of use—for the sponsors at christenings to offer silver or gilt spoons as a present to the child. These were called “apostle spoons,” because the extremity of the handle was formed into the figure of one or other of the apostles. Such as were opulent and generous gave the whole twelve; those who were moderately rich or liberal escaped at the expense of the four evangelists, or even sometimes contented themselves with presenting one spoon only, which exhibited the figure of any saint, in honor of whom the child received its name. In “Henry VIII.” (v. 2) it is in allusion to this custom that, when Cranmer professes to be unworthy of being a
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