Friday's child is loving and giving, And Saturday's child works hard for its living; It is remarkable that these verses, which are still current in Stockton and its neighbourhood, should be found. also in the West of England. Mrs. Bray records them in her Traditions of Devonshire' (vol. ii. p. 287), substituting Christmas Day' for the Sabbath Day,' and 'fair and wise' for 'blithe and bonny,' and says that they are in common use at Tavistock. Sunday children' are in Yorkshire deemed secure from the malice of evil spirits. In Germany, too, they are held to be privileged beings, but I am not aware that their immunities are so clearly defined. 6 'Sunday children' in Denmark have prerogatives by no means to be coveted. Witness the following narration from "Thorpe's Mythology,' vol. ii. p. 203: 'In Fyen there was a woman who was born on a Sunday, and, like other Sunday's children, had the faculty of seeing much that was hidden from others. But, because of this property, she could not pass by the church at night without seeing a hearse or a spectre, the gift became a perfect burden to her. She therefore sought the advice of a man skilled in such matters, who directed her, whenever she saw a spectre, to say, "Go to Heaven;" but when she met a hearse, "Hang on." Happening some time after to meet a hearse, she, through lapse of memory, cried out, "Go to Heaven," and straightway the hearse rose in the air, and vanished. Afterwards, meeting a spectre, she said to it, "Hang on," when the spectre clung round her neck, hung on her back, and drove her down into the earth before it. For three days her shrieks were heard before the spectre would put an end to her wretched life.' The hour of birth is also important, for children born during the hour after midnight have the power through life of seeing the spirits of the departed. Mrs. L—-, a Yorkshire lady, informs me that she was very near being thus distinguished, but the clock had not struck 12 when she was born. When a child, she mentioned this circumstance to an old servant, adding that mamma was sure her birthday was the 23rd, not the 24th, for she had enquired at the time. 'Ay, ay,' said the old woman, turning to the child's nurse, 'mistress would be very anxious about that, for bairns born after midnight see more things than other folk.' The Wilkie MS. tells us that throughout the Borderland, the birth of an infant is the signal for plenty of eating and drinking. Tea, duly qualified with brandy or whisky, and a profusion of shortbread and buns, are provided for all visitors, and it is very unlucky to allow anyone to leave the house without his share of these good things. But most important of all is the 'shooten' or groaning cheese, from which the happy father must cut a 'whang-o'luck' for the lassies of the company, taking care not to cut his own finger while so doing, since in that case the child would die before reaching manhood. The whang must be taken from the edge of the cheese, and divided into portions, one for each maiden. Should there be any to spare, they may be distributed among the spinster friends of the family, but if the number should fall short, the mistake cannot be rectified; there is no virtue in a second slice. The girls put these bits of cheese under their pillows, and ascribe to them the virtues of bridecake similarly treated. Now it is plain that cake and a new cheese were formerly provided against the birth of a child both in England and Scotland, and the custom still extends as far south as the Humber. In the North of England, as soon as the happy event is over, the doctor cuts both cake and cheese, and all present partake of both, on pain of the poor baby growing up without personal charms. The cake which is in use on these occasions in Yorkshire is called pepper-cake, and somewhat resembles thick gingerbread. It is eaten with cheese and rich caudle, and all visitors to the house up to the baptism are invited to partake of it. In Sweden, the cake and cheese are got ready in good time; they are placed beside the bride in the bridal hed, in preparation for her first confinement.2 In Oxfordshire, the cake used to be cut first in the middle and gradually shaped to a ring, through which the child was passed on its christening-day. The Durham nurse reserves some cake and cheese, and when the infant is taken out to its christening, she bestows them on the first person whom she meets of opposite sex to that of the child. A similar custom has I know but just died out in the Devonshire villages round Dartmoor, and in Choice Notes, Folk Lore,' we read of such a gift of bread and cheese in Somersetshire, and of a cake in Cornwall. (Page 147). It is thought unlucky on the Borders to tread on the graves of unbaptised children, or 'unchristened ground,' as they term it. The Wilkie MS. informs us of the special risk that is run. He who steps on the grave of a stillborn or unbaptised child, or of one who has been overlaid by its nurse, subjects himself to the fatal disease of the grave-merels, or grave-scab. This complaint comes on with trembling of the limbs and hard breathing, and at last the skin burns as if touched with Brand's Pop. Ant. ed. 1854, vol. ii. p. 71. 2 Thorpe's Mythology, vol. ii. p. 109, hot iron. The following old verses elucidate this superstition : Love to the babie that ne'er saw the sun, All alane and alane, oh! His bodie shall lie in the kirk 'neath the rain, His grave must be dug at the foot o' the wall, And the foot that treadeth his body upon, Shall have scab that will eat to the bane, oh! And it ne'er will be cured by doctor on earth, Powerless, however, as the faculty may be, there is a remedy for the grave-merels, though not of easy attainment. It lies in the wearing a sack, thus prepared. The lint must be grown in a field which shall be manured from a farmyard keep that has not been disturbed for forty years. It must be spun by old Habbitrot, that queen of spinsters, of whom more hereafter; it must be bleached by an honest bleacher, in an honest miller's milldam, and sewed by an honest tailor. On donning this mysterious vestment, the sufferer will at once regain his health and strength.1 It is curious to observe what a different feeling, with regard to stillborn children, may be met with in the South. We read in Choice Notes' (p. 172) that one of the Commissioners of Devonport, after complaining of the charge made upon the parish for the interment of 1 In Sweden, if a person afflicted with an open sore walks over any graves, it will heal slowly or never. (Thorpe's Mythology, vol. ii. p. 110.) An old belief in Yorkshire enjoins that a new-born child be laid in the arms of a maiden before anyone else holds him. such children, said: "When I was a young man, it was thought lucky to have a stillborn child put into any open grave, as it was considered a sure passport to heaven for the next person buried there.' 6 6 In the southern counties of Scotland, children are considered before baptism at the mercy of the fairies, who may carry them off at pleasure, or inflict injury upon them. Brand mentions this danger,' and says the Danish women guard their children during this period against evil spirits by placing in the cradle, or over the door, garlic, salt, bread, and steel in the form of some sharp instrument. Something like this,' he adds, obtained in England. In Germany, the proper things to lay in the cradle are "orant" (which is translated into either horehound or snapdragon), blue marjoram, black cumin, a right shirt-sleeve, and a left stocking. The "Nickert" cannot then harm the child.' The modern Greeks dread witchcraft at this period of their children's lives, and are careful not to leave them alone during their first eight days, within which period the Greek Church refuses to baptise them.2 In Scotland the little one's safeguard is held to lie in the juxtaposition of some article of dress belonging to its father. This was experienced by the wife of a shepherd near Selkirk. Soon after the birth of her first child, a fine boy, she was lying in bed with her baby by her side, when suddenly she became aware of a confused noise of talking and merry laughter in the spence,' or room. This, in fact, proceeded from the fairies, who were forming a child of wax as a substitute for the baby, which they were planning to steal away. The poor mother suspected as much, so in great alarm she seized her husband's waistcoat, which chanced to be 1 Pop. Ant. vol. ii. p. 73. 2 Wright's Literature of the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 291. |