British Goblins Part 20

IV.

Easter is marked by some striking customs. It is deemed essential for one's well-being that some new article of dress shall be donned at this time, though it be nothing more than a new ribbon. This is also a Hamps.h.i.+re superst.i.tion. A servant of mine, born in Hamps.h.i.+re, used always to say, 'If you don't have on something new Easter Sunday the dogs will spit at you.' This custom is a.s.sociated with Easter baptism, when a new life was a.s.sumed by the baptized, clothed in righteousness as a garment. A ceremony called 'lifting' is peculiar to North Wales on Easter Monday and Tuesday. On the Monday bands of men go about with a chair, and meeting a woman in the street compel her to sit, and be lifted three times in the air amidst their cheers: she is then invited to bestow a small compliment on her entertainers. This performance is kept up till twelve o'clock, when it ceases. On Easter Tuesday the women take their turn, and go about in like manner lifting the men. It has been conjectured that in this custom an allusion to the resurrection is intended.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIFTING. (_From an old drawing._)]

A custom, the name of which is now lost, was that the village belle should on Easter Eve and Easter Tuesday carry on her head a piece of chinaware of curious shape, made expressly for this purpose, and useless for any other. It may be described as a circular crown of porcelain, the points whereof were cups and candles. The cups were solid details of the crown: the candles were stuck with clay upon the s.p.a.ces between the cups. The cups were filled with a native beverage called bragawd, and the candles were lighted. To drink the liquor without burning yourself or the damsel at the candle was the difficulty involved in this performance. A stanza was sung by the young woman's companions, the last line of which was,

Rhag i'r feinwen losgi ei thalcen.

(Lest the maiden burn her forehead.[122])

Stocsio is an Easter Monday custom observed from time immemorial in the town of Aberconwy, and still practised there in 1835. On Easter Sunday crowds of men and boys carrying wands of gorse went to Pen Twthil, and there proclaimed the laws and regulations of the following day. They were to this effect: all men under sixty to be up and out before 6 A.M.; all under forty, before 4 A.M.; all under twenty, to stay up all night. Penalty for disobedience: the stocks. The crier who delivered this proclamation was the man last married in the town previous to Easter Sunday. Other like rules were proclaimed, amid loud cheers. Early next morning a party, headed by a fife and drum, patrolled the town with a cart, in search of delinquents. When one was discovered, he was hauled from his bed and made to dress himself; then put in the cart and dragged to the stocks. His feet being secured therein, he was duly lectured on the sin of laziness, and of breaking an ancient law of the town by lying abed in violation thereof. His right hand was then taken, and he was asked a lot of absurd questions, such as 'Which do you like best, the mistress or the maid?' 'Which do you prefer, ale or b.u.t.termilk?' 'If the gate of a field were open, would you go through it, or over the stile?' and the like. His answers being received with derision, his hand was smeared with mud, and he was then released amid cheers. 'This sport, which would be impracticable in a larger and less intimate community, is continued with the greatest good humour until eight; when the rest of the day is spent in playing ball at the Castle.'[123]

FOOTNOTES:

[122] 'Arch. Camb.' 4 Se., iii., 334.

[123] 'Hist. and Ant. of Aberconwy,' 108.

V.

Ball-playing against the walls of the church between hours of service was a fas.h.i.+on of Easter which is within recollection. It was also common on the Sabbath day itself in many parishes, in the days when dissent was unknown and paris.h.i.+oners had long distances to traverse on a Sunday; 'and that, too, with the sanction of the clergyman, and even his personal superintendence. Old people can remember such a state of things, when the clergyman gave notice that the game must cease by putting the ball into his pocket and marched his young friends into church.'[124] Nowhere less than in a custom like this would the ordinary observer look for traditionary significance; yet there is no doubt our Easter eggs are but another surviving form of the same ancient rite. Before the Reformation there was a Church of England custom of playing ball _in_ church at Easter, according to Dr.

Fosbrooke, the dean and clergy partic.i.p.ating.

There were other sports and pastimes common alike to Easter and to the Sabbath day, which are full of curious interest. Some of them no doubt arose out of the social exigencies of spa.r.s.ely settled neighbourhoods, which caused people to remain at the church between services, instead of returning to distant homes; but a Druidic origin seems necessary to account for others. That the people should between services gather near the church to talk over the gossip of the day, is natural enough, and is a phenomenon which may still be witnessed in remote parts of the United States. In St. Dogmell's parish, Pembrokes.h.i.+re, there is a tump which bears the name of 'Cnwc y Celwydd,' videlicet, the Tump of Lies. Here were men and women formerly in the habit of gathering together on the Lord's day in great crowds, and entertaining each other with the inventing and telling of the most lying and wonderful yarns they could conjure up with the aid of an imagination spurred to exercise by rivalry and applause. The custom is discontinued; but there is still hardly a neighbourhood in Wales so rich in tales of fairies and other goblins.

The custom of dancing in churchyards was common in many parts of the Princ.i.p.ality in the early part of this century. At Aberedwy, Malkin saw a large yew tree in the churchyard under which as many as sixty couples had been seen dancing at once.[125] The dancing was not in that part of the yard consecrated to the dead, but on the north side of the church, where it was not the custom to bury. A tradition is preserved by Giraldus of a solemn festival dance which took place in the churchyard at St. Almedha's church, Brecons.h.i.+re, on that saint's day. The dance was 'led round the churchyard with a song,' and succeeded by the dancers falling down in a trance, followed by a sort of religious frenzy. This is believed to have been a Druidical rite, described on hearsay by Giraldus, and embellished by him with those pious inventions not uncommon in his day.

One of the customs of Easter, at a comparatively recent period in Wales, was getting the children up early in the morning to see the sun dance. This exercise the sun was said to perform at rising on Easter Day, in honour of the rising of our Lord. The sun was sometimes aided in this performance by a bowl of clear water, into which the youth must look to see the orb dance, as it would be dangerous to look directly on the sun while thus engaged. The religious dance of the ancient Druids is believed to exist in modern times in a round dance wherein the figures imitate the motions of the sun and moon. The ball-playing in church mentioned above was also accompanied by dancing.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] 'Arch. Camb.' 4 Se., iii., 333.

[125] Malkin's 'South Wales,' 281.

VI.

The first of April is in Welsh called Calan Ebrill, and an April Fool a Ffwl Ebrill; the similarity of English and Welsh words may be said to typify the similarity of observance. The universality of this observance among Aryan peoples would certainly indicate an origin in a time preceding the dispersion of the human family over the world. The Druids, tradition says, celebrated the revival of Nature's powers in a festival which culminated on the first of April in the most hilarious foolery. The Roman Saturnalia or feast of fools perpetuated the rite, though the purpose of the Christian revelry may quite possibly have been to ridicule the Druidic ceremonies.

The festivities of May-day are in like manner a.s.sociated with the powers of Nature, whose vigour and productiveness were symbolized by the Maypole round which village lads and la.s.ses danced. The rites of love were variously celebrated at this time, and some of these customs locally have long survived the Maypole itself. The ordinance for the destruction of Maypoles in England and Wales, printed in 1644, declared them 'a heathenish vanity, generally abused to superst.i.tion and wickedness,' wherefore it was ordained that they should be destroyed, and that no Maypole should thereafter be 'set up, erected, or suffered to be within this kingdom of England or dominion of Wales.'

The Maypole in Wales was called Bedwen, because it was always made of birch, bedw, a tree still a.s.sociated with the gentler emotions. To give a lover a birchen branch, is for a maiden to accept his addresses; to give him a collen, or hazel, the reverse. Games of various sorts were played around the bedwen. The fame of a village depended on its not being stolen away, and parties were constantly on the alert to steal the bedwen, a feat which, when accomplished, was celebrated with peculiar festivities. This rivalry for the possession of the Maypole was probably typical of the ancient idea that the first of May was the boundary day dividing the confines of winter and summer, when a fight took place between the powers of the air, on the one hand striving to continue the reign of winter, on the other to establish that of summer. Here may be cited the Mabinogi of Kilhwch and Olwen, where it speaks of the daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint. 'She was the most splendid maiden in the three Islands of the Mighty, and in the three Islands adjacent,' and for her does Gwyn ap Nudd, the fairy king, fight every first of May till the day of doom.[126] She was to have been the bride of Gwythyr, the son of Greidawl, when Gwyn ap Nudd carried her off by force. The bereaved bridegroom followed, and there was a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle, in which Gwyn was victorious, and which he signalized by an act of frightful cruelty; he slew an old warrior, took out his heart from his breast, and constrained the warrior's son to eat the heart of his father. When Arthur heard of this he summoned Gwyn ap Nudd before him, and deprived him of the fruits of his victory. But he condemned the two combatants to fight for the radiant maiden henceforth for ever on every first of May till doomsday; the victor on that day to possess the maiden.[127]

FOOTNOTES:

[126] 'Mabinogion,' 229.

[127] 'Mabinogion,' 251.

VII.

In the remote and primitive parish of Defynog, in Brecons.h.i.+re, until a few years since, a custom survived of carrying the King of Summer and the King of Winter. Two boys were chosen to serve as the two kings, and were covered all over with a dress of brigau bedw, (birchen boughs,) only their faces remaining visible. A coin was tossed and the boy chosen was the summer king; a crown of bright-hued ribbons was put upon his head. Upon the other boy's head was placed a crown of holly, to designate the winter king. Then a procession was formed, headed by two men with drawn swords to clear the way. Four men supported the summer king upon two poles, one under his knees and the other under his arms; and four others bore the winter king in a similar undignified posture. The procession pa.s.sed round the village and to the farm-houses near by, collecting largess of coin or beer, winding up the perambulation at the churchyard. Here the boys were set free, and received a dole for their services, the winter king getting less than the other.

Another May-day custom among the boys of that parish, was to carry about a rod, from which the bark had been partly peeled in a spiral form, and upon the top of which was set either a c.o.c.k or a cross, the bearers waking the echoes of the village with 'Yo ho! yo ho! yo ho!'[128]

FOOTNOTE:

[128] 'Arch. Camb.,' 2 Se., iv., 326.

CHAPTER III.

Midsummer Eve--The Druidic Ceremonies at Pontypridd--The Snake Stone--Beltane Fires--Fourth of July Fires in America--St. Ulric's Day--Carrying Cynog--Marketing on Tombstones--The First Night of Winter--The Three Nights for Spirits--The Tale of Thomas Williams the Preacher--All Hallows Eve Festivities--Running through Fire--Quaint Border Rhymes--The Puzzling Jug--Bobbing for Apples--The Fiery Features of Guy Fawkes' Day--St. Clement's Day--Stripping the Carpenter.

I.

Midsummer Eve, or St. John's Eve (June 23rd), is one of the ancient Druidic festivals, still liberally honoured in Wales. The custom of lighting bonfires survives in some of the villages, and at Pontypridd there are ceremonies of a solemn sort. Midsummer Eve, in 1878, fell on a Sunday. Upon that day the 'Druids and bards' at Pontypridd held the usual feast of the summer solstice in the face of the sun. There is a breezy common on the top of a high hill overlooking the town, where stand a logan stone and a circle of upright stones const.i.tuting the 'temple of the Druids.' Here it is the custom of the present-day adherents of that ancient religion, beside which Christianity is an infant, to celebrate their rites 'within the folds of the serpent,' a circle marked with the signs of the zodiac. The venerable archdruid, Myfyr Morganwg, stands on the logan stone, with a mistletoe sprig in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and prays to the G.o.d Kali, 'creator of sun, moon, stars, and universe.' Then the white-bearded old man delivers a discourse, and new members are initiated into the 'mysteries,'

Occasionally these new members are Americans from over the sea, and they include both s.e.xes. Large crowds gather to witness the impressive spectacle--a shadow of the ancient rites when from Belenian heights flamed high the sacrificial fires. It was a former belief that these fires protected the lands within their light from the machinations of sorcery, so that good crops would follow, and that their ashes were valuable as a medicinal charm.

The Snake-stone is another striking Welsh tradition, a.s.sociated with Midsummer eve. At this time of the year there are certain convocations of snakes, which, hissing sociably together among one another, hiss forth a mystic bubble, which hardens into the semblance of a gla.s.s ring. The finder of this ring is a lucky man, for all his undertakings will prosper while he retains it. These rings are called Gleiniau Nadroedd in Welsh--snake-stones in English. They are supposed to have been used by the ancient Druids as charms. There is a Welsh saying, respecting people who lay their heads together in conversation, that the talkers are 'blowing the gem.'

II.

The traditions connected with the Beltane fires are very interesting, but the subject has received so much attention in published volumes that it need not here be dwelt upon. The lad who in the United States capers around a bonfire on the night of Independence Day has not a suspicion that he is imitating the rites of an antiquity the most remote; that in burning a heap of barrels and boxes in a public square the celebrators of the American Fourth of July imitate the priests who thus wors.h.i.+pped the sun-G.o.d Beal. The origins of our most familiar customs are constantly being discovered in such directions as this.

On the face of the thing, nothing could be more absurd as a mode of jollification, in a little American town, with its wooden architecture, on a hot night in the midst of summer, than building a roaring fire to make the air still hotter and endanger the surrounding houses. The reason for the existence of such a custom must be sought in another land and another time; had reflection governed the matter, instead of tradition, the American anniversary would have found some more fitting means of celebration than Druidic fires and Chinese charms. (For it may be mentioned further, in this connection, that the fire-crackers of our urchins are quite as superst.i.tious in their original purpose as the bonfire is. In China, even to this day, fire-crackers are charms pure and simple, their office to drive away evil spirits, their use as a means of jollification quite unknown to their inventors.) A far more sensible Midsummer rite, especially in a hot country, would have been to adopt the custom of St. Ulric's day, and eat fish. This saint's day falls on the fourth of July, and Barnabe Googe's translation of Naogeorgius has this couplet concerning it:

Wheresoeuer Huldryche hath his place, the people there brings in Both carpes and pykes, and mullets fat, his fauour here to win.

III.

The Welsh saint called Cynog was one of the numberless children of that famous old patriarch Brychan Brycheiniog, and had his memory honoured, until a comparatively recent period, in the parish of Defynog. Here, on this saint's feast Monday, which fell in October, there was a custom called 'carrying Cynog.' Cynog was represented by a man who was paid for his services with money, or with a suit of clothes--sometimes a 'stranger' from an adjoining parish, but on the last recorded occasion a drunken farmer of the neighbourhood. He was clad in dilapidated garments, and borne through the village; after which he was tumbled headlong into the river amid the jeers of the crowd, to scramble out as best he might. It was not a very respectful way of commemorating a saint who had been buried a thousand years or thereabouts; but such as it was it died out early in the present century. The ducking which ended the performance has been supposed to be a puritan improvement on what was before a religious ceremony, or mystery. It is more than possibly a relic of the Druidic sacrificial rites; in cases where a river ran near, at the time of the Beltane fires, a sacrifice by water was subst.i.tuted for that of flame.

The feast of St. Cynog continued for a week. On the Tuesday there was a singular marketing in the churchyard; from all about the farmers brought their t.i.the of cheese, and taking it to the churchyard, laid it on the tombstones, where it was sold for the parson's behoof.

IV.

All Hallows eve is by the Welsh called 'Nos Calan Gauaf,' meaning 'the first night of winter;' sometimes, 'Nos Cyn Gauaf,' the 'night before winter.' It is one of the 'Teir Nos Ysprydnos,' or 'three nights for spirits,' upon which ghosts walk, fairies are abroad, mysterious influences are in the air, strange sights are seen, and in short goblins of every sort are to be with special freedom encountered. They may be conjured to appear, by certain enchantments, and to give their visitors glimpses of the future, especially as regards the subject of marrying. On this night it is customary for the young people, gathered in many a merry circle, to seek by tricks and charms of various sort to become acquainted with their future lovers and sweethearts. Not that it is always necessary to employ such aids, for on the Teir Nos Ysprydnos the phantoms of future companions have been known to appear unsummoned. There are many such stories as that of Thomas Williams, the preacher, who slept in the hills on a Nos Ysprydnos, and although he used no charms nor tricks of any sort, he saw his future wife. As he was just about putting out his light, having jumped into bed, the door opened and the goblin mother of the young woman he subsequently married walked into the room, leading her daughter. 'Here, Thomas,' said she, 'I am going, but I leave you Mary.' And when he came down home out of the mountains he found that the old mother had died in her bed at the very moment he saw her goblin. To have done less than marry the girl, after that, would have been to insult the good old lady's ghost, and cast reflections on the reputation of All Hallows eve.

The two other spirit-nights, it may here be mentioned, are May-day eve and Midsummer eve; which with All Hallows were three great festivals of the ancient Druids, when they commemorated the powers of Nature and love in the manner which has been alluded to. I have two accounts of this matter, however, and I know not which is the older in tradition, as I have both from the mouths of the people; but one account calls Christmas-night the third spirit-night.