Loe raamatut: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 323, July 19, 1828», lehekülg 3

Manners & Customs of all Nations

SACRAMENTAL BREAD

The church of Rome, in the height of its power, was extremely scrupulous in all that related to the sacramental bread. According to Steevens, in his Monasticon, they first chose the wheat, grain by grain, and washed it very carefully. Being put into a bag, appointed only for that use, a servant, known to be a just man, carried it to the mill, worked the grindstones, covering them with curtains above and below; and having put on himself an albe, covered his face with a veil, nothing but his eyes appearing. The same precaution was used with the meal. It was not baked till it had been well washed; and the warden of the church, if he were either priest or deacon, finished the work, being assisted by two other religious men, who were in the same orders, and by a lay brother, particularly appointed for that business. These four monks, when matins were ended, washed their faces and hands. The three first of them put on albes; one of them washed the meal with pure, clean water, and the other two baked the hosts in the iron moulds. So great was the veneration and respect, say their historians, the monks of Cluni paid to the Eucharist! Even at this day, in the country, the baker who prepares the sacramental wafer, must be appointed and authorized to do it by the Catholic bishop of the district, as appears by the advertisement inserted in that curious book, published annually, The Catholic Laity’s Directory.

FOSTER CHILDREN

There still remains in the Hebrides, though it is passing fast away, the custom of fosterage. A laird, a man of wealth and eminence, sends his child, either male or female, to a tacksman or tenant to be fostered. It is not always his own tenant, but some distant friend that obtains this honour; for an honour such a trust is very reasonably thought. The terms of fosterage seem to vary in different islands. In Mull, the father sends with his child a certain number of cows, to which the same number is added by the fosterer. The father appropriates a proportionable extent of ground, without rent, for their pasturage. If every cow bring a calf, half belongs to the fosterer, and half to the child; but if there be only one calf between two cows, it is the child’s; and when the child returns to the parents, it is accompanied with all the cows given, both by the father and by the fosterer, with half of the increase of the stock by propagation. These beasts are considered as a portion, and called Macalive cattle, &c.

Children continue with the fosterer perhaps six years; and cannot, where this is the practice, be considered as burdensome. The fosterer, if he gives four cows, receives likewise four, and has, while the child continues with him, grass for eight without rent, with half the calves, and all the milk, for which he pays only four cows, when he dismisses his dalt, for that is the name for a fostered child.—Johnson’s Journey.

THE IRISH PEOPLE

Holinshed, speaking of the Irish, observes:—“Greedy of praise they be, and fearful of dishonour; and to this end they esteem their poets, who write Irish learnedly, and pen their sonnets heroical, for the which they are bountifully rewarded; if not, they send out libels in dispraise, whereof the lords and gentlemen stand in great awe. They love tenderly their foster children, and bequeath to them a child’s fortune, whereby they nourish sure friendship,—so beneficent every way, that commonly 500 cows and better are given in reward to win a nobleman’s child to foster; they love and trust their foster children more than their own. Proud they are of long crisped bushes of hair, which they term libs. They observe divers degrees, according to which each man is regarded. The basest sort among them are little young wasps, called daltins: these are lacqueys, and are serviceable to the grooms, or horseboys, who are a degree above the daltins. The third degree is the kaerne, which is an ordinary soldier, using for weapon his sword and target, and sometimes his piece, being commonly so good marksmen, as they will come within a score of a great cartele. The fourth degree is a gallowglass, using a kind of poll-axe for his weapon, strong, robust men, chiefly feeding on beef, pork, and butter. The fifth degree is to be a horseman, which is the chiefest, next to the lord and captain. These horsemen, when they have no stay of their own, gad and range from house to house, and never dismount till they ride into the hall, and as far as the tables.”

MARRIAGE

The minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, in his statistical account of that parish, supplies us with the following curious information on this and other marriage ceremonies:—“Immediately before the celebration of the marriage ceremony, every knot about the bride and bridegroom (garters, shoe-strings, strings of petticoats, &c.) is carefully loosed. After leaving the church, the whole company walk round it, keeping the church walls always upon the right hand; the bridegroom, however, first retires one way, with some young men, to tie the knots that were loosened about him, while the young married woman, in the same manner, retires somewhere else to adjust the disorder of her dress.”

NEEDFIRE

The following extract contains a distinct and interesting account of this very ancient superstition, as used in Caithness:

“In 1788, when the stock of any considerable farmer was seized with the murrain, he would send for one of the charm doctors to superintend the raising of a needfire. It was done by friction, thus: upon any small island, where the stream of a river or burn ran on each side, a circular booth was erected, of stone and turf, as it could be had, in which a semicircular or highland couple of birch, or other hard wood, was set; and, in short, a roof closed on it. A straight pole was set up in the centre of this building, the upper end fixed by a wooden pin to the top of the couple, and the lower end in an oblong trink in the earth or floor; and lastly, another pole was set across horizontally, having both ends tapered, one end of which was supported in a hole in the side of the perpendicular pole, and the other end in a similar hole in the couple leg. The horizontal stick was called the auger, having four short arms or levers fixed in its centre, to work it by; the building having been thus finished, as many men as could be collected in the vicinity, (being divested of all kinds of metal in their clothes, &c.) would set to work with the said auger, two after two, constantly turning it round by the arms or levers, and others occasionally driving wedges of wood or stone behind the lower end of the upright pole, so as to press it the more on the end of the auger; by this constant friction and pressure, the ends of the auger would take fire, from which a fire would be instantly kindled, and thus the needfire would be accomplished. The fire in the farmer’s house, &c. was immediately quenched with water, a fire kindled from this needfire, both in the farm-house and offices, and the cattle brought to feel the smoke of this new and sacred fire, which preserved them from the murrain. So much for superstition.—It is handed down by tradition, that the ancient Druids superintended a similar ceremony of raising a sacred fire, annually, on the first day of May. That day is still, both in the Gaelic and Irish dialects, called Lâ-bealtin, i.e. the day of Baal’s fire, or the fire dedicated to Baal, or the sun.”

UNSPOKEN WATER

In Scotland, water from under a bridge, over which the living pass and the dead are carried, brought in the dawn or twilight to the house of a sick person, without the bearer’s speaking, either in going or returning, is called Unspoken Water.

The modes of application are various. Sometimes the invalid takes three draughts of it before anything is spoken. Sometimes it is thrown over the houses the vessel in which it was contained being thrown after it. The superstitious believe this to be one of the most powerful charms that can be employed for restoring a sick person to health.

The purifying virtue attributed to water, by almost all nations, is so well known as to require no illustration. Some special virtue has still been ascribed to silence in the use of charms, exorcisms, &c. I recollect, says Mr. Jamieson, being assured at Angus, that a Popish priest in that part of the country, who was supposed to possess great power in curing those who were deranged, and in exorcising demoniacs, would, if called to see a patient, on no account utter a single word on his way, or after arriving at the house, till he had by himself gone through all his appropriate forms in order to effect a cure. Whether this practice might be founded on our Lord’s injunction to the Seventy, expressive of the diligence he required, Luke x. 4, “Salute no man by the way,” or borrowed from heathen superstition, it is impossible to ascertain. We certainly know that the Romans viewed silence as of the utmost importance in their sacred rites. Hence the phrase of Virgil,—

 
“Fida silentia sacris.”
 

Fauere sacris, fauere linguis, and pascere linguam, were forms of speech appropriated to their sacred rites, by which they enjoined silence, that the act of worship might not be disturbed by the slightest noise or murmur. Hence also they honoured Harpocrates as the god of silence; and Numa instituted the worship of a goddess under the name of Tacita.