Folk-lore of Shakespeare

Lammas-day (August 1). According to some antiquarians, Lammas is a corruption of loaf-mass, as our ancestors made an offering of bread from new wheat on this day. Others derive it from lamb-mass, because the tenants who held lands under the Cathedral Church of York were bound by their tenure to bring a live lamb into the church at high mass.675 It appears to have been a popular day in times past, and is mentioned in the following dialogue in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 3), where the Nurse inquires:

“How long is it nowTo Lammas-tide?Lady Capulet. A fortnight, and odd days.Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen?”

In Neale’s “Essays on Liturgiology” (2d. ed., p. 526), the Welsh equivalent for Lammas-day is given as “dydd degwm wyn,” lamb-tithing day.

St. Charity (August 1). This saint is found in the Martyrology on the 1st of August: “Romæ passio Sanctaram Virginum Fidei, Spei, et Charitatis, quæ sub Hadriano principe martyriæ coronam adeptæ sunt.”676 She is alluded to by Ophelia, in her song in “Hamlet” (iv. 5):

“By Gis,677 and by Saint Charity,Alack, and fie for shame!” etc.

In the “Faire Maide of Bristowe” (1605) we find a similar allusion:

“Now, by Saint Charity, if I were judge,A halter were the least should hamper him.”

St. Bartholomew’s Day (August 24). The anniversary of this festival was formerly signalized by the holding of the great Smithfield Fair, the only real fair held within the city of London. One of the chief attractions of Bartholomew Fair were roasted pigs. They were sold “piping hot, in booths and on stalls, and ostentatiously displayed to excite the appetite of passengers.” Hence, a “Bartholomew pig” became a popular subject of allusion. Falstaff, in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), in coaxing ridicule of his enormous figure, is playfully called, by his favorite Doll: “Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig.” Dr. Johnson, however, thought that paste pigs were meant in this passage; but this is improbable, as the true Bartholomew pigs were real roasted pigs, as may be seen from Ben Jonson’s play of “Bartholomew Fair” (i. 6), where Ursula, the pig-woman, is an important personage.678 Gay, too, speaks of the pig-dressers: “Like Bartholomew Fair pig-dressers, who look like the dams, as well as the cooks, of what they roasted.” A further allusion to this season is found in “Henry V,” (v. 2), where Burgundy tells how “maids, well-summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.”

Harvest Home. The ceremonies which graced the ingathering of the harvest in bygone times have gradually disappeared, and at the present day only remnants of the old usages which once prevailed are still preserved. Shakespeare, who has chronicled so many of our old customs, and seems to have had a special delight in illustrating his writings with these characteristics of our social life, has given several interesting allusions to the observances which, in his day, graced the harvest-field. Thus, in Warwickshire, the laborers, at their harvest-home, appointed a judge to try misdemeanors committed during harvest, and those who were sentenced to punishment were placed on a bench and beaten with a pair of boots. Hence the ceremony was called “giving them the boots.” It has been suggested that this custom is alluded to in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (i. 1), where Shakespeare makes Proteus, parrying Valentine’s raillery, say, “nay, give me not the boots.”

In Northamptonshire, when any one misconducted himself in the field during harvest, he was subjected to a mock-trial at the harvest-home feast, and condemned to be booted, a description of which we find in the introduction to Clare’s “Village Minstrel:” “A long form is placed in the kitchen, upon which the boys who have worked well sit, as a terror and disgrace to the rest, in a bent posture, with their hands laid on each other’s backs, forming a bridge for the ‘hogs’ (as the truant boys are called) to pass over; while a strong chap stands on each side with a boot-legging, soundly strapping them as they scuffle over the bridge, which is done as fast as their ingenuity can carry them.” Some, however, think the allusion in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” is to the diabolical torture of the boot. Not a great while before this play was written, it had been inflicted, says Douce,679 in the presence of King James, on one Dr. Fian, a supposed wizard, who was charged with raising the storms that the king encountered in his return from Denmark. The unfortunate man was afterwards burned. This horrible torture, we are told,680 consisted in the leg and knee of the criminal being enclosed within a tight iron boot or case, wedges of iron being then driven in with a mallet between the knee and the iron boot. Sir Walter Scott, in “Old Mortality,” has given a description of Macbriar undergoing this punishment. At a later period “the boot” signified, according to Nares,681 an instrument for tightening the leg or hand, and was used as a cure for the gout, and called a “bootikins.” The phrase “to give the boots” seems to have been a proverbial expression, signifying “Don’t make a laughing-stock of me; don’t play upon me.”

In the “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1), where Lorenzo says:

“Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn:With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear,And draw her home with music,”

we have, doubtless, an allusion to the “Hock Cart” of the old harvest-home. This was the cart which carried the last corn away from the harvest-field,682 and was generally profusely decorated, and accompanied by music, old and young shouting at the top of their voices a doggerel after the following fashion:

“We have ploughed, we have sowed,We have reaped, we have mowed,We have brought home every load,Hip, hip, hip! harvest home.”683

In “Poor Robin’s Almanack” for August, 1676, we read:

“Hoacky is brought home with hallowing,Boys with plumb-cake the cart following.”

Holyrood Day (September 14). This festival,684 called also Holy-Cross Day, was instituted by the Romish Church, on account of the recovery of a large piece of the supposed cross by the Emperor Heraclius, after it had been taken away, on the plundering of Jerusalem, by Chosroes, king of Persia. Among the customs associated with this day was one of going a-nutting, alluded to in the old play of “Grim, the Collier of Croydon” (ii. 1):

“To morrow is Holy-rood day,When all a-nutting take their way.”

Shakespeare mentions this festival in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 1), where he represents the Earl of Westmoreland relating how,

“On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,Young Harry Percy and brave Archibald,That ever-valiant and approved Scot,At Holmedon met.”

St. Lambert’s Day (September 17). This saint, whose original name was Landebert, but contracted into Lambert, was a native of Maestricht, in the seventh century, and was assassinated early in the eighth.685 His festival is alluded to in “Richard II.” (i. 1), where the king says:

“Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert’s day.”

Michaelmas (September 29). In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 1), this festival is alluded to by Simple, who, in answer to Slender, whether he had “the Book of riddles” about him, replies: “Why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas,” – this doubtless being an intended blunder.

In “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), Francis says: “Let me see – about Michaelmas next I shall be.”

St. Etheldreda, or Audry, commemorated in the Romish Calendar on the 23d of June, but in the English Calendar on the 17th of October, was daughter of Annas, King of the East Angles. She founded the convent and church of Ely, on the spot where the cathedral was subsequently erected. Formerly, at Ely, a fair was annually held, called in her memory St. Audry’s Fair, at which much cheap lace was sold to the poorer classes, which at first went by the name of St. Audry’s lace, but in time was corrupted into “tawdry lace.” Shakespeare makes an allusion to this lace in the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4), where Mopsa says: “Come, you promised me a tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves;” although in his time the expression rather meant a rustic necklace.686 An old English historian makes St. Audry die of a swelling in her throat, which she considered as a particular judgment for having been in her youth addicted to wearing fine necklaces.687

St. Crispin’s Day (October 25) has for centuries been a red-letter day in the calendar of the shoemakers, being the festival of their patron saint. According to tradition, the brothers Crispin and Crispinian, natives of Rome, having become converted to Christianity, travelled to Soissons, in France, in order to preach the gospel. Being desirous, however, of rendering themselves independent, they earned their daily bread by making shoes, with which, it is said, they furnished the poor, at an extremely low price. When the governor of the town discovered that they maintained the Christian faith, and also tried to make proselytes of the inhabitants, he ordered them to be beheaded. From this time the shoemakers have chosen them for their tutelary saints. Shakespeare has perpetuated the memory of this festival by the speech which he has given to Henry V. (iv. 3), before the battle of Agincourt:

“This day is call’d the feast of Crispian:He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,And rouse him at the name of Crispian.He that shall live this day, and see old age,Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,And say, ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’”

St. Dennis has been adopted as the patron saint of France (October 9), in the same manner as the English have chosen St. George. The guardianship of the two countries is thus expressed in the chorus to the old ballad:

“St. George he was for England,St. Denis was for France,Singing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.”

King Henry (“Henry V.,” v. 2) says to Princess Katherine: “Shall not thou and I, between Saint Dennis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half English,” etc. In “1 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), Charles says:

“Saint Dennis bless this happy stratagem,And once again we’ll sleep secure in Rouen.”

Hallowmas (November 1) is one of the names for the feast of All-hallows, that is, All-Saints. Shakespeare alludes to a custom relative to this day, some traces of which are still to be found in Staffordshire, Cheshire, and other counties. The poor people go from parish to parish a-souling, as they term it, that is, begging, in a certain lamentable tone, for soul-cakes, at the same time singing a song which they call the souler’s song. This practice is, no doubt, a remnant of the Popish ceremony of praying for departed souls, especially those of friends, on the ensuing day, November 2, the feast of All-Souls.688 The following is a specimen of the doggerel sung on these occasions:

“Soul! soul! for a soul-cake;Pray, good mistress, for a soul-cake.One for Peter, and two for Paul,Three for them who made us all.Soul! soul! for an apple or two:If you’ve got no apples, pears will do.Up with your kettle, and down with your pan,Give me a good big one, and I’ll be gone.Soul! soul! for a soul-cake, etc.An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,Is a very good thing to make us merry.”

In the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (ii. 1), Speed thus speaks of this practice: “To watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling,689 like a beggar at Hallowmas.”

The season of Hallowmas, having been frequently mild, has been, from time immemorial, proverbially called “All-hallown summer,” i. e., late summer. Thus, in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 2), Prince Henry, likening Falstaff, with his old age and young passions, to this November summer, addresses him: “Farewell, thou latter spring! Farewell, All-hallown summer.”690 In some parts of Germany there is a proverb, “All-Saints’ Day brings the second summer;” and in Sweden there is often about this time a continuance of warm, still weather, which is called “the All-Saints’ rest.”

There is another reference to this festival in “Richard II.” (v. 1), where the king says of his wife:

“She came adorned hither like sweet May,Sent back like Hallowmas or short’st of day.”

All-Souls’ Day (November 2) – which is set apart by the Roman Catholic Church for a solemn service for the repose of the dead – was formerly observed in this country, and among the many customs celebrated in its honor were ringing the passing bell, making soul-cakes, blessing beans, etc.691 In “Richard III.” (v. 1), Buckingham, when led to execution, says:

“This is All-Souls’ day, fellows, is it not?Sheriff. It is, my lord.Buckingham. Why, then, All-Souls’ day is my body’s doomsday.”

Lord Mayor’s Day (November 9). A custom which was in days gone by observed at the inauguration dinner was that of the Lord Mayor’s fool leaping, clothes and all, into a large bowl of custard. It is alluded to in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (ii. 5), by Lafeu: “You have made shift to run into’t, boots and spurs and all, like him that leaped into the custard.” Ben Jonson, in his “Devil’s an Ass” (i. 1), thus refers to it:

“He may, perchance, in tail of a sheriff’s dinner,Skip with a rime o’ the table, from new nothing,And take his almain leap into a custard,Shall make my lady mayoress and her sisters,Laugh all their hoods over their shoulders.”

St. Martin’s Day (November 11). The mild weather about this time has given rise to numerous proverbs; one of the well-known ones being “St. Martin’s little summer,” an allusion to which we find in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 2), where Joan of Arc says:

“Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days.”

which Johnson paraphrases thus: “Expect prosperity after misfortune, like fair weather at Martlemas, after winter has begun.” As an illustration, too, of this passage, we may quote from the Times, October 6, 1864: “It was one of those rare but lovely exceptions to a cold season, called in the Mediterranean St. Martin’s summer.”

A corruption of Martinmas is Martlemas. Falstaff is jocularly so called by Poins, in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 2), as being in the decline, as the year is at this season: “And how doth the martlemas, your master?”

This was the customary time for hanging up provisions to dry, which had been salted for winter use.

St. Nicholas (December 6). This saint was deemed the patron of children in general, but more particularly of all schoolboys, among whom his festival used to be a very great holiday. Various reasons have been assigned for his having been chosen as the patron of children – either because the legend makes him to have been a bishop while yet a boy, or from his having restored three young scholars to life who had been cruelly murdered,692 or, again, on account of his early abstinence when a boy. In the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (iii. 1) he is alluded to in this capacity:

“Speed. Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.Launce. There; and Saint Nicholas be thy speed.”

Nicholas’s clerks was, and still is, a cant term for highwaymen and robbers; but though the expression is very common, its origin is a matter of uncertainty. In “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1) it is thus alluded to:

“Gadshill. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’ clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.

Chamberlain. No. I’ll none of it: I pr’thee, keep that for the hangman: for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.”

Christmas. Among the observances associated with this season, to which Shakespeare alludes, we may mention the Christmas Carol, a reference to which is probably made in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), by Titania:

“No night is now with hymn or carol blest.”

Hamlet (ii. 2) quotes two lines from a popular ballad, entitled the “Song of Jephthah’s Daughter,” and adds: “The first row of the pious chanson will show you more.”693

In days gone by, the custom of carol-singing was most popular, and Warton, in his “History of English Poetry,” notices a license granted in 1562 to John Tysdale for printing “Certayne goodly carowles to be songe to the glory of God;” and again “Crestenmas Carowles auctorisshed by my lord of London.”694

In the “Taming of the Shrew” (Ind., sc. 2) Sly asks whether “a comonty695 is not a Christmas gambold.” Formerly the sports and merry-makings at this season were on a most extensive scale, being presided over by the Lord of Misrule.696 Again, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), Biron speaks of “a Christmas comedy.”

As we have noticed, too, in our chapter on Plants, a gilt nutmeg was formerly a common gift at Christmas, and on other festive occasions, to which an allusion is probably made in the same scene. Formerly, at this season, the head of the house assembled his family around a bowl of spiced ale, from which he drank their healths, then passed it to the rest, that they might drink too. The word that passed among them was the ancient Saxon phrase wass hael697, i. e., to your health. Hence this came to be recognized as the wassail or wassel bowl; and was the accompaniment to festivity of every kind throughout the year. Thus Hamlet (i. 4) says:

“The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,Keeps wassail.”

And in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), Biron speaks of:

“wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs.”

In “Macbeth” (i. 7), it is used by Lady Macbeth in the sense of intemperance, who, speaking of Duncan’s two chamberlains, says:

“Will I with wine and wassail so convince,That memory, the warder of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA limbeck only.”

In “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 4), Cæsar advises Antony to live more temperately, and to leave his “lascivious wassails.”698

In the same way, a “wassail candle” denoted a large candle lighted up at a festival, a reference to which occurs in “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2):

“Chief-Justice. You are as a candle, the better part burnt out.Falstaff. A wassail candle, my lord; all tallow.”

A custom which formerly prevailed at Christmas, and has not yet died out, was for mummers to go from house to house, attired in grotesque attire, performing all kinds of odd antics.699 Their performances, however, were not confined to this season. Thus, in “Coriolanus” (ii. 1) Menenius speaks of making “faces like mummers.”

Cakes and Ale. It was formerly customary on holidays and saints’ days to make cakes in honor of the day. In “Twelfth Night” (ii. 3), Sir Toby says: “Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?” To which the Clown replies: “Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth too.”

Wakes. In days gone by, the church wake was an important institution, and was made the occasion for a thorough holiday. Each church, when consecrated, was dedicated to a saint, and on the anniversary of that day was kept the wake. In many places there was a second wake on the birthday of the saint. At such seasons, the floor of the church was strewed with rushes and flowers, and in the churchyard tents were erected, to supply cakes and ale for the use of the merrymakers on the following day, which was kept as a holiday. They are still kept up in many parishes, but in a very different manner.700 In “King Lear” (iii. 6), Edgar says: “Come, march to wakes and fairs, and market towns.” We may also compare “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2) and “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 2). In “Hamlet” (i. 4) it is used in the sense of revel.

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,

“So wise so young, they say, do never live long,”

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

“The midwife wonder’d; and the women cried‘O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!’And so I was; which plainly signifiedThat 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:

“Fire, fire, burn bone,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:

“Because that she, as her attendant, hathA lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king;She never had so sweet a changeling.”

And further on, in the same scene, Oberon says:

“I do but beg a little changeling boy,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).

“From thence a faery thee unweeting reft,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:

“O that it could be prov’dThat some night-tripping fairy had exchang’dIn 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.