Folk Lore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeare Land

J. Harvey Bloom

Description

This vintage book contains a fascinating treatise on the customs and traditions of England, with information on its folklore, history, and more. From folk rhymes and funeral customs to brewing ale and the occult, this volume contains a wealth if information that will appeal to those with an interest in England and it's people. Contents include: "The Farmer and his Men", "Family Life: Marriage", "Christening and Birth Customs", "Children's Complaints", "Women's Indoor Work-Baking", "Brewing", "Washing", "Death and Funeral Customs", "The Husband and Wife", "Dress", "Farm Buildings", "The farm-house and Cottage", et cetera. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with its original artwork and text. First published in 1929.

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Mythology
• Folklore

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 06 septembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473340893
• Langue: English

Extrait

FOLK LORE, OLD CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS IN SHAKESPEARE LAND.
BY
J. HARVEY BLOOM, M.A., Hon. F.S.G.
Author of Shakespeare s Garden, The Griffins of Dingley, English Seals , etc.
FOREWORD.

T HERE are a number of small and beautiful villages, hidden away among the blue hills and glorious valleys of the Cotswolds, where until lately the placid peace of the countryside remained quite undisturbed by the restlessness of modern life, wherein men and women lived as their forefathers had done for centuries, or very nearly so. In these places, and in hamlets far distant from the beaten track, old myths were handed down, old manners held their own, and the folk kept folk-faith; they were all but self sufficing.
The old church was a centre, the ancient manor house a place of warm affection, and they thoroughly understood one another, leading a simple unambitious life, with its cares and sorrows, its very real joys and pleasures. Among these villages I had the good fortune to have many humble friends, and from them learnt what their grandparents had handed down of the old customs of their vill.
Enclosure acts have played havoc with the past, but in one of these hamlets, Crimscot, the act has never been put into operation, and the strips and ridges of the common field remain to-day as they have ever been. In this district lived my old friend Mr. F. S. Potter with his aged sister, almost a centenarian; their old-world garden served them as a place to make friends with bird and butterfly. There, feeding the nuthatches, hearkening to the hoot of the owl, the two lived in peace with the world and made peace, for in their presence all the discontent and quarrels of life were soothed away. No word of unkind condemnation ever passed their lips, they lived as peace makers and were loved.
They gave me of their store, wise observation, boundless knowledge. I promised that when I could it should be published, with such small additions as I collected, in order to record ere it was too late the passing of the ancient ways of hand workmanship, the personal relation of master and man, before the paid agitator had his way. Their memory recalled the practices of a century. Whether it was worth the while those who deign to read must say. Much is not new, very far from it, but I hope some little has been added to the knowledge of folklorists.
Notes alone would hardly suffice to piece themselves together, so it seemed needful to put down some elements of the law and the general trend of history, and thereby form a more or less connected story. This little book is not primarily meant for those who know, but for those to whom Brand and Fraser are sealed books. It may serve to show workers in other counties that there is a good deal still left worthy of record in the small happenings that left their impress on the village mind.
My thanks are due to all who helped me. They are too numerous to mention by name, but I thank them none the less.
Little has been said of the village church and its clergy, not because they have no part in the life of the village, but because they deserve a different treatment. As in other things they changed with the times, but never, I think, did either the priest or the church he served be other than an influence for good in the daily life of the place. Nor was the hunting parson of the eighteenth century less watchful over his people according to his lights than his Anglo-Catholic successor.
The little book is not exhaustive, and its readers may easily be led to condemn its arrangement, but I trust its shortcomings will be forgiven. All of us have much that needs forgiveness, most of all an author.
J. H. B.
December, 1929 .
CONTENTS.

I. The Farmer and his Men
II. Family Life: Marriage
III. Christening and Birth Customs
IV. Baptismal Lore
V. Children s Complaints
VI. Woman s Indoor Work-Baking
Brewing
Washing
VII. Death and Funeral Customs
VIII. The Husband and Wife
IX. Dress
X. Farm Buildings
XI. The Farm-house and Cottage
XII. Furniture
XIII. Farm-work
XIV. Occult Influences
XV. Fairs and Markets
XVI. Fast and Festival
XVII. Folk Rhymes
XVIII. The Poor
XIX. Children of the Village
XX. A Medley
Appendices-
I. A Legend of Long Compton
II. Guy of Warwick, and Colbran
III. Specimen of the Services due from a Villain on the Manor of Old Stratford in 1252
IV. Specimen of the Will of a rich Warwickshire Yeoman
V. Guy of Warwick
VI. One-handed Broughton
VII. Wroth Silver
VIII. Place Names
Index
AUTHORITIES CITED.
A. M. S. Mrs. A. Savage, Stratford-upon-Avon. MS.
Brand, John (ed. Sir Henry Ellis). Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain. Bohn s Ant. Lib. 1854. 3 vols. 8vo.
Cardwell, E. Synodalia. Oxford, 1842. 2 vols. 8vo.
E. D. D. Wright s English Dialect Dictionary.
E. S. Mr. Edmund Smith. MS.
F. G. S. Mr. Fred. G. Savage of Stratford-upon-Avon.
MS. Fitzherbert, Sir Anthony. The Boke of Husbandry, 1534.
Fraser, Sir J. G. The Golden Bough. 12 vols., 1907-15, 8vo.
F. S. P. Mr. Frederick Scarlett Potter of Halford. MS.
Hales. M. R. Amphlett, John, Halesowen Manor Rolls. Worcester Hist. Soc. 2 vols. 4to.
Hone, William. The Year-Book of Daily Recreation and Information. London, 1832. 8vo.
J. S. Mr. James Simms. MS.
Laneham, Robert. A letter whearin part of the Entertainment vnto the Queens Maiesty at Killingworth Castl in Warwichsheir in the Soomerz Progress in 1575 is signified. 1575. 16mo.
Maitland. The History of English Law. Sir Fred. Pollock and Fred. Will. Maitland. Cambridge, 1898. 2 vols. royal 8vo.
P.R.O. Public Record Office.
FOLK LORE, OLD CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS IN SHAKESPEARE LAND.

CHAPTER I.
T HE F ARMER AND HIS M EN .
When William of Normandy broke the shield wall at Senlac, and Harold fell, the Normans found in England a ruling aristocracy, the Eorles, thegns, ceorls and theows, respectively the upper ten, the middle classes and the lower five of the period. The survivals in custom, tradition and song, which are so rapidly disappearing from our midst, have reached us across the centuries from the homestead of the ceorl, or the cot of his slave, and these people themselves inherited them from yet earlier traditions, going back in some instances to the very dawn of the Aryan invasion, at least to the people of the new Stone Age if no further.
The Normans wrought some changes, old things were called by new names. The Norman Count and Baron ousted the Saxon Eorl and thegn from their rights and land, and the free ceorl and socmen the unfree villain, cottar, and bordar of Domesday and beyond. The theow very shortly disappeared; his masters did not understand a man who had no rights, and had no particular use for him. He gradually rose in the world, gained certain rights, was no longer a mere chattel, and even at rare intervals owned property of a humble kind.
The villain farmer, who became either a freeholder by a rise in the world, or smaller until he was reduced to a grade but little superior to the cottar, was the prototype of the tenant farmer of to-day. He differed from the Saxon ceorl in that he was obliged to have some lord-someone, that is, who could be responsible for his good behaviour and could be made to bear the blame, or at any rate pay a money fine, if his conduct was unsatisfactory. To this lord he took an oath of fealty and became, as the phrase ran, his man ; another phrase states that he went with his land to his lord. In other words, he gave his freedom and placed his means of livelihood under his master s protection. His land was still his own, and he paid no rent for it. The lord obtained a stalwart retainer, who would fight for him without any enquiry into the merit of the case. The lord saw to it that his follower was not ejected, was not unduly oppressed, and had enough food and sufficient instruments of husbandry to do his work in a practical and proper manner. To the freeholder he was not so bound.
Very shortly his possession became assured by deed, and he and his wife and children secured from being turned adrift by a mere whim, so long as their services were strictly rendered, and such services were settled according to the custom of their own particular manor. On the death of the father the eldest son steps into his place, pays the succession duty (the heriot), and his son in due course follows him. There were moreover other means of enriching the villain. He might hire land through some specified service such as training hounds, tending hawks, making deer hayes, or even by teaching the lord s daughters fancy-work. The ordinary villain, however, held his lands by servile service. He must plough and sow, reap and harrow, tend the swine, mend the deer hayes, gather fuel and nuts so many days in the week, with extra service in haytime and harvest, such as mowing, carrying corn, etc. By these means the lord was enabled to get most of his work done without the payment of wages; and his man was provided with land and a home and the means of furnishing his cottage and stocking his holding. In theory, at the owner s death, all returned to the lord, in which case the heir would have been penniless. In practice the lord took a single thing, the dead man s best animal. On the payment of this heriot the son was admitted to the father s holding, which he cultivated exactly as his father had done, and without any inclination or indeed small possibility of making improvements.
Nevertheless they were very far from being free agents. They could not on any account leave their lord and go away to someone else; they could only marry their sons and daughters with their lord s consent. They could not carry corn to be ground except to their lord s mill, nor might they have a sheep-fold of their own. The villains had to barter away some of their freedom for the protection of a powerful master, who found their services useful and convenient. Each little homestead was at this period almost