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II.

marks of his particular favour if we feed a number of hogs sacred to him, and if we had a picture of him with his hog, fire and bell in doors and on the walls of our houses: nor Septuagesima. did we fear, what was more to be dreaded, that any ill would befal those dwellings, where those vices predominated, which that holy man always detested.* St. Velten's (Valentine) Dance in Germany, and St. Vitus's Dance in England, are popular names of other disorders.

Funeral of

Septuagesima, a moveable feast, occurs between this day Septuagesima. and February 22, accordingly as the Paschal full moon falls. It was formerly distinguished by a strange ceremony, denominated the Funeral of Alleluia. On the Saturday of Septuagesima at nones, the choristers assembled in the Alleluia. great vestiary of the cathedral, and there arranged the ceremony. Having finished the last Benedicamus, they advanced with crosses, torches, holy waters, and incense, carry a clod of earth in the manner of a coffin, passed through the choir, and went howling to the cloister, as far as the place of interment; and then having sprinkled the water and censed the place, they returned by the same road. According to a story (whether true or false) in one of the churches of Paris, a choir boy used to whip a top, marked Alleluia, written in golden letters, from one end of the choir to the other. In other places Alleleuia was buried by a serious service on Septuagesima Sunday. This ceremony seems to have originated in a regulation of the council of Toledo, in 643, by the 11th chapter of which, the canticle of joy, called Alleleuia, was forbidden to be sung in the days of Lent, "because that was not a time for rejoicing, but for mourning; and the singing was not to be resumed until Easter, the festival of the resurrection."§ Notker, the ancient German commentator on the Psalms, observes that, the "Alleluia, which we sing at Easter for fifty days, be

* Ιχθυοφαγια.

+ See Gloss. art. Alleleuatice Exequiæ.

Fosbrooke, British Monachism.

Martin, Lipen. Hist. Strenarum, Et. IV., s. 48.

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II.

St. Agnes.

Divinations.

tokens future joys, while Lent denotes the miserable days of this age." The period of preparation for Lent commenced with Septuagesima, and the Funeral of Alleluia seems to have been deemed a necessary prelude.

St. Agnes's Day, January 21, is fruitful in love superstitions, of which the most common are the following. "On St. Agnes's night," says Aubrey, who was rather a credulous person, "take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, singing a paternoster and sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry." Ben Jonson in his beautiful masque of the Satyr, which was presented to Anne, queen of James the first, and prince Henry, at Althorpe, the seat of Lord Spenser, refers to this superstition, but ascribes it to the wrong night (St. Anne's, July 26). Speaking of the fairy queen Mab, his satyr says in lines, which are usually misquoted:

"She can start our Franklin's daughters

In their sleep with shouts and laughters;
And on sweet St. Anna's night,
Feed them with a promised sight,
Some of husbands, some of lovers,

Which an empty dream discovers."

Another divinatory method employed by love sick maidens, is to sleep in a county in which they do not usually reside, and to knit the left garter round the right leg stocking, leaving the other garter and stocking untouched. They then repeat the following spell, knitting a knot at the end of each line:

:

"This knot I knit,

To know the thing I know not yet,

That I may see

The man that shall my husband be,

How he goes, and what he wears,

And what he does all days and years."

Alleluja die wir ze Ostron singen per quinquaginta dies, bezeichnet futura gaudia; also auch Quadragesima bezeichnet ærumnosos dies hujus sæculi." In P§. CXI. 1. apud Schilter, Thesaur. Antiq. Teuton. Tom. iii., p. 21.

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II.

And if spells fail not, he will appear in a dream with the insignia of his profession. Gay gives a classical example of tying the love-knot, for the purpose of confirming a lover Amatory in his passion:-

"As Lubberkin once slept beneath a tree,
I twitch'd his dangling garter from his knee.
He wist not when the hempen string I drew,
Now mine I quickly doff, of inkle blue.
Together fast I tie the garters twain;

And while I knit the knot, repeat this strain:
Three times a true-love's knot I tie secure,

Firm be the knot, firm may his love endure."

This tying of amatory knots, to unite the affections of others with their own, as in Gay's instance, was a common expedient among the Romans:

"Necte tribus nodis ternos, Amarylli, colores;

Necte, Amarylli, modo; et Veneris, die, vincula necto."*
"Knit with three knots the fillet, knit them straight,

And say, these knots to love I consecrate."

Dryden.

Divinations.

St. Vincent's Day, Jan. 22, is distinguished by an in- St. Vincent junction to observe whether the sun shine, which is quoted

by Brand:

"Vincenti festo si sol radiet memor esto."
"Remember on St. Vincent's day

If that the sun his beams display."

Abr. Flemming.

Dr. Forster supposes that it may have arisen from an Prognostiidea that the sun would not shine inauspiciously "on that cations of Weather day, on which the martyrdom of the saint was so inhumanly finished by burning.+ There is, however, an old proverb of the vintagers, to which it seems closely allied:-

"A la fête de Saint Vincent

Le vin monte dans le sarment;

Et on va bien autrement,

S'il gêle, il en descend."

• Peren. Calend. p. 26.

+ Virg. Eclog. VIII., v. 77.-"Dum hæc loquitur maga imagunculam Daphnidis tenere eamque tribus filis, diversi quoque coloris, circumdare et circa aram portare putanda est."-Heyne, Annot. in Loc.

BOOK
II.

St. Paul.

Egyptian
Days.

The Eve of St. Paul, January 24, is marked as "Dies Ægyptiacus," in the old Kalendar quoted by Brand, who states his ignorance of any reason for calling it an Egyptian day. An admission of insufficient acquaintance with the term itself is made by Lambecius, in his notes on the Valentinian Kalendar, composed about A.D. 354,* in which the following days are marked as Egyptian:

St. Paul.

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Beda, in his poem "De Horologio," says that as Egypt in Greek signifies darkness; the day of death is called an Egyptian Day, and that there are twenty two days in the year, in which one hour is terrible to mortals:

-

"Si tenebræ Ægyptus Graio sermone vocatur,
Inde dies mortis tenebrososque jure vocamus:
Bis deni, binique dies seribantur in anno,
In quibus una solet mortalibus hora timeri."

The old historian, William Neubrigensis, thinks that
they are called Egyptian Days from the authors of the su-
perstition; and this seems very probable. According to
Herodotus they first distributed the year into twelve
months, and, giving to each a patron deity, they predicted
human fortune, and the day of death, by that of birth.§
To this Manilius refers in the first book of his
Astronomy:-

"Nascendi quæ cuique dies, quæ vita fuisset,
In quas fortunæ leges quæque hora valeret."

To St. Paul's Day, or the Conversion of St. Paul,
January 25, the superstition of many countries has ascribed

"De Die Ægyptiaco, cujus mentio in hoc kalendario passim occurrit, nondum mihi satis liquet." Græv. Thesaur. Antiq. Tom. viii., p. 104. Lib. IV., cap. 1.

Lib. II., cap. 4.
Ibid. cap. 82.

the virtue of indicating the good or ill fortune of the ensu-
ing year. The following monkish rhymes seem to have
been familiar to all nations in the middle
ages:-
:-

"Clara dies Pauli bona tempora denotat anni;

Si fuerint venti, designant prælia genti;

Si fuerint nebulæ, pereunt animalia quæque ;
Si nix, si pluvia, designant tempora cara.*

Of these canons of prognostication there is extant the following ancient version, which Willsford has inserted somewhat altered, in his Nature's Secrets' :

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"If Saint Paules day be faire and cleare

It doth betide a happy yeare:

But if by chance it then should raine,

It will make deare all kinds of graine.

If the clouds make dark the skie,

The neate and fowles this year shall die:

If blustering winds do blow aloft,

Then wars shall trouble the realm full oft."

The usual state of the weather at this season seems to have given rise to proverbial phrases as well as prognostications; thus Shakspeare's Don Pedro says,—

"Good morrow, Benedict; why what's the matter

That you have such a February face,

So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?"+

On this month, consisting of the same number of days as the solar cycle, Owen has the following epigram :

Es similis Matri tu, de tot fratribus, unus;

Sunt tibi viginti scilicet octo dies.

February 1 is dedicated to St. Bride, Bridget, or Brigida, who appears to be no other than old deity of Ireland, the goddess Brid, Brit, or Brighit, the daughter of

* Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Codex, 2067, art. 14.

+ Much ado about Nothing, Act V., sc. 4.

Epigrammat. Joannis Audoeni Cambro-Britanni. Lib. IV., Ep. 108, Lond. 1659.

BOOK

II.

St. Paul.

St. Bride

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