In the north parts of Northants godparents used to give their godchildren sweet currant buns called Valentine buns on the Sundays before and after St. Valentine's day. In Rutlandshire lozenge-shaped buns called 'shittles' were given to children and old people on Valentine's day[1]—obviously to compliment the latter and impart their longevity to the young.
Another taunt comes from Ireland, where "in Connaught, the colleens there have a quaint custom on Shrove Tuesday night. They take hold of all the young bachelors and rub salt on their faces. The object of this surprising custom is, I understand, to preserve the men until the following Shrove!"[2]
An account of the "black" Mass of St. Sécaire will be found in The Magic Art (i., pp. 232-3), but St Sécaire was not wholly bad, since his mass was resorted to in Gascony to bring a recalcitrant lover up to the scratch, especially one who had seduced the girl.[3] Who this saint really was it is difficult to say, and the Gis or Cis and St. Charity of Ophelia's lines seem to be equally unknown.
Usages which aim at compelling women of marriageable age to find husbands are probably more commonly to be found than those described above. For example, in the Freiamt and Kelleramt parts of German Switzerland: "it occurred in the Fastnacht that boys dressed themselves as disagreeable or ill-favoured maids (hässliche Jungfrauen) and then sneaked into houses where nubile maidens of ancient date dwelt, so as to lurk there in kitchen or passage until dragged out by accomplices, loaded on waggons, they were carried through the village and put up to public auction as 'objects of matrimony' (Heiratsobjekt), or, in
- ↑ Wright, op.cit., pp. 289-90. Mrs. Wright also cites an agricultural proverb from Rutlandshire: 'Valentine's day—sow your beans in the clay.'
- ↑ Sunday Pictorial, 2/3/19.
- ↑ Sébillot, Folk-Lore de France, iv. 238-9. I am indebted for this and several other references to Dr. Sidney Hartland.
