Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/178

 i66 Charms, etc. in a wheelbarrow, in which they wheel him up and down until they are tired, when they upset him on the nearest pile or in a pond. This is called riding in the ' one-wheel coach ; ' and to say that a man has ridden in the ' one-wheel coach ' is tantamount to the expression that he has ' gone-a-courting.' " — Rev. S. Rundle, Trans- actions Penzance Natural History Society, etc., 188^-1886. When a younger sister marries first the elder is said to dance in the " bruss " (short twigs of heath or furze), from an old custom of dancing without shoes on the furze prickles which get detached from the stalk. Only old maids can rear a myrtle, and they will not blossom when trained against houses where there are none. It is considered extremely unlucky here to break or lose your wedding-ring, also for a wedding-cake to crack after baking. A lady told me of one made for a couple she knew, which fell to pieces when taken out of the oven. Before the wedding-day came the bride had sickened of some disorder, was dead, and buried. A hole in a loaf, too, foretells a separation in a family ; and to turn one upside dowh on a table wrecks a vessel. " If a hare cross the path of a wedding party, the bride or bridegroom will die within seven years." — Rev. S. Rundle, Cornubiana. "A young woman who has been three times a bridesmaid will never be a bride." " It was an old custom, religiously observed until lately in Zennor and adjacent parishes on the north coast of Cornwall, to waylay a married couple on their wedding night and flog them to bed with cords, sheep-spans, or anything handy for the purpose, believing that this rough treatment would ensure them happiness and the ' heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord,' of a numerous family. At more modish weddings the guests merely entered the bridal chamber, and threw stockings in which stones or something to make weight were placed, at the bride and bridegroom in bed. The first one hit of the happy pair betokened the sex of their first-born." — Bottrell. Should there be a great discrepancy between the ages of the bride and bridegroom, or the marriage of a couple in any way be a matter of notoriety, they are in West Cornwall on their wedding night often treated to a " shallal," a serenade on tin-kettles, pans.