Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/265

 The Lifting of the Bride. 249

ye ' Monday and Tuesday were observed thirty years ago

at the beginning of April The custom was originally

meant, it is said, to represent the Crucifixion of Our Saviour — the dressing (in gay ribbons) being intended to set forth the clothing of our Lord with the purple robe; the lifting, the nailing on the Cross ; the kiss, the betrayal ; the reward, the thirty pieces of silver."

There is some difference among the authorities as to the day on which these proceedings occurred. Mr. Sidney Hartland writes that he remembers the ceremony of '' lift- ing" being performed on Easter Monday and Tuesday in the early " fifties." As far as he recollects it was the men who were lifted on Monday, and the women on Tuesday. Brand -^ also fixes Easter Monday at Warrington, Bolton, and Manchester as the day on which women heaved the men. This also appears in perhaps one of the earliest accounts, as given by Miss Strickland. - " There is an old custom, still remembered in Warwickshire, called ' heaving.' On Easter Monday, the women servants of every household clamorously enter the chamber or sitting- room of the master of the family, or any ' stranger beneath his roof,' and, seating him in a chair, lift him therein from the ground, and refuse to set him down till he compounds for his liberty by a gratuity. Seven of Queen Eleanora's (of Castile) ladies, on the Easter Monday of 1290, un- ceremoniously invaded the chamber of King Edward (the First), and seizing their majestic master, proceeded to ' heave him ' in his chair till he was glad to pay a fine of fourteen pounds to enjoy ' his own peace,' and be set at liberty."

There are numerous accounts of similar practices in the North of England and in parts of the Midlands.^ A fort-

' Observations, i., 182.

^ Lives of the Queejis of England, Fourth Edition, i., 441, quoting Ward- robe Book of Edward I., fol. 456. Also see Brand, op. cit., i., 181, quoting a paper by Lysons communicated to the Society of Antiquaries.

^ Hone, Everyday Book, ed. 1878, i., 211 seq.; Chuivaheis, Book of Days, i.,425, 429 ; in Lancashire, Fourth Series Notes and Queries, i., 327; Salop,