Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/108

80 disgust, but only to be dragged back to be thrashed first by her father, then by her mother, and finally by her brother. After this appeal to her sweet reasonableness, she resigned herself to her fate.

The night following the completion of the compact, all the relations on both sides are invited to a supper party. This meal consists usually of bacon, which has been stewed in a pot with cabbage; after this ceremonial food is thus cooked, it is served in a large dish, the potatoes being spread in the middle of a bare table. Plates, it must be known, are not sufficiently numerous to allow a separate one to every guest; three or four guests, therefore, eat from one and the same plate, on which the meat is torn, tiger-like, to pieces, and pulled in all directions by the forks: hence the name of "eating the tiger."

Drink is not scarce. The whisky is mixed, not with water, but with wine-coloured ginger-beer, not for economy's sake, but as suggesting unmixed liquor.

The feast being so far finished, the father stands in the centre of the company and counts out half of the marriage portion, and hands it to the bridegroom-elect.

A year afterwards, should a child be born, the remainder of the dower is paid and the cow also presented. But should the marriage prove childless, this second half is seldom forthcoming. The rest of the family, if the bridegroom be the eldest son, generally has a vested interest in the holding, and the custom is also to use a portion of this marriage "dot" for the marriage dower of some future sister.

Only a day or two intervenes between this festive betrothal and the marriage ceremony. This is characteristically made the occasion of a second lavish entertainment. All the friends and acquaintances assemble additionally at the home of the bride's parents, and the bridegroom and other guests are served with refreshments, consisting of tea, large slices of bread and butter, cake, and whisky. Then a long cavalcade of cars, carts, and horses starts for the chapel, the bride and bridesmaid sitting one side of their car, and the bridegroom and best man on the other side. Before the performance of the rite, both bride and bridegroom make their confession to the priest.