Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/355

Rh approval of an assembly of the bridegroom's older relations. Amongst some of the Smiths, according to Dr. Ranking, on the advent of another suitor a girl who was already engaged used to withdraw from the tent, seat herself on the ground apart, and loosen her hair, so that it fell all round her, and covered her face. It is not improbable that this practice was originally intended to facilitate childbirth, as it is among other people. From old Liz Buckland, Leland heard that it was the custom of the girl to give her accepted suitor a red string or cord, or a strip of red stuff, or to throw a cake containing coins over the hedge to him, but no confirmation of either of these customs is forthcoming.

Gipsies invariably marry at an early age, so that the tinkler rule mentioned by Simson of never giving away the younger daughter in marriage before the elder is quite unnecessary. Parents seem to be loth to part with their daughters, who have frequently to run away with the young man of their choice. In many families there is not, and possibly never has been, any marriage ceremony whatever. In others, the majority, Christian marriage is the only form of union in vogue at the present day. This, however, has never been as prevalent as Christian baptism or Christian burial, nor does it appear to have been at all important a century or two ago. A marriage performed only in a church was not counted as a marriage at all by the Boswells, nor, if we can rely on Schwicker, by the majority of Gipsies everywhere; whilst in Hungary and Germany, according to Liebich, the religious ceremony