Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/285

 The Rosary in Magic and Religion. 275

as the beads were then called, had become a specialised industry both in Paris and in London.

It has been suggested that the rosary probably arose from a practice in early Christian times of making repeated genuflexions and prostrations, sometimes combined with prayers or sacred formulae.^ This form of self-discipline was practised in Eastern Europe and in Ireland, spreading from these two widely separated centres, over the greater part of Europe, Such a form of asceticism survives in the Greek Church at the present day.

Roman Catholic. The full Dominican rosary numbers 150 beads, these being divided into sets of ten by fifteen larger beads. These beads form the chaplet. A pendant, consisting of a cross or crucifix and one large and three smaller beads, is usually attached. The number 150 corre- sponds with the number of the Psalms, and this number of paternosters was recited by monks whose education was not sufficient to enable them to learn the Latin Psalms. This would explain how the strings of beads used for thus keeping count came to be called " Paternosters."

The name " Rosary," now given to this devotion, seems to be of comparatively late date— according to one authority not appearing till the fifteenth century. The following charming story is told to explain the origin of this name, though, as Father Thurston has pointed out,^ the story is older than the name it professes to explain. The legend occurs in many of the collections of the " Miracles of Our Lady," which were very popular in the Middle Ages. I give it in Father Thurston's own words : " A youth was accus- tomed to make a wreath of roses or other flowers every day, and to place it upon the head of Our Lady's statue. He became a monk, and in the cloister his occupation no longer permitted him to observe this pious practice. Being

Ml. Tluirston, " Genuflexions and Aves : a Study in Kosary Origins," The Month, cxxvii. (1916), 441 f., 546 f.
 * /ourH. Soc. Arts, Feb. 21st, 1902, pp. 271 f.