Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/115

Rh formed in Siam, published in 1895. The two examples I show come from Bangkok, and are the same in form as those on Plate II. of Gerini's book; but the shears, in place of being inlaid with gold, as was the example given by Gerini, are inlaid with silver.

An attached and favourite servant was married from my house at Cheltenham in November, 1896. Her old father, replying for himself and his wife to my invitation to the wedding, wrote to me: "We both hope you will plese try to arange for single people to go with them to [be] Married," on the ground, it was explained to me, that it is very unlucky for a married man or woman to make part of a wedding-party. The father and his eldest (married) daughter eventually made the journey from near Walsall (Staffordshire) to Cheltenham for the occasion, going and returning the same day; but though they had taken all this trouble they entirely refused to go to the church. They brought a present to me from the mother, in acknowledgment of the favour I was showing to their daughter. It consisted of a myrtle-plant in a flower-pot, intended as a talisman to protect the house from lightning. The old woman had always kept a myrtle in her own house for this purpose, and had "reared" a cutting from it for me as a special mark of attention. Another difficulty in the wedding arrangements was started by the bride herself. "It's so unlucky to try a wedding ring on"; but this having been overcome by trying another ring and matching the size, the pair were safely married and set out for their future home, the bride being cautioned by her sister to be sure to carry a Bible about her when she went into her new house (no reason stated).

I never met with this remarkable extension of the taboo on parents at weddings before; and it is the more curious because at Edgmond (Salop), close to the western border of Staffordshire, it was thought lucky for one of the wedding party to be a married man or woman (see instances in my Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 292). I cannot locate the contrary belief with perfect certainty, as, while