Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/576

 the marriage ceremony as the wedding-rings. At a certain point in the service, it is the duty of the best man, assisted by the chief bridesmaid, to keep exchanging the rings from the hands of the bride and bridegroom, and in like manner to exchange the crowns which they wear from the head of one to the head of the other; and as the rings are always worn afterwards, so the two crowns are carefully preserved and hung up together in the new home. Equally well-established is the use of garlands in ancient funerals , and, if not quite universal at the present day, they are at any rate commonly employed in the funerals of women and children. In Macedonia it is actually the bridal crown which is worn for burial by anyone who was betrothed or newly married.

Worthy of notice too is the not uncommon spectacle of an apple, quince, or pomegranate laid among the flowers with which the bier is adorned; for all these three fruits have their special significance in relation to marriage. The classical custom of throwing an apple into a girl's lap as a sign of love is a method of wooing still known to the rustic swain. It is not indeed regarded as a highly respectable method, but perhaps neither in old times was it so; for then, as now, the more well-conducted youths seem to have had their wooing, if such it may be called, carried on through the agency of an elderly lady (in ancient Greek [Greek: promnêstria], in modern [Greek: proxenêtria]) whose negotiations were chiefly addressed to the parents on either side, and whose conversation smacked more of dowry than of love. The quince and the pomegranate however are employed without any offence to propriety. The former is in some districts the food of which the newly-married pair are required to partake together at their first entry into their new home; and it is hoped that the sweetness of the fruit will so temper their lips that nothing but sweet words will ever be addressed by the one to the other. To the open-minded observer it might appear that acidity rather than sweetness was the chief characteristic of the quince, and that, if the qualitiessentienti facem aut non sentienti coronam: cum et beatus non egeat, et miser non gaudeat floribus.' The first non is clearly to be deleted.]