Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/284

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. VL SEPT. 21, 1912.

eastern parts to London, there seems little doubl that they must have united in St. George's field? or Southwark. Mr. Bray says that the three roads, the Watling street from Rutupiae (Rich- borough), the Ermine street from Begnum (Chi- chester), and another road from Newhaven uniting at Newington, divided ; one, brand going to Southwark, where the river was crossed to Belin's-gate and Watling street in London as seems clearly ascertained by the names ; the other went over St. George's fields, crossing the river from Stan-gate in Lambeth.

" It is very probable, however, that there wai more than one trajectus, or ferry, across the Thames from Southwark to the northern shore The name and situation of Stoney Lane, in the parish of St. Olave, were to indicate the situation of a second trajectus from thence to the fortress which has been conjectured by Dr. Stukeley and other learned antiquaries to have existed during the Roman dominion on the site of the Tower of London, to which Stoney Lane is nearly opposite." Brayley and Britton, ' History of Surrey,' vol. v. p. 334.

In the British Museum is a map or plan described as follows :

" A View of High Street, being the ancient roadway leading from old London Bridge, taken July, 1830, previous to its removal for the new line of approach. Drawn from nature and on stone by G. Scharf, London, 1830."

A. L. HUMPHREYS. 187, Piccadilly, W.

LIFTING THE BRIDE OVER THE THRESHOLD (11 S. vi. 191). Various opinions have been held by ancient and modern writers as to the reason for this well-known Roman custom. Perhaps the cause most generally assigned is the wish to avoid a stumble with the consequent ill omen. This is the view accepted by Preller, ' Romische Mythologie,' 3rd ed., vol. ii. p. 217. Others have seen in it a survival from the days of " marriage by capture." See, for example, Lord Ave- bury's ' Origin of Civilization,' p. 134, 6th ed., 1911, where it is stated that the custom is found " in such distinct and distant races as the Romans, the Redskins of Canada, the Chinese, and the Abyssinians." Plutarch, ' Quaestiones Romanae,' 27 Ic, raises the question as to the origin of the practice, and suggests three explanations : ( 1 ) Because the earliest wedded women at Rome, i.e., the Sabines, did not enter their husbands' houses voluntarily ; or (2) the desire on the part of the bride to appear to enter the house under compulsion ; or (3) that the action is symbolical, to show that as the wife enters the house by force, she must not leave it unless by force. In Servius's ' Commentary on Virgil,' Eclogue viii. 29, an explanation of Varro's is given to the effect that it would

be a sacrilegious act for the bride, whan, about to leave her- maiden status, to tread on. the threshold, which was sacred to Vesta, the chastest deity. Isidorus, ' Origines,' ix. 7, puts forward the reason that it was on the threshold that the doors (the Roman street door had regularly two wings) came together and parted. See Prof. Robinson Ellis's ' Commentary on Catullus,' Ixi. 159, and Smith's ' Diet, of Greek and Roman Antiquities,' 3rd ed., vol. ii. p. 144, col. 1, in the article on ' Matrimonium.'

EDWARD BENSLY.

This was done to avert the bad omen of possible stumbling. The ceremony was carefully observed by the Romans, tradition vaguely linking it with the rape of the Sabine women. The doorposts of the new home were wreathed with flowers and anointed with oil in honour of the occasion, and the bride was lifted over the threshold by the pronubi, who were friends of the groom, and in each case had to be the husband of one wife. Catullus gives the observance its due place in his Epithalamium of Julia and Manlius, the famous ' Hymen, O Hymensee. ' Sir Theodore Martin thus renders the particular stanzas :

Thy golden-sandalled feet do thou Lift lightly o'er the threshold now ! Fair omen this ! And pass between The lintel-posts of polished sheen ! Hail, Hymen ! Hymenaeus, hail !

Hail, Hymen, Hymenaeus !

See where, within, thy lord is set On Tyrian-tinctured coverlet His eyes upon the threshold bent, And all his soul on thee intent ! Hail, Hymen ! Hymenaeus, hail !

Hail, Hymen, Hymenaeus !

THOMAS BAYNE.

The question is fully dealt with in Folk-lore, vol. xiii. p. 226 (1902), by Mr. W. Crooke. The lifting seems to have been in the nature of a fertility charm, or was intended as a protective against various forms of evil influences which beset the bride at the commencement of her married life. Another explanation is that the custom is a survival of marriage by capture. See Plutarch, ' Qusest. Rom,,' 29. M. LETTS.

This was done evidently to prevent the bride stumbling on entering her husband's house, an event regarded as unlucky. Thus Shakespeare writes (' 3 Henry VI.,' IV. vii.):

For many men that stumble at the threshold Are well foretold that danger lurks within.

S. D. C.