Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/119

Rh only accompany the bridal pair to church—the elder members of both families remaining at home until the third invitation has been delivered. Then all together proceed to the house of the bride, where the first day's festivities are held. There is much speechifying and drinking of healths, and various meals are served up at intervals of three and four hours' distance, each guest being provided with a covered jug, which must be always kept replenished with wine. It is usual for each guest to bring a small gift or contribution to the newly-set-up household of the young couple, and these are deposited on a table spread for the purpose in the center of the court-yard; or, if the weather be unfavorable, inside the house, bride and bridegroom standing on either side to receive the gifts. First it is the bridegroom's father who, approaching the decorated table, deposits thereon a new shining plowshare, as symbol that his son must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow; then the mother advances with a new pillow, adorned with bows of colored ribbon, and silver head-pins stuck at the four corners. These gay adornments are meant to represent the pleasures and joys of the married state; but two long streamers of black ribbon, which hang down to the ground on either side, are placed there likewise, to remind the young couple of the crosses and misfortunes which must inevitably fall to their share. The other relations of the bridegroom follow in due precedence, each with a gift in his hands. Sometimes a piece of home-made linen, a colored handkerchief, or some other article of dress or decoration; sometimes a roll of sheet-iron, a pair of scissors, thread and needles, a packet of nails, or a farming or gardening implement, each one laying down his or her offering with the words, "May it be pleasing to you." Then follow the kinsfolk of the bride with similar gifts; her father presenting her with a copper caldron or a kettle, the mother with a second pillow, decorated in the same manner as the first one. Playful allusions are not unfrequently concealed in these gifts—a doll's cradle, or a young puppy-dog wrapped in swaddling-clothes, often figuring among the presents ranged on the table.

Various games and dances fill up the pauses between the meals; songs and speeches, often of a somewhat coarse and cynical nature, being a part of the usual programme. Among the games enacted at some of the Saxon peasant-weddings there is one which deserves to be mentioned, affording as it does a curious proof of the tenacity of old pagan rites and customs, transmitted by verbal tradition from one generation to the other. This is the Rössel Tanz, or dance of the horses, evidently founded on an ancient Scandinavian legend to be found in Snorri's "Edda." In this tale, the gods Thor and Loki came to a peasant's house in a carriage drawn by two goats or rams, and asked for a night's lodging. Thor killed the two rams, and with the peasant and his family consumed their flesh for supper. The bones were then ordered to be thrown in a heap onto the hides of the