Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/218

 210 cause, perhaps, of the absence of this custom among women may be, in a measure, due to the distortion of the features which it occasions.

A Spanish Easter Custom. —A writer in the last number of the Journal refers to the Spanish custom of calling worshippers to prayer during Passion Week by means of wooden clappers instead of bells. A few years ago, happening to be at the little town of Espluga, near the great monastery of Poblet, on the day before Good Friday, I heard a rattle of clappers proceeding from the tower of one of the churches on the chief square. A Spaniard whom I asked the meaning of the noise told me that it was made by the children in imitation of the thunder which rent the heaven during the Passion of Our Lord. A similar ceremony in South America is thus described: "There is another church service, quite as ludicrous and preposterous, on the day of celebrating the Bending of the Veil of the Temple, when Our Saviour gave up the ghost. The people have large hammers, with which they beat the benches, and have sheets of tin, &c., which they shake, to imitate the noise of thunder as nearly as possible." C. S. Cochrane, Journal of a Residence and Travels in Colombia, London, 1825, vol. ii. p. 335 seq.) The other custom (not, however, an Easter one) described by the writer is this: "At midnight [December 24th] a curious custom of the Roman Catholic Church was performed, called the Cock Mass, in commemoration of the crowing of the cock which took place on Peter's denial of Christ. When the curate commences the service the people imitate and mock his gestures, tone of voice, and manner of reading, making all kinds of noise, shouting, bawling, hooting, and imitating the crowing of the cock, with every possible exertion of lungs, the whole forming an exhibition most deafening to the ear, and perfectly ridiculous to the eye."

The custom of substituting clappers or mallets for bells before Easter seems to have been observed in France, for Sir William (then Colonel) Napier wrote thus from Bapaume, April 21st, 1816: "The bells and clocks of Arras have departed by the force of prayers to Rome to be blessed; and, as it will take a fortnight to bless them and perform the journey with comfort, the hours are struck by boys with mallets in the streets."—(Life of General Sir William Napier, vol. i. p. 192.) .