IV THE LOVE-LORE OF SWEET ARDEN This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever To those having any acquaintance with the dwellers in Shakespeare's Ardentheir manners, customs, folk-lore, superstitions, and language-it is not a matter of surprise to find how steadfastly they pay homage and observance to forms and moods which the average townsman would pass by almost, if not quite, unnoticed. From the cradle to the grave these merry countrymen and countrywomen of Shakespeare observe with unfailing regularity the manners and customs honoured by their ancestors centuries ago. 'THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.-The children of the peasants of Arden have, as a rule, sweet manners; but there are times when even these small flowers of rusticity will lapse into anger with a playfellow, and give tongue to utterances which, while they are apt to shock, yet strike one as being singularly expressive and picturesque. Without knowing the source, the strength, or the age of the utterance, a young Warwickshire countrywoman, when angry, may not infrequently be heard saying to the object of her wrath: 'An you do that again, Jacobina, I'll set my ten commandments in your face.' In the meaning of the rustic Arden girl the 'ten commandments' are the ten nails upon the fingers of her two fair hands, and the threat is that, if her tormentor does not cease tormenting her, she will 'set,' or scratch, her face with them. Now, although this may not be a sweet manner, there is a very good warrantthough she probably knows it not-for the Warwickshire girl's use of it. Shakespeare, who knew all the manners and customs of his own country, and read into all the hearts of human nature, has himself made use of this striking and threatening manner in the 'Second Part of King Henry VI.' (Act I. Scene iii.), where the Duchess of Gloster, having received a box on the ears from Queen Margaret, retorts in a great passion: 'Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I'd set my ten commandments in your face.' It is probable that if Warwickshire rustic maidens were convinced that this remarkable utterance was used by charming ducal lips in the Royal circles of 'Merrie England,' it would be heard still more frequently issuing from their own. But perhaps, on the whole, it is better that they should not know it. FORECASTING THE FUTURE.-As the adult peasant of the Forest of Arden has a manner of crossing himself or raising his hat, when a single magpie passes over his head, to preserve him from the sorrow which the Warwickshire rhyme says will follow the seeing of one magpie only: 'For one magpie means sorrow, Two mirth, Three a wedding, And four a birth'; so the small wayfarers of field and woodland have a custom, in which they appear to place implicit confidence, of forecasting what their future will be. It is performed, as a rule, in the spring of the year, or the early summer, when the grass in the lush meads and meadows on the Avon's banks is growing thick and tall; and is as quaint and poetical a rite as might be expected to exist in the classic greenwood of Shakespeare, where the Poet himself may often have performed it, or seen it performed, by the children of Stratford-on-Avon and Shottery. In my search for types for my stories among the peasants of this delightful and leafy country, I have often come across a group of the smaller growths of Warwickshire rustics, and sometimes one little girl only, isolated from the rest, kneeling down in the luxuriant pasturage of the fields, with blades of horned grass in their hands, and rehearsing a strange formula the while. This custom is chiefly practised by girls, as they are more given to the glamour of romance than boys, and it relates to the kind of lover or husband they are to have, the kind of houses they are to inhabit, the kind of conveyances they are to ride in, and the kind of ma terial they are to wear for their clothes. The manner is to count the horns upon the grass blades while repeating the formula, the last horn deciding the fate of husband, house, conveyance, and dress, whatever it may be. As the question of husband is the most important, even in an Arden girl's life, that comes first for decision, as follows, counting the horns on each side the stalk: Rich man, Poor man, A thief. And so on until the horns are all told from the top to the bottom of the blade of horned grass. Then come the houses: Big house, Little house, Pig's stye, Barn. Next the conveyances: Coach, Carriage, Spring-cart, Wheelbarrow. And lastly the materials for dress: |