Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the Borders

Front matter

FOR COLLECTING AND PRINTING

RELICS OF POPULAR ANTIQUITIES, &c.

ESTABLISHED IN

Introductory chapter

FOLK-LORE

OF

THE NORTHERN COUNTIES.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

IT is difficult, while living on the surface of society, so smooth, so rational, so commonplace, to realise what relics of a widely different past linger in its depths—relics of an extensive and deeply-rooted system of mythology, antedating in great measure Christianity itself. Yet so it is: in almost every part of our island we occasionally come across such bits of stubborn antiquity, but in the North of England they abound. The district between the Tweed and the Humber teems with Folk-Lore of a rich and varied character. Great part of the county of Durham is indeed spoiled (in an antiquarian point of view) by collieries; but it still contains some quiet villages far away from great thoroughfares, where strange tales are yet told and strange old customs practised; while the north and west of Northumberland, and the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, abound with them.

Those who mix much among the lower orders, and have opportunities of inquiring closely into their beliefs, customs, and usages, will find in these remote places—nay, even in our towns and larger villages—a vast mass of superstition, holding its ground most tenaciously. On looking closely into this we discern, among much that is mythical and legendary in its character, and much that is the simple outgrowth of human fancy and imagination, a good deal of what is unquestionably heathenism in disguise. Archbishop Whately states this perhaps too broadly. “It is,” he says, “a marvel to many, and seems to them nearly incredible, that the Israelites should have gone after other gods, and yet the vulgar in most parts of Christendom are actually serving the gods of their heathen ancestors. But then they do not call them gods, but fairies or bogles, and they do not apply the word worship to their veneration of them, nor sacrifice to their offerings. And this slight change of name keeps most people in ignorance of a fact that is before their eyes.”

This is a strong statement, yet historical facts appear to bear it out. We know that as late as the seventeenth century undisguised idol-worship was to be found in Brittany, while down to the eighteenth it was common there for offerings of money, milk, and ears of corn to be made to the great Menhir, an obelisk once connected with Druidical worship. We know, too, that almost if not quite up to the present time, on holiday eves, the Norwegian peasant has offered cakes, sweet porridge, and libations of wort or buttermilk, on mounds consecrated to the invisible folk, and called bœttir mounds; and, as will be shown hereafter, well-nigh within the memory of man, beasts have been slain in sacrifice, at times of great extremity, in our own country; while the rites still in use for the dressing of wells at Buxton and Tissington in Derbyshire, and in other places throughout England and on the Borders, bear a singular resemblance to the Fontinalia of heathen Rome, when the nymphs of wells and fountains were honoured by flinging nosegays into the fountains and crowning the wells with garlands of flowers.

The question naturally arises, how is it that heathen beliefs and heathen observances still exist in a country which was christianized so many centuries ago? We may reply, with reference to the district especially under our consideration, that the stern mould of the northern mind is strong to retain images once deeply impressed upon it. And on the subject generally it may be observed that from the beginning the Church appears practically to have tolerated such parts of the old mythological system as she considered harmless, and to have permitted them to live on without check or rebuke. Thus the customs of the Lupercalia passed into those of St. Valentine’s day, and, the Scandinavian Yule coinciding with the Feast of the Nativity, the old Yule merrymakings and mummings continued in use without raising ecclesiastical censure. Thus the honour long given to persons and demigods was transferred to saints and martyrs. Thus, again, old sacred sites were taken possession of for the new faith. We often find Christian burial-grounds occupying the site of Pagan ones; and I myself have seen huge upright stones marking some place sacred in heathen eyes in close proximity to Christian churches. In Sweden there was, at the first propagation of Christianity, a good deal of intermingling of truth and error. Heathen images were removed from the ancient oratories, and those of sacred beings set up in their places; still old associations proved sometimes too strong for the converts, and prayers to Thor and Freya were mixed with Christian orisons.

In judging the clergy of the day for their line of action in this and kindred matters we should in justice remember that they were taken from among the people, and consequently imbued with the same prejudices, feelings, and superstitions as those to whom they ministered. Nor must we forget that, like them, they were wholly unacquainted with the causes of natural phenomena. This universal ignorance of the laws of nature goes far to account for the widespread superstition which for ages pervaded all Europe, and which from local causes has taken so firm a grasp of some particular spots.

Perfectly unacquainted with the laws that govern the universe, the early Christians, like the Pagans and Neo-Platonists, made supernatural beings the special cause of all the phenomena of nature. They attributed to these beings, according to their beneficial or injurious effects, all atmospheric phenomena. According to them, angels watched over the different elements, and demons endeavoured to overthrow their power. From the struggle between them arose storms and whirlwinds, plagues and earthquakes. St. Clement of Alexandria refers all this to diabolical agency, and the same idea was perpetuated throughout the Middle Ages. Hence it was that of old, storms were conjured to depart by the sign of the cross or the ringing of church bells, as indeed to this day Roman Catholics are wont to cross themselves during a thunderstorm.

From the first the Church, by the decrees of Councils and the voice of her chief Fathers and Doctors, condemned such superstition as she deemed worthy of notice; not however on the ground of folly, but of impiety. It is possible, therefore, that her denunciations might go towards confirming a belief in the whole fabric of superstition, as a real and powerful though forbidden thing. “Religion,” said Lactantius, “is the cultus of the truth, superstition is that of the false.” Among persons mentioned in the Apostolical Constitutions as unworthy of baptism are “magicians, enchanters, astrologers, diviners, magical charmers, idle and wandering beggars, makers of amulets and phylacteries, and such as dealt in heathenish lustrations, soothsayers and observers of signs and omens, interpreters of palpitations, observers of accidents in meeting others, making divinations therefrom as upon a blemish in the eye or in the feet, observers of the motions of birds or weazels, observers of voices and symbolical sounds. All these are to be examined and tried a considerable time whether they would relinquish their arts or not. If they did they might be received; if not they were to be rejected from baptism. Phylacteria were amulets made of riband with a text of scripture or some other charm of words written on them to cure diseases or to keep off danger—a piece of heathen superstition hard to cure. Clergymen who made such were condemned by the council of Laodicea, and the wearers ordered to be cast out of the Church. The council of Trullo decreed six years’ penance for such offenders.”—Bingham’s Antiquities, book xi. chap. 5. “I omit other things that might make us weep,” says St. Chrysostom. “Your auguries, your omens, your superstitious observances, your casting of nativities, your signs, your amulets, your divinations, your incantations, your magical are crying sins, enough to provoke the anger of God.” “You may see a man washing himself from the pollution of a dead body; but from dead works, never. Again, spending much zeal in the pursuit of riches, and yet supposing the whole is undone by the crowing of a cock.” “So darkened are they in their understanding, their soul is filled with all sorts of terrors. For instance: ‘Such a person,’ one will say, ‘was the first to meet me as I was going out of doors to-day,’ and of course a thousand ills must ensue. At another time, ‘That wretch of a servant, in giving me my shoes, held out the left shoe first,’—terrible mishaps and mischief! ‘I myself, in coming out, put my left leg foremost;’ and here, too, is a token of misfortune. Then, as I go out, my right eye turns up from beneath—a sure sign of tears. Again, the women, when the reeds strike against the standards and ring, or when they themselves are scratched by the shuttle, turn this also into a sign. And again, when they strike the web with the shuttle, and do it with some vehemence, and then the reeds on the top sound, this again they make a sign; and ten thousand things besides as ridiculous. And so if an ass bray, or a cock crow, or a man sneeze, or whatever else happen, like men bound with ten thousand chains—they suspect everything, and are more enslaved than all the slaves in the world.”

A long list of popular superstitions was condemned by a council held in the eighth century at Leptines, in Hainault, under the title of Indiculus superstitionum et paganarium. Pope Gregory III. issued similar anathemas. The Capitularies of Charlemagne and his successors repeat the denunciation of them.

About the same date similar superstitions were rebuked in Scotland by the Abbot Cumeanus the Wise, in his tract De mensura pœnitentiarum. In the same century St. Eligius, Bishop of Noyon, preached against similar superstitions: “Above all, I implore you not to observe the sacrilegious customs of the pagans. Do not consult the gravers of talismans, nor diviners, nor sorcerers, nor enchanters, for any sickness whatsoever. . . . Do not take notice of auguries, or of sneezings; do not pay attention to the songs of the birds when you go abroad. Let no Christian pay regard to the particular day on which he leaves a house or enters it. Let no one perplex himself about the new moon or eclipses. Let no one do on the calends of January those forbidden, ridiculous, ancient, and disreputable things, such as dancing, or keeping open house all night, or getting drunk. Let no one on the feast of St. John, or any other saint, celebrate solstices by dances, carols, or diabolical chants; let no one invoke Neptune, Pluto, Diana, Minerva, or his genius; let no one rest on the day of Jupiter, unless it fall on a saint’s day; nor observe the month of May, nor any other season or day except the Lord’s day. Let no one light torches along the highways and crossroads; let no one tie notes to the neck of a man or some animal; let no one make lustrations or enchantments upon herbs, or make his cattle pass through a split tree, or through a hole made in the ground. Let no one utter loud cries when the moon is pale; let no one fear that something will happen to him at new moon; let no one believe in destiny of fortune, or the quadrature of the geniture, commonly called a nativity,” &c. &c.

Four centuries later Burchard of Worms made a collection of denunciations of superstitions from the decrees of Councils and Popes, and the list is very remarkable. “Superstition is a vice opposed by excess to adoration and religion,” said the illustrious Gerson; and in the provincial Council of York, in A.D. 1466, it was declared, with St. Thomas, that all superstition was idolatry.

On the whole, it certainly appears that the early and medieval Churches in their collective form, far from encouraging heathenish superstition, constantly protested against it. Individual clergy in remote districts may have taken a different line, as St. Patrick is said to have “engrafted Christianity on Paganism with so much skill that he won over the people to the Christian religion before they understood the exact difference between the two systems of belief.” At any rate, the old superstition lived on with marvellous vitality, and the Reformation, at least on the Continent and in Scotland, did little to check it. On the con , It would seem, that, when cut away from communion with the angelic world and saints departed, men’s minds fastened the more readily upon a supernatural system of another order. Curiously enough, Martin Luther fell a prey to the grossest superstition. Witness the following extracts from his Table Talk, quoted in the Introduction to Thorpe’s Mythology, vol. ii.:—

“Changelings (Wechselbälge) and Kielkropfs, Satan lays in the place of the genuine children, that people may be tormented with them. He often carries off young maidens into the water, has intercourse with them, and keeps them with him until they have been delivered, then lays such children in cradles, takes the genuine children out, and carries them away. But such changelings, it is said, do not live more than eighteen or twenty years.” Again: “Eight years ago there was a changeling in Dessau, which I, Dr. Martin Luther, have both seen and touched: it was twelve years old, and had all its senses, so that people thought it was a proper child; but that mattered little, for it only ate, and that as much as any four ploughmen or thrashers, and when any one touched it, it screamed; when things in the house went wrong, so that any damage took place, it laughed and was merry; but if things went well it cried. Thereupon I said to the Prince of Anhalt, ‘If I were prince or ruler here I would have this child thrown into the water, into the Moldau, that flows by Dessau, and would run the risk of being a homicide.’ But the Elector of Saxony, who was then at Dessau, and the Prince of Anhalt, would not follow my advice. I then said they ought to cause a pater-noster to be said in the church, that God would take the devil away from them. This was done daily at Dessau, and the said changeling died two years after.”

On at least one point the early Scotch and English Calvinistic divines showed the greatest credulity. It is notorious that they believed unhesitatingly in the existence of sorcery, and were ever ready to extend and enforce the legal penalties against it. “It is not to be denied,” says Sir Walter Scott, “that the Presbyterian ecclesiastics, who in Scotland were often appointed by the Privy Council commissioners for the trial of witchcraft, evinced a very extraordinary degree of credulity in such cases, and that the temporary superiority of the same sect in England was marked by enormous cruelties of this kind.”

The notices, however, of the Folk-Lore of my fellow-countrymen which I have been able to collect during the last few years are widely varied in their origin. If some of them are unmistakeable relics of heathenism, some have their origin in the rites and customs of the unreformed Church, and some in the myths and historical traditions of our ancestors the Saxons and Danes; while others, again, appear to be the spontaneous growth of sensitive and imaginative minds, yearning for communion with a mysterious past and yet more mysterious future. They are varied, too, in their character; some breathing deep religious feeling, some full of light, graceful fancy, while some are gross, vulgar, even cruel superstitions. Let me add, that while recording them a conviction has deepened upon me that there are very, very many more incidents of a similar kind to be collected. Unless this be speedily done I firmly believe that many a singular usage and tradition will pass away from the land unnoted and unremembered. It would be very desirable if a scheme could be organised for systematically collecting and classifying the remnants of our Folk-Lore; but at least I would intreat all those in whose eyes the subject possesses any interest accurately to note down every old custom, observance, proverb, saying, or legend which comes before them.

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.

LIFE AND DEATH OF MAN.

Day of birth—Hour of birth—Border customs at the Birth of a child—Unchristened ground—Unbaptized children at the mercy of fairies—Safeguards for the child—Folk-lore connected with baptism—Cutting of nails—The toom cradle—The child’s first visit—The Ash-tree—Weeds and onfas’—Beads of peony root—The caul and veil—Folk-lore of childhood:—Rain charms—Rainbow charms—Crow, snail, and nettle charms—Folk-lore of boyhood:—School-rites and customs—The riding of the stang—Confirmation—Days for marriage—Seasons for marriage—Marriage portents—Marriage customs:—On the borders—In Yorkshire—Throwing the shoe—Kissing the bride—The petting stone—Hot pots—Rubbing with pease-straw—Race for a ribbon—Portents of death—Whistling woman and crowing hen—Border presage—The wraith or waff—St. Mark’s eve—Cauffriddling—Saining a corpse—Death with the tide—Discovery of the drowned—Use of pigeons’ or game-fowl feathers—Carrying the dead with the sun—The passing bell

THROUGHOUT the Borders, and in the six northern counties of England, peculiar rites and customs are bound up with every stage of human life. To begin at the beginning—the nursery has there a Folk-Lore of its own. And, first, the future character and fortunes of the infant may be divined from the day of the week on which it was born. For, as the old rhyme runs—

Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, And Thursday’s child has far to go.

Friday’s child is loving and giving, And Saturday’s child works hard for its living; But the child that is born on the Sabbath-day Is blithe and bonny, good and gay.

It is remarkable that these verses, which are still current in Stockton and its neighbourhood, should be found also in the west of England. Mrs. Bray records them in her Traditions of Devonshire (vol. ii. p. 287), substituting “Christmas Day” for the “Sabbath Day,” and “fair and wise” for “blithe and bonny,” and says that they are in common use at Tavistock.

They do not correspond with the birth auguries in the Universal Fortune-teller, a book which has had, and indeed still has, a wide circulation among the lower orders of our countrymen.

Sunday—Great riches, long life, and happiness.

Monday—Unsuccessful, irresolute, easily imposed on, yet good-natured and obliging.

Tuesday—Passionate, implacable.

Wednesday—Studious, will excel in literature.

Thursday—Will attain riches and honour.

Friday—Of a strong constitution.

Saturday—An unlucky day but the child may come to good.

“Sunday children” are in Yorkshire deemed secure from the malice of evil spirits. In Germany, too, they are held to be privileged beings, but I am not aware that their immunities are so clearly defined as they are in Sussex, where they are warranted against hanging and drowning.

“Sunday children” in Denmark have prerogatives by no means to be coveted. Witness the following narration from Thorpe’s Mythology, vol. ii. p. 203: “In Fyen there was a woman who was born on a Sunday, and, like other Sunday’s children, had the faculty of seeing much that was hidden from others. But, because of this property, she could not pass by the church at night without seeing a hearse or a spectre—the gift became a perfect burden to her. She therefore sought the advice of a man skilled in such matters, who directed her, whenever she saw a spectre, to say, ‘Go to Heaven;’ but when she met a hearse, ‘Hang on.’ Happening some time after to meet a hearse, she, through lapse of memory, cried out, ‘Go to Heaven,’ and straightway the hearse rose in the air, and vanished. Afterwards, meeting a spectre, she said to it, ‘Hang on,’ when the spectre clung round her neck, hung on her back, and drove her down into the earth before it. For three days her shrieks were heard before the spectre would put an end to her wretched life.”

The hour of birth is also important, for children born during the hour after midnight have the power through life of seeing the spirits of the departed. Mrs. L——, a Yorkshire lady, informs me that she was very near being thus distinguished, but the clock had not struck twelve when she was born. When a child she mentioned this circumstance to an old servant, adding that mamma was sure her birthday was the 23rd, not the 24th, for she had inquired at the time. “Ay, ay,” said the old woman, turning to the child’s nurse, “mistress would be very anxious about that, for bairns born after midnight see more things than other folk.”

The Wilkie MS. tells us that throughout the Border-land the birth of an infant is the signal for plenty of eating and drinking. Tea, duly qualified with brandy or whisky, and a profusion of shortbread and buns, are provided for all visitors, and it is very unlucky to allow anyone to leave the house without his share of these good things. But most important of all is the “shooten” or groaning cheese, from which the happy father must cut a “whang-o’luck” for the lassies of the company, taking care not to cut his own finger while so doing, since in that case the child would die before reaching manhood. The whang must be taken from the edge of the cheese, and divided into portions, one for each maiden. Should there be any to spare they may be distributed among the spinster friends of the family, but if the number should fall short the mistake cannot be rectified; there is no virtue in a second slice. The girls put these bits of cheese under their pillows, and ascribe to them the virtues of bridecake similarly treated.

Now it is plain that cake and a new cheese were formerly provided against the birth of a child both in England and Scotland, and the custom still extends as far south as the Humber. In the north of England, as soon as the happy event is over, the doctor cuts the cake and cheese, and all present partake of both, on pain of the poor baby growing up without personal charms. The cake which is in use on these occasions in Yorkshire is called pepper-cake, and somewhat resembles thick gingerbread. It is eaten with cheese and rich caudle, and all visitors to the house up to the baptism are invited to partake of it. In Sweden the cake and cheese are got ready in good time; they are placed beside the bride in the bridal bed, in preparation for her first confinement. In Oxfordshire the cake used to be cut first in the middle and gradually shaped to a ring, through which the child was passed on its christening-day. The Durham nurse reserves some cake and cheese, and when the infant is taken out to its christening she bestows them on the first person she meets of opposite sex to that of the child. I remember the perplexed face of a young undergraduate when at the baptism of one of my daughters the dole of cake and cheese was bestowed on him, and the late Canon Humble wrote thus on the subject: “I was once fortunate enough when a boy to receive the cake and cheese from a christening party going to St. Giles’s church. I did not at once perceive what was meant when a great ‘hunch’ of cake and some cheese were thrust in my hand, so I drew back. The nurse, however, insisted on my taking them, and I did so, bestowing them afterwards on the first poor boy I met.” A similar custom has I know but just died out in the Devonshire villages round Dartmoor, and in Choice Notes, Folk-Lore, we read of such a gift of bread and cheese in Somersetshire, and of a cake in Cornwall (page 147).

It is said in Yorkshire that a new-born infant should be laid first in the arms of a maiden before any one else touches it. Is this an outgrowth of the medieval belief that the Blessed Virgin was present at the birth of St. John the Baptist, and received him first in her arms?

It is thought unlucky on the Borders to tread on the graves of unbaptlzed children, or “unchristened ground” as they term it. The Wilkie MS. informs us of the special risk that is run. He who steps on the grave of a stillborn or unbaptized child, or of one who has been overlaid by its nurse, subjects himself to the fatal disease of the grave-merels, or grave-scab. This complaint comes on with trembling of the limbs and hard breathing, and at last the skin burns as if touched with hot iron. The following old verses elucidate this superstition:—

Woe to the babie that ne’er saw the sun, All alane and alane, oh! His bodie shall lie in the kirk ’neath the rain, All alane and alane, oh!

His grave must be dug at the foot o’ the wall, All alane and alane, oh! And the foot that treadeth his body upon Shall have scab that will eat to the bane, oh!

And it ne’er will be cured by doctor on earth, Tho’ every one should tent him, oh! He shall tremble and die like the elf-shot eye, And return from whence he came, oh!

Powerless, however, as the faculty may be, there is a remedy for the grave-merels, though not of easy attainment. It lies in the wearing a sark, thus prepared. The lint must be grown in a field which shall be manured from a farmyard heap that has not been disturbed for forty years. It must be spun by old Habbitrot, that queen of spinsters, of whom more hereafter; it must be bleached by an honest bleacher, in an honest miller’s milldam, and sewed by an honest tailor. On donning this mysterious vestment, the sufferer will at once regain his health and strength.

It is curious to observe what a different feeling, with regard to stillborn children, may be met with in the South. We read in Choice Notes (p. 172) that one of the Commissioners of Devonport, after complaining of the charge made upon the parish for the interment of such children, said: “When I was a young man it was thought lucky to have a stillborn child put into any open grave, as it was considered a sure passport to heaven for the next person buried there.” The late Canon Humble’s experience is as follows: “When I was curate at Newburn, in Northumberland, the custom was to bring the coffin of an unbaptized babe with that of a full-grown person. The child’s coffin was always laid on the other coffin towards the feet, and so rested while the service was said. There was generally a receptacle for it in the grave towards the feet, made by widening the grave at that point.” The same custom prevailed some years ago in the parish of Edmonton, near London. Possibly it has been very general.

In the southern counties of Scotland children are considered before baptism at the mercy of the fairies, who may carry them off at pleasure or inflict injury upon them. Hence, of course, it is unlucky to take unbaptized children on a journey—a belief which prevails throughout Northumberland, and indeed in many other parts of the country. Brand mentions this danger, and says the Danish women guard their children during this period against evil spirits by placing in the cradle, or over the door, garlic, salt, bread, and steel in the form of some sharp instrument. “Something like this,” he adds, “obtained in England;” and accordingly I am told that in the West Hiding of Yorkshire “a child was kept safe while sleeping by hanging a carving knife from the head of the cradle with the point suspended near the infant’s face.” In Germany, the proper things to lay in the cradle are “orant” (which is translated into either horehound or snap-dragon), blue marjoram, black cumin, a right shirt-sleeve, and a left stocking. The “Nickert” cannot then harm the child. The modern Greeks dread witchcraft at this period of their children’s lives, and are careful not to leave them alone during their first eight days, within which period the Greek Church refuses to baptize them.

In Scotland the little one’s safeguard is held to lie in the juxtaposition of some article of dress belonging to its father. This was experienced by the wife of a shepherd near Selkirk. Soon after the birth of her first child, a fine boy, she was lying in bed with her baby by her side, when suddenly she became aware of a confused noise of talking and merry laughter in the “spence,” or room. This, in fact, proceeded from the fairies, who were forming a child of wax as a substitute for the baby, which they were planning to steal away. The poor mother suspected as much, so in great alarm she seized her husband’s waistcoat, which chanced to be lying at the foot of the bed, and flung it over herself and the child. The fairies set up a loud scream, calling out “Auld Luckie has cheated us o’ our bairnie!” Soon afterwards the woman heard something fall down the lum (or chimney), and looking out she saw a waxen image of her baby, stuck full of pins, lying on the hearth. When her husband came home he made up a large fire and threw the fairy lump upon it; but, instead of burning, the thing flew up the chimney, and the house instantly resounded with shouts of joy and peals of laughter. Family affection must have been very strong when any trifle closely connected with the father was deemed a safeguard for the child, a safeguard needed till its baptism shielded it from every evil or malicious sprite.

Our northern Folk-Lore is unanimous in bearing witness to the power of baptism. A clerical friend of mine, who once held a cure in Northumberland, tells me that it is there considered to affect a child physically as well as spiritually a notion which I think prevails more or less through the whole country. I have heard old people in many places say of sickly infants, “Ah, there will be a change when he has been taken to church! Children never thrive till they have been christened.” Another informs me that about five years ago an instance came under his notice of the healing power supposed to be wrought by baptism as regards the body. The infant child of a chimney-sweeper at Thorne, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was in a very weak state of health, and appeared to be pining away. A neighbour looked in, and inquired if the child had been baptized. On an answer being given in the negative she gravely said, “I would try having it christened.” The counsel was taken, and I believe with success. It is the custom in Northumberland to make the chrisom-child sleep the first night in the cap he wore at baptism. “Loud murmurs,” says my friend, “arose against me early in my ministerial life for applying so much water that the cap had to be taken off and dried, whereas it should be left on till the next morning. I threw the blame on the modern caps, with their expanse of frilling, on which the good woman said that I was quite right; she had an old christening cap, the heirloom of a friend, which she could show me, of a very different make. Accordingly I examined the cap, which was evidently very old, and made with reference to affusion in baptism. It excluded forehead, ears, and chin, and apparently never had strings. I said that if a mother would bring her baby in such a cap I would undertake not to wet it.”