Curiosities of Olden Times

Sabine Baring-Gould

Description

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. AN antiquary lights on many a curiosity whilst overhauling the _dusty tomes of ancient writers. This little book is a small museum in which I have preserved some of the quaintest relics which have attracted my notice during my labours. The majority of the articles were published in 1869.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Forgotten Books
• Date de parution: 27 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780243742707
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

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A N antiquary lights on a curiosity whilst overhauling the tomes ancient writers dusty This little book is a small museum in which have preserved some of the quaintest relics which have attracted my notice during my labours The majority of the articles were published in have now added some others

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M E N I NG M O URN I NG A E HER C UR IO S I T I S C S R A NGE T R UL R I UEE C T S H O S S I N C O UR T T S R A NGE P I N S ND P EN L I E S T A A A T W H A A RE W O EN DE T A F L GELLU A ED I I U S R B R O NE SS DE BE U S O LE I L A A S O E C R A S I S A T J A C ASS A M S ER IO U S LE T A I NG O ER S I I L R T S O R E S T H I H E C A A C O O L A T P H I L O S O HER S S O NE T

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A T and a half in widthan inch black cloth stitched round the sleeve that is thefinal per haps penultimate expression it may dwindle further to a black thread the usage wearing mourning on the decease Of a relative The usage is that commends itself to us as an outward and visible sign the inward sentiment bereavement an d not in ten thousand who adopt mourning has any idea that it ever possessed a signi fi cation another corresort And yet the general custom mourning fashions lead us to the inexorable conclusion that in its inception the practice had quite a dif erent tion from that now attributed to it nay more that it is solely because its primitive meaning has been absolutely forgotten and an entirely novel significance iven to it that mourning is still employed after a eath B

C uriosi i s of O l d Ti m s Look back through the telescope anthropology at our primitive ancestors in their naked savagery and we see them daub themselves with soot mingled with tallow When the savage assumed clothes and became a civilised man he replaced the fat and lampblack with black cloth and this black clot has descende to us in the nineteenth century as the customary and intelligible trappings of The C of bereavein a condition hinaman when ment assumes white garments and we may be pretty certain that his b rbarous ancestor like the Andaman slander the present day pipeclayed his naked body after the decease and funeral of a relative Egypt yellow was the symbol sorrow a death and that points back to the ancestral nude Egyptian having smeared himsel f with yellow ochre Black was not the universal hue of mourning in Europe C astile white obtained on the death its princes Herrera states that the last time white was thus employed was in on the death Prince John This use white in C astile indicates chalk pipeclay as the daub a ected by the ancestors the house C astile in primeval time as a badge bereavement Various explanations have been Of ered to account for the var ance of colour White has been supposed to denote purity and to this day white gloves and hat bands and scarves are employed at the funeral a young girl as in the old ballad The Bride s Burial

M i g iof Mour g A g l r h i r l i l i h i v i g i i y fi l i Si x p y i b g r b ll i g l i g l l Yellow has been supposed to symbolise that death is the end human hopes because falling leaves are sere black is taken as the privation light and purple iolet also af ected as a blending j oy with sorrow C hristian moralists have declai med against black as heathen as denoting an spect death devoid of hope and gr dually purple is aking its place in the trappings the hearse if the mourners and the pall is now very generally violet But these explanations are afterthoughts and an attempt to give reason for the divergence usage which might satisfy but these are really no explanations at all The usage goes back to a period when there were no such refinements thought violet purple has been traditional it is so merely because the ancestral Brito stain d himsel f ith woad death a relative The pipeclay lampblack yellow ochre and woad of the primeval mourners m st be brought into range with a whole series of other mourning usages and then the result is something an eye Opener reveals a condition Of mind and an aspect death