no 



the thing. Only imagine the ladies of the present day, mth their long 

 trailing skirts and their tight aprons, attempting to jump over the can with 

 the beesom stuck in it ! 



Passing from Birth, to Marriage customs, we may remark, that the 

 bidden weddings and bridewains, so graphically described by some of 

 the old Cumbrian writers, were altogether exceptional affairs, only 

 happening now and then, and by no means general or customary. They 

 seem to have been got up occasionally by persons who had an eye to the 

 main chance, purely as money speculations, and never to have become 

 common enough to deserve the name of a custom, so that we need not 

 further allude to them here. 



The common weddings, however, were usually celebrated by a 

 good deal of sociality. There were generally ten or a dozen couples of 

 young people, who went to church ; and as the distance was frequently 

 several miles, they travelled on horseback, there being then neither 

 wheeled carriages nor roads suitable for them. There was always a 

 public house not far from the church, where they put up their horses 

 during the ceremony, and to which they adjourned after it was over, to 

 drink health and happiness to the newly married couple. This having 

 been done to the satisfaction of all parties, ^the horses were brought out, 

 and all being fairly mounted, the word was given, and a race home took 

 place, the prize being a ribbon to be presented to the winner by the 

 bride. Mounted on their rough and shaggy farm horses (many of which 

 carried double), a neck-break race of six or eight miles over such roads 

 as they then had, was no joke, and many were the disasters which 

 resulted. After a great deal of feasting, drinking, singing, and dancing, 

 the last act at an old-fashioned wedding was throwing the stocking. The 

 bride having retired, all the young women entered the room, and stood 

 at the foot of the bed, when she sat up with her back towards them, and 

 threw her left leg stocking over her shoulder, and the girl who chanced 

 to be hit by it was supposed to be the next to be married. 



The Funeral customs of the district, although, perhaps, still capable 

 of improvement, have been greatly modified since the beginning of the 

 present century. It was formerly the custom when a person died, and 



