MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
285 
fine linen cloth (called the Care-cloth) laid over their heads during 
the time of mass, till they received the benediction, and then were 
dismissed. 
Bride-aht called also Bride-hush^ Bride-siake^ Bidding^ and Bride- 
wain. — Bride-ale, bride-bush, and bride-stake, are nearly synonymous 
terms, and all derived from the circumstance of the bride’s selling 
ale on the wedding day, for which she received, by way of contribu- 
tion, whatever handsome price the friends assembled on the occasion 
chose to pay her for it. A bush at the end of a pole or stake was 
the ancient badge of a country ale-house. Around this bride-stake, 
the guests are wont to dance as about a may-pole. The bride-ale 
appears to have been called in some places a bidding, from the cir- 
cumstance of the bride and bridegroom’s bidding, or inviting, the 
guests. In Cumberland it had the appellation of a bride- wain, a 
term which will be best explained by the following extract from the 
Glossary to Douglas’s Virgil : — There was a custom in the Highlands 
and north of Scotland, where new-married persons, who had no great 
stock, or others low in their fortune, brought carts and horses with 
them to the houses of their relations and friends, and received from 
them corn, meal, wool, or whatever else they could get.” 
Winning the Kail; in Scotland termed Broose, in Westmoreland 
called Riding for the Ribbon. — -The Glossary to Burns’ Scottish 
Poems describes ** Broose” (a word which has the same meaning 
with “Kail”) to be “a race at country weddings, who shall first reach 
the bridegroom’s house on returning from church.” The meaning of 
the words is every where strangely corrupted. “Broose” was originally, 
I take it for granted, the name of the prize on the above occasion, 
and not of the race itself: for whoever first reaches the house to 
bring home the good news, wins the “ Kail,” i.c., a smoking prize of 
spice broth, which stands ready prepared to reward the victor in this 
singular kind of race. This same kind of contest is called in West- 
moreland “ riding for the Ribbon.”* * 
Torches used at Weddings.— At Rom ethe manner was, that two 
children should lead the bride, and a third bear before her a torch 
of yrhite-thorn, in honour of Geres. We have seen foreign prints of 
marriages, where torches are represented as carried in the procei^ioni 
We know not whether this custom ever obtained in England, though 
from the following lines in Herrick’s Hesperides, one might be tempted 
to think that it had : — ■ 
Upon a Maid that dyed the day she was marryed. 
That morne which saw me made a bride, ^ 
The ev’ning witnest that I dy’d. 
' Those holy lights, wherewith they guide 
Unto the bed the bashful bride, 
*' ■ ' ' , ■— ' 
* In a small book entitled the Westmoreland Dialect, w'e are told 
that, “ The ceremony being over, awe raaid haim fearfu’ wele, am, the 
ydungans raaid 'for th! ribban, me cusin Betty banged awth lads, an 
gat it, for sure.” 
