Old English Funeral Customs.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Folkard, Richard
In England, there long prevailed an old custom of carrying garlands before the bier of youthful beauty, which were afterwards strewed over her grave, In ‘Hamlet,’ the Queen, scattering flowers over the grave of Ophelia, says:—
“Sweets to the sweet. Farewell!
I hoped thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not have strewed thy grave.”
The practice of planting and scattering flowers over graves is noticed by Gay, who says:—
“Upon her grave the Rosemary they threw,
The Daisy, Butter-flower, and Endive blue.”
Rosemary was considered as an emblem of faithful remembrance. Thus Ophelia says: “There’s Rosemary for you, that’s for remembrance; pray you, love, remember.” Probably this was the reason that the plant was carried by the followers at a funeral in former days: a custom noticed by the poet in the following lines:—
“To show their love, the neighbours far and near
Follow’d with wistful look the damsel’s bier;
Sprigg’d Rosemary the lads and lasses bore,
While dismally the parson walked before.”
It is still customary in some parts of England to distribute Rosemary among the company at a funeral, who frequently throw sprigs of it into the grave.
Wordsworth introduces in one of his smaller poems an allusion to a practice which still prevails in the North of England:—
“The basin of Box-wood, just six months before,
Had stood on the table at Timothy’s door;
A coffin through Timothy’s threshold had passed,
One child did it bear, and that child was his last.”
It is stated in a note that—“In several parts of the North of England, when a funeral takes place, a basin full of sprigs of Box-wood is placed at the door of the house from which the coffin is taken up; and each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a sprig of this Box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.” Pepys mentions a churchyard near Southampton, where, in the year 1662, the graves were all sown with Sage.
Unfortunate lovers had garlands of Yew, Willow, and Rosemary laid on their biers; thus we read in the ‘Maid’s Tragedy’:—
“Lay a garland on my hearse
Of the dismal Yew;
Maidens, Willow branches bear;
Say that I died true.
My love was false, but I was firm
From my hour of birth.
Upon my buried body lie
Lightly gentle earth.”
It was an old English custom, at the funeral of a virgin, for a young woman to precede the coffin in the procession, carrying on her head a variegated garland of flowers and sweet herbs. Six young girls surrounded the bier, and strewed flowers along the streets to the place of burial. It was also formerly customary to carry garlands of sweet flowers at the funeral of dear friends and relatives, and not only to strew them on the coffin, but to plant them permanently on the grave. This pleasing practice, which gave the churchyard a picturesque appearance, owed its origin to the ancient belief that Paradise is planted with fragrant and beautiful flowers—a conception which is alluded to in the legend of Sir Owain, where the celestial Paradise, which is reached by the blessed after their passage through purgatory, is thus described:—
“Fair were her erbers with floures;
Rose and Lili divers colours,
Primros and Parvink,
Mint, Feverfoy, and Eglenterre,
Columbin and Mother-wer,
Than ani man may bithenke
It berth erbes of other maner,
Than ani in erth groweth here,
Though that is best of priis;
Evermore thai grene springeth,
For Winter no sooner it us cloyeth,