Lavengro, George Borrow [i love reading books txt] 📗

when he was poorly, I told him this one amongst others, and it was then he made the observation that it is a relic of the worship of the Danes. Truly the child talked both sensibly and learnedly. The Danes, he said, were once a mighty people, and were masters of the land where we at present are; that they had gods of their own, strange and wild like themselves, and that it was their god Frey who gave his name to what we call Friday.”

“All this may be true,” said my father, “but I should never think of quoting the child as an authority.”

“You must not be too hard on him,” said my mother. “So this Frey had a wife whose name was Freya,95 and the child says that the old pagans considered them as the gods of love and marriage, and worshipped them as such; and that all young damsels were in the habit of addressing themselves to Freya in their love adventures, and of requesting her assistance. He told me, and he quite frightened me when he said it, that a certain night ceremony, in which I took part in my early youth, and which is the affair to which I have alluded, was in every point heathenish, being neither more nor less than an invocation to this Freya, the wife of the old pagan god.”

“And what ceremony might it be?” demanded my father. “It is getting something dark,” he added, glancing around.

“It is so,” said my mother; “but these tales, you know, are best suited to the dark hour. The ceremony was rather a singular one; the child, however, explains it rationally enough. He says that this Freya was not only a very comely woman, but also particularly neat in her person, and that she invariably went dressed in snow-white linen.”

“And how came the child to know all this?” demanded my father.

“Oh, that’s his affair. I am merely repeating what he tells me. He reads strange books and converses with strange people. What he says, however, upon this matter, seems sensible enough. This Freya was fond of snow-white linen.”

“And what has that to do with the story?”

“Everything. I have told you that the young maidens were in the habit of praying to her and requesting her favour and assistance in their love adventures, which it seems she readily granted to those whom she took any interest in. Now the readiest way to secure this interest and to procure her assistance in any matter of the heart, was to flatter her on the point where she was the most sensible. Whence the offering.”

“And what was the offering?”

“It was once a common belief that the young maiden who should wash her linen white in pure running water and should ‘watch’ it whilst drying before a fire from eleven to twelve at night, would, at the stroke of midnight, see the face of the man appear before her who was destined to be her husband, and the child says that this was the ‘Wake of Freya.’ ”96

“I have heard of it before,” said my father, “but under another name. So you were engaged in one of these watchings.”

“It was no fault of mine,” said my mother; “for, as I told you, I was very young, scarcely ten years of age; but I had a sister considerably older than myself, a nice girl, but somewhat giddy and rather unsettled. Perhaps, poor thing, she had some cause; for a young man to whom she had been betrothed, had died suddenly, which was of course a terrible disappointment to her. Well, it is at such times that strange ideas, temptations perhaps, come into our head. To be brief, she had a mighty desire to know whether she was doomed to be married or not. I remember that at that time there were many odd beliefs and superstitions which have since then died away; for those times were not like these; there were highwaymen in the land, and people during the winter evenings used to sit round the fire and tell wonderful tales of those wild men and their horses; and these tales they would blend with ghost stories and the like. My sister was acquainted with all the tales and superstitions afloat and believed in them. So she determined upon the wake, the night-watch of Freya, as the child calls it. But with all her curiosity she was a timid creature, and was afraid to perform the ceremony alone. So she told me of her plan, and begged me to stand by her. Now, though I was a child, I had a spirit of my own and likewise a curiosity; and though I had other sisters, I loved her best of all of them, so I promised her that I would stand by her. Then we made our preparations. The first thing we did was to walk over to the town, which was about three miles distant⁠—the pretty little rural town which you and the child admire so much, and in the neighbourhood of which I was born⁠—to purchase the article we were in need of. After a considerable search we found such an one as we thought would suit. It was of the best Holland, and I remember that it cost us all the little pocket money we could muster. This we brought home; and that same night my sister put it on and wore it for that once only. We had washed it in a brook on the other side of the moor. I remember the spot well; it was in a little pool beneath an old hollow oak. The next night we entered on the ceremony itself.

“It happened to be Saturday, which was lucky for us, as my father that night would be at the town, whither he went every Saturday to sell grain; for he farmed his own little estate, as you know.”

“I remember him well,” said my father; “he preferred ale to