Girdles: their origin and development, particularly with regard to their use as charms in medicine, marriage, and midwifery / [Walter J. Dilling].

  • Dilling, Walter J. (Walter James), 1886-1950.
Date:
1913-14
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Girdles: their origin and development, particularly with regard to their use as charms in medicine, marriage, and midwifery / [Walter J. Dilling]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/64 (page 356)
    hires them out to the peasantry.1 An exactly similar method of procuring the necessary girdle is adopted by the poorer Norwegian peasants.2 The Japanese receives at her betrothal a piece of gold embroidery for a girdle, and the bride takes to her husband seven presents, amongst which are an upper and an under girdle, but I can find no trace of any ritualistic observances connected with them.3 A peculiar custom relating to girdles and their knots holds in Russia; during the marriage ceremony a net “from its affluence of knots” is thrown over the bride or bridegroom and the attendants are girt with pieces of net, “ or at least with tight drawn girdles, for before a wizard can begin to injure them he must undo all the knots in the net or take off the girdles.” 4 Next, an example from England, one of some curiositj7 on account of its relationship to the “Iliad” girdle. I quote directly from Brand, who apparently obtained the passage from a newspaper called the Cumberland Packet:— “George Hayton who married Ann, the daughter of Joseph and Dinah Collin of Crossley Mill, purposes having a Bride Wain at his- house at Crossley, near Mary Port, on Thursday, May 7th next [1789], where he will be happy to see his Friends and Well-wishers, for whose amusement there will be ... a Girdle (Ceinture de Venus) possessing qualities not to be described, and many other Articles which can never prove tedious in the exhibition.” 5 . I have been through a tolerable number of ancient tomes in the course of this inquiry, but I have failed to find any facts which elucidate the above mysterious girdle; the only other reference to the “ Cestus ” I have found in this country is the following:—“The Irish are observed to present their lovers with Bracelets of women’s hair, whether in reference to Venus’ Cestus or not, I know not.”6 The questions naturally arise as to how the girdle came into use in our land; why the term “Ceinture de Venus”—pagan and French even then—was adopted; and whether the undescribed qualities were those of the original “ Iliad ” Cestus. 1 G. F. Abbott, “Macedonian Folklore,” Cambridge, 1903, pp. 168, 175. * Chambers’s “ Book of Days,” vol. i, p. 720. 3 a. B. Mitford, “Tales of Old Japan,” London, 1871, vol. ii, pp. 244-5. * Ralston, “Songs of the Russian People,” p. 390; Abbott, Joe. cit.,. ^ Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1900, p. 386 « Ibid., p. 348.