All Hail!
As some
are now beginning to understand again, the English have a belief, a
truefastness or a troth, all of their own, though much of it is shared with others of the same stock. And whilst at first
sight another belief would seem to be uppermost among them now, if we look harder we
will nevertheless see that this is little more than a thin overlay,
and everywhere an older belief is to be seen underneath. At times it
can barely be said to be hidden at all. Often it is only we ourselves who have
become unaware of something seen everyday so that it is as if it
were hidden. But these are not the same things at all. A good
forebisening (=example) of one of these overlooked things is the
following well-known folk-rhyme which I give here in its much more
seldom met with south-western English shape:
Munday's cheel is fair
in tha fāce,
Monday's child is fair in the face,
Tewsday's cheel is vull
ov grāce,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wensday's cheel is vull
ov woe,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thezday's cheel hath
var tü
go.
Thursday's
child hath far to go,
Vriday's
cheel is loving and giving.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Satterday's
cheel work'th 'ard vür a living Saturday's
child worketh hard for a living.
Zinday's
cheel 's a gentleman, Sunday's
child is a gentleman,
Cheel
born upon old kursemas day
Child born upon old Christmas day
Es
güd, and wise, and fair, and gay.
Is
good, and wise, and fair, and gay.
From The
Peasant Speech of Devon by Sarah Hewett, Elliot Stock, 62
Paternoster Row, London 1892, under “Devon Superstitions and Customs”,
“Superstitions regarding childrens's birthdays” leaf (=page) 26.
A smartened up forebisening of this rhyme with Sunday's child missing
was first marked in Mrs. A. E. Bray's Traditions of Devonshire
(Deal (=Volume ) II, leaves 287 to 288) in 1838.
Why is
there all this heedfulness about the days of the week and the
suchnesses (=qualities) bestowed upon the children born on those days?
Although there is much formenging (=confusion), at the
root of it all is what, or rather who, the days of the week are named for, or rather
hallowed to: the old gods (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_days_of_the_week). As the Old English writer Ælfrīċ “Grammaticus” (lived about 955 to about
1010) marketh in his De Falsis Diis (MS. Cotton
Julius E. vii. 237):
“
... hī ȝesetton
eac ða ðære sunnan and ða monan
and ðam oðrum godum, ælcum his dæȝ ; ...”
“
... They gave also to the sun and moon
and to the other gods, to each his day ; ...”
Laȝamon Leouenaðes sone doth give an oversight of these in his Hystoria Bruttonum
(handwrit Cotton Caligula A. ix) :
he heom wes leof æfne al-swa heore lif.
he wes heore walden and heom wurð-scipe duden.
þene feorðe dæi i þere wike heo ȝifuen him to wurð-scipe.
Þa þunre heo ȝiuen Þunres-dæi for þi þat heo heom helpen mæi.
Freon heore læfdi heo ȝiuen hire Fridæi.
Saturnus heo ȝiuen Sætterdæi þene sunne heo ȝiuen Sonedæi.
Monen heo ȝifuen Monedæi Tidea heo ȝeuen Tis-dæi.
Þus seide Hæ[n]gest cnihten alre hendest.”
He to them was lief even as their life.
He was their wielder and to him they did worship
The fourth day in the week they give to him to worship.
The thunder they give Thursday for that they them may help
To frīȝ their lady they give her Friday.
Saturnus they give Satter-day to the sun they give Sunday
To the moon they give Monday to Tīw they give Tuesday.
Thus said hengest the knight of all the hendest (=most courteous.)”
Farewell.
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