The Return

Sunrise comes in a smear of blood red. Trees make black shadows against the low light. There's a hint of cold in the breeze as it moans over the window ledge. Autumn.

Outside bulging spiders hang on cobwebs. Some days drops of mist dangle on the thin strands instead. The first dead leaves gather under hedges.

Haws make clots of dark red on the field edges and the pheasants stalk amongst the stubble. Dusty asters bloom in neglected gardens. There has been mist rising from the rifes, the ditches that drain this low-lying land.

Mildew coats the marrow leaves with grey. Neither a bloom nor a leaf remains without a spot, a ragged edge or a stain of decaying colour.

The Wedding Ghost stirs in the cooling soil. The lengthening nights call to her.

Time to come back.

Chimney sweep customs

Where I live in Sussex, some people have either wood or coal fires - and a chimney sweep offers his services in the Local Rag (it really is called that). He also offers 'wedding attendance'. If you're not from the British Isles - or not familiar with our more obscure customs, this might be a puzzle.

"The chimney sweep, by virtue of his blackened face and his connexion with fire and the hearth, is a very lucky person to meet by chance"

Encyclopaedia of Superstition 1948  E & M Radford, revised 1961 Christina Hole 

It was customary to bow or greet a chimney sweep 'in his blacks' - that is to say, when still grimy after his work. In some places, people would spit and make a wish. Apparently, chimney sweeps in Poland and Croatia wear all black and are thought lucky too. You touch a button to attract the magic.

Sweeps are used as New Year good luck charms in Germany

But the luck only worked if he was coming towards you.

This especially applied if a chimney sweep in his blacks should meet a bridal procession. Ideally he should turn and walk along beside the bride to bring her extra good fortune. If he had his back turned, that was a very ill omen.

So nowadays people sometimes hire sweeps to come to a wedding, bringing their good luck with them.

Black face morris men at Rochester Sweeps  Festival  c/o Jill Catley

I wonder if 'the virtue of the blackened face' is another reason for black-face morris men?  It is usually explained as a disguise - and most certainly is not racist unlike the Black and White Minstrels - but perhaps there is an element of black as a colour associated with fire and hearth magic.

After all, the hearth was where domestic rituals took place - and soot would be a product of such magical processes as making bread or smelting metal. Soot collected from your hearth could be used in spells against you, it was once believed. Soot could be made into a form of ink to create sigils and other magical writing -even tattoos.

So inviting a sweep to your wedding would seem like a good idea. If nothing else, it makes a good photo opportunity.

Top Ten Tuesday

This has taken a while but here's a selection of Ghostly Brides. I shall start with the skull-faced Edwardian 'beauty'. Even the flowers she carries are dead.

Here the setting in Highgate Cemetery and her translucency all add to the eeriness. 

 Another see-through spectre. It's the way she challenges you to follow her - and yet the floor of the ruin shines right through her. Chilling.

A ghost bride doesn't have to be white European to be be sinister - this one is both beautiful and disturbing.

Of course, there are other ways to be scary. This zombie bride would rip anyone apart.

 Dead brides are unnerving. Would she 'wake' if you got too close?

And the sadness of this deserted bride -is it contagious, could she pass on her desperate plight?

Another waiting bride - this time from the twenties. The peeling wallpaper tells its own tale.

It's hard to beat a graveyard for the habitat of the supernatural .This bride is already in mourning - who for, I wonder?

But this has to be my Number One. There is something so implacable about her. She would never stop chasing you - slowly.

Brides and burials

On Sunday I was walking around a churchyard in Itchenor looking at gravestones. They can be very beautiful and sad - like this one here. This is from Chicago - so young and so lovely.

They can also be quite unnerving. This extraordinary funerary statue is from Brooklyn.

Rather older, this one seems to be in a shroud - or some sort of Greek veil.

It doesn't have to be white marble to be eerie. Bronze will do just as well.

I think it is the idea that they are waiting that people find unsettling. 

Reading the Banns

In the days when weddings could only take place in church, they used to announce the coming marriages for three weeks in a row. It was called Reading the Banns. It meant there was time for someone to raise an objection ( as happens in Jane Eyre).

There are a surprising number of superstitions about this. Some thought it was unlucky for the engaged couple to hear the banns -their future children would be cursed- so people would go to another church for those three weeks.

Up till the 1850s or so the Parish Clerk or the oldest man in the village would stand up after the last reading  and call out 'God speed them well'. The rest of the congregation had to say 'Amen' loudly to ward off bad luck .

In Perthshire they thought if the Banns were published in one Quarter but the marriage took place in another, it would be ill-fated. (The year was divided up by Quarter Days for things like paying rent)

 Quarter Days

• Lady Day (25 March)
• Midsummer Day (24 June)
• Michaelmas (29 September)
• Christmas (25 December)

It was very, very unlucky if a bell tolled for the death of someone on the same day as the Banns were read - especially if the corpse had been a married woman. They predicted the bride would not live longer than a year.

In the North of England ( where I come from)  folk would say the engaged couple had been 'asked', or in some places, 'shouted' when all three readings had taken place. In times past, there would be a great peal of bells to drive away any evil spirits. It was called the Spur-peal ( see Scots  spier or speer - to ask).

I suppose it comes down to the old idea of tempting fate - if you announce a celebration, some evil spirit might try to spoil it.

The Unlucky Bride

Dia de los Muertos

The Day of the Dead, celebrated in Mexico and other usually Catholic countries.

The last time I was looking for images to go with my post about the Mistletoe Bride - I found one or two to do with  Dia de los Muertos. I put them on one side , resolving to use them later.

As it so happens, I have been invited  to a Mexican themed party. Immediately, I thought of Frida Kahlo - though not perhaps like this - dressed as a traditional Mexican bride with intricate lace and flowers on her crown and Diego Ribiera on her mind.

But it brought me back to those Day of the Dead Brides. In Mexico, the orange marigold or Flor de Muerto is thought to summon the dead. People make altars with sugar skulls and other offerings to their dead family members.

This bride seems to have been waiting a while.

And this one's even called the Waiting Bride.

 People make masks and there is a carnival atmosphere, I've read.

 You can dress up like this Corpse Bride by following the link below.

By Crafty Chica

But with all those masks and disguises, how can you know who - or what - is behind them?

"What a comfort it is to possess the image of those who are removed from our sight..."

People like to remember those who have died. Before the invention of photography, only the wealthy could afford a portrait. 

The Dead Bride 1804

When daguerreotypes and other early forms of photograph became popular, the dead were not left out.

Corpse bride posed with dead flowers.

Note how the gloves cover up her hands - the fingers would be discoloured due to post-mortem decay.

This girl has been held up by a jig and some clever wiring. This is probably a confirmation dress rather than a wedding dress. Look at her blackened fingers.

These memento mori can be eerily beautiful. Some modern photographers imitate them to create art like Eveline Felice here:

and Mikimatto here:

Of course,  many times the bride wasn't dead at the time of the photograph, but there can still be something unsettling to us about these images.

Cards like this would handed out at funerals.

This porcelain image is on a grave in Chicago.

Certainly they remind us that we too will die.

Bridesmaids

The modern bride often has attendants of many different ages and dressed in different styles. Once she would not have done so. She would try to make all her maidens look the same as herself to confuse evil spirits. The bridesmaids would even have veils like her to set the demons a puzzle.

It could be trouble just being the bridesmaid  without demons. Some superstitions say that if a young woman is a bridesmaid three times, she won't get to be a bride herself - unless she can manage seven outings.
Similarly, a bridesmaid who stumbled on the way up the aisle was supposed to remain an 'old maid'.

And of course, straining to catch the bride's bouquet so you will wed next could lead to an accident.

There are some other oddities. Apparently in Kentucky:

If a bridesmaid goes to bed backward with her hand over her heart, she will be married before the year is out, provided the first man she sees in the morning is an old one.

Another is all the bridesmaids signing the bottom of the bride's shoe - the one whose name wears most will marry next.

In some places, bridesmaids might sleep with a piece of cake under their pillow and hope to dream of their own groom.

Some modern women might like this one:

If the bride wishes to be the dominant partner in the marriage, she must be the first to buy something after the wedding.  The quickest way to do this was to buy a pin from the chief bridesmaid when changing out of her bridal dress into her travelling outfit.

 Yet still I come back to the idea of evil spirits wanting to ruin the marriage - I find this quite haunting.