bodice and full sleeves of snowy linen, a corselet of red and green,
ornamented with bands and buckles, and a white apron trimmed with
embroidery. A silver-gilt breast ornament is worn by Swedish brides. The
band is wrought with bosses, and depending from it are small beaten
discs, and a medallion bearing the sacred initials I.H.S. The
bridegroom's hat in the illustration was probably an heirloom too, from
its shape and fashion. He wears a red waistcoat cut short and fastened
with brass buttons, and a loose cloth coat ornamented with embroidered
revers. The black small clothes show to advantage a well-shaped leg, and
on the feet are low shoes. Usually the festivities in connection with a
peasant wedding in Norway are kept up for three days, and during the
time there is much feasting and merrymaking among the friends of bride
and bridegroom.
[Illustration: ORNAMENT WORN BY SWEDISH PEASANT BRIDE.]
[Illustration: A BRIDEGROOM'S TOILET AT FERNANDO PO.]
Gipsies are, as a rule, married at a very early age. A girl is generally
betrothed at fourteen, and becomes a wife two years later. The marriage
ceremony is performed by a priest wearing a ram's horn as a sign of
office, and, as becomes a nomadic race, the four elements--fire, air,
earth, and water--take a prominent position. The horn is the symbol of
authority, and is often made use of in Scripture. So much were rams'
horns esteemed by the Israelites that their priests and Levites used
them as trumpets in the taking of Jericho; and modern Jews when they
confess their sins announce the ceremony by blowing a ram's horn. In
ancient Egypt and other parts of Africa, Jupiter Ammon was worshipped
under the figure of a ram, and to this deity one of these animals was
sacrificed annually. It seems to have been an emblem of power from the
remotest ages. It would therefore appear that the practice of the gipsy
priest wearing a ram's horn suspended from a string round his neck at a
marriage is derived from the highest antiquity, and undoubtedly points
to the Oriental origin of the gipsy race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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