first day,
the festivities were opened by the clergy rising and singing a psalm
or other religious song. The wandering gleemen, who were always
present at these feasts, then took up the singing; and as they
proceeded, to the clamorous approval of the drunken company, they
became less and less mindful of the proprieties of sentiment and of
action. The bride and groom were not obliged to remain to the end of
the revelry, but might avail themselves of an opportunity to slip out
from the hall. When the company was surfeited with festivities, the
more sober of them formed a procession, with the clergy in the lead,
and with musical attendance conducted the bride and groom to the
nuptial couch. The bed was formally blessed by the priest, the
marriage cup was drunk by the bride and the groom, and then the couple
were left by their friends, who returned to the hall and renewed their
feasting. Even Alfred the Great, good and wise as he was, could not
escape the customs of his times, and was compelled to indulge in such
excesses at his wedding that he never quite recovered from an attack
of illness he suffered in consequence.

Having noticed the rudeness to which the bride was subjected, it is
gratifying to mention a more pleasant bit of waggery that was much
in vogue, and that corresponds more nearly to the wedding pranks of
to-day. One of the symbolic features of the wedding was the touching
by the bridegroom of the forehead of the bride with one of his shoes.
This signified that her father's right in her had passed to her
husband. But when the couple were conducted to their nuptial couch by
the bridal company, it was quite likely, if the bride had a reputation
for shrewishness, that the shoe, which after the ceremony had been
placed on the husband's side of the bed, would be found on the bride's
side--a hint that the general conviction was that the headship of the
family would be found to be vested in the wife. We can see from this
that the custom of throwing an old shoe after a bride to give her
"good luck" really signifies the wish that she may dominate the new
establishment.

The marriage of a girl was signalized by her being thereafter allowed
to bind her hair in folds about her head. Up to that time she wore
her hair loose. This custom, which in earlier days signified a wife's
subjection, came now to denote the high dignity to which she had been
raised; her hair thus arranged was a crown of honor, and every girl
looked