Note 227 — GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE.
Reading edition
This oath occurs again, act v., sc. 2—
"Yet shall ye find no other wight save she, by bread and salt."
From the following passage, in Nash's "Lenten Stuff," 1599, it may be inferred that it was once customary to eat bread and salt previous to the taking an oath: "Venus, for Hero was her Priest, and Juno Lucina the Midwife's Goddess, for she was now quickened, and cast away by the cruelty of Æolus, took bread and salt, and eat it, that they would be smartly revenged on that truculent, windy jailor," &c.