Note 31 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.
Reading edition
“If you change the name and not the letter,
You change for the worse and not for the better.”
Henderson’s Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, p. 26.
As a specimen of the absurd stories connected with weddings which obtain credence amongst the Chinese, I copy the following from a Shanghai Evening Courier of a few months back:—In some district of Chekiang, name and time not stated, a bride, long betrothed, on attaining the age of 18 made the usual preparations for marriage. At length the bridal chair arrived to convey her to her future home. Her friends went before her to open the door of the chair, but on doing so they started, screamed and ran away, saying there was a large snake in the chair. The bride, possibly thinking they were only in jest, went herself and looked into the chair, and saw, not a snake, but a large sheathed knife. Nothing daunted, she took the knife, put it in the box containing the lighter portions of her trousseaux, and ordered the chair-coolies to proceed. The marriage ceremonies being in due time completed, the young couple retired, and the bridegroom then observed that his bride had a moody and terrified look. Questioning her as to the cause, she told him the incident of the chair, the snake and the knife. He asked to see the knife: she gave it to him. He drew it from its sheath, but he had no sooner done so than his head fell off! The bride raised an alarm; the family crowded in. She told what had happened; they refused to believe her, and declared that she herself was the murderess. The Magistrate was sent for; he came, and on hearing the bride’s story, asked to see the knife, and, as in the husband’s case, when he drew it from the sheath, his head at once fell on the floor. The newly-made widow was then told to see whether she could wield the knife with safety. She took it, and approaching a large tree made a cut at it. It was cut through by that single blow, while the woman remained unharmed. Here the legend ends abruptly, as inconsequential in its finish as it is grotesque in texture. Yet it is astonishing what excitement was caused in the teashops of the City and Settlement for some days by the telling and hearing of the story. ↑