Note 36 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.

I have already alluded to the custom of using lights at marriages and traced a faint resemblance to a European custom in that observed by the Chinese. But as regards burials the parallel is much more exact. In the lowlands of Scotland a candle is waved thrice round a corpse as it is “sained” or blessed. In China candles are kept burning round the coffin after the body has been laid out, “to light the spirit of the dead upon his way,” and a similar custom appears to have obtained amongst almost every people in the European world.36 As everybody knows, the coffins of those lying in state are surrounded by wax tapers, which are kept burning until the day of interment. A candle used to be set upon a dead body in Northumberland, and a similar practice prevailed in the Isle of Man; while the modern Jews set a light at the head of one recently departed. Still more exact is the analogy between the Chinese custom of carrying torches before the dead at funerals and that which always existed amongst the ancient Jews, and until very recent times obtained amongst ourselves. Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, Vol. II., p. 276 et seq., gives a long account of the uses of torches and lights in this connection.