Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Flat 7UP Settles a Sick Stomach

Nationality: Irish
Age: 54
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Dublin, Ireland
Performance Date: January 21st, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Irish

Background: Informant is 54-year-old woman living in Dublin, Ireland. She was born and raised in rural Ireland without access to modern medicine for minor ails, and so knows many folk-remedies for everyday pains. She is married and has one grown daughter. In this conversation, she is signified by the letters C.D.

 

Main Piece:

C.D.: My mam used to always do this when I had a sick stomach. Back home, at the time there was no access to fancy antacids or the like that there is nowadays, so this was pretty much Gospel – all the neighbors used to do it too, and when I asked the other people at school a good few of them had heard of it.

Basically, what you do to settle a sick stomach is you pour out a glass of 7up and just let it sit on a window-sill to go flat. And then you drink it, and your stomach should be all good in about 20 minutes. I think it replaces some of the sugars and fluids you lose when you’re sick too, sure there’s no harm in it anyways.

 

A.: Does it have to be a window-sill?

 

C.D.: Probably not, but that’s how my mam would do it and it seemed to work most of the time so why mess with a good thing, right?

 

A.: True. Where did your mam learn it?

 

C.D.: Would it be a cop-out to say that she learned it from her mam? But I actually think I do remember Granny coming around and minding us when mam went away and she did the same thing for my brother, but I think it was just flat Coke she used. It’s probably just a placebo effect anyways, the fact that we’ve been brought up to believe that it works probably gives you a false sense of feeling better after you drink it.

 

Performance Context: I interviewed the informant over FaceTime due to her being in Ireland and I in California. When I mentioned that I was feeling unwell and she prescribed this remedy. The original context as far back as I could discover was her mother. However, after a quick Google it is clear that this is a common ‘remedy,’ and is particularly associated with Irish folk medicine despite the origination of soft drinks in America.

 

My Thoughts: I’ve actually used this remedy and to an extent it seems to work. Perhaps it’s just because I was brought up in a culture where this was the first port of call when you had a minor stomach upset that it works for me purely based on placebo effect. This is similar to how it has been observed that people whose doctors wear white coats get better faster from the sense of confidence in their treatment the coat symbolizes. Considering the popularity of this remedy in Ireland, I’d be interested as to how someone discovered that flat soft drinks worked as a ‘cure’ in the first place, considering they’re not all that appetizing.

“Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin.”

Nationality: Irish
Age: 54
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Dublin, Ireland
Performance Date: January 22nd, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Irish

Translation (Literal): There’s no hearth like your own hearth

Translation (Modern English): There’s no place like home

 

Background: Informant is 54-year-old woman living in Dublin, Ireland. Raised in rural Ireland, she has a wealth of Irish proverbs and sayings, which are called seanfhocail in the original Irish (literally “old words”). She is married and has one grown daughter. She is signified in this conversation by the initials C.D.

 

Main Piece:

C.D.: The saying goes, “Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán fein.”

 

A: Would you be able to define that for me?

 

C.D.: Of course. It’s an old Irish seanfhocail – that’s like an old proverb or saying – that means ‘there’s no hearth like your own hearth,’ kind of like the modern ‘there’s no place like home.’ I’d say that’s the most popular one of all the old sayings. I think a lot of them got assimilated into English because there’s loads of things that are kind of cliché sayings nowadays that got taken from the Irish and made their way into popular culture. I suppose that it helped that there was already a phrase in English ready to accommodate it.

 

A.: And do you think that it’s true? Is there really no place like home?

 

C.D.: Well, it’s nice to go on holidays and everything, but I don’t think I’d ever leave Ireland for good. A lot of my family emigrated and it was tough on them, they could hack it of course but they’d always be counting down the days until they came home – and then they’d be off again! I don’t want to live my life like that. I’ve made a life for myself here and I couldn’t be happier with it. I wouldn’t want to have to be wishing my time away, sure life’s too short for that! I suppose that’s why we use it when welcoming people home, because it’s such a quintessentially Irish phrase and in the language it has a bit more punch to it.

 

Performance context: I interviewed the informant over FaceTime due to her being in Ireland and I in California. In conversation about me coming home at the end of the semester, she mentioned this saying to me. However, this saying was not new to me as seanfhoclai are taught during Irish class at about the age of 10/11 in most Irish primary schools. At school, the purpose of the exercise of learning these proverbs was to enrich our spoken Irish and connect us with a history of Gaeilgeoir (Irish speakers). These phrases are very common in speech, even in their Anglicized format.

 

My Thoughts: Folk speech and expressions are some of the most enduring and transmitted forms of folklore. Alan Dundes says that proverbs are concise statements of situational philosophies, and so this leads us to consider in particular the Irish history of emigration in relation to this saying. This has a twofold effect. Firstly, this saying appeals in particular to emigrants, who would experience homesickness on a scale perhaps unrivalled by any other people. Romantic Irish writers abound write about their longing for Ireland, but acknowledge that they did leave for a reason. Secondly, my informant’s clever linking of this saying with the Anglicized and more popular ‘there’s no place like home’ illustrates the inherent and large field of transmission in folk-proverbs. I am personally unsure whether the English or Irish phrase came first, or whether this exists in a multiplicity of cultures, perhaps further collections can shed light on this. This saying is also past-focused, reinforcing Dundes’ idea that European culture is less future-focused than American society, as this saying suggests the ultimate comfort exists in what one has, as opposed to what one will have in the unreachable and ever-fleeing future.

Putting a Child of Prague statue in the garden for good weather at weddings

Nationality: Irish
Age: 56
Occupation: IT Technician
Residence: Dublin, Ireland
Performance Date: February 8th, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Irish

Background:

Informant is 56-year old IT technician living in Dublin, Ireland. This piece of folklore has to do with the Child of Prague statues that are so popular in Ireland. The statue is usually less than a foot high and features Jesus Christ dressed as a king, similar to the one indicated above, but with occasional variations in the color of the cloak according to the time of the year. The statue is a replica of the original wax-wooden statue housed in the Disacled Carmelite Church of Our Lady in Malá Strana, Prague. It was said to have belonged to Saint Teresa of Avila, and is now located to the right of the altar, halfway up the Church. This is a tradition the informant is familiar with from his childhood, and is a fond memory. He is signified in this conversation by the initials D.O.

 

Main Piece:

D.O.: Mam would always do this whenever one of my sisters was getting married. You place the Child of Prague statue in the front garden of the bride’s house in a bush or under a hedge – basically somewhere it’s not going to get knocked over. You could even bury it in the ground – that’d happen a lot in the winter. It’s supposed to bring good weather the day of a wedding. Burying it in the winter was a kind of evasive manoeuvre, as if hiding it better would make the weather even better, or rather combat the winter.

 

A: And do you think it worked?

 

D.O.: Maybe half of the time, but sure half of the time it probably wasn’t going to rain anyways. People are more likely to have weddings in the summer, so the weather was going to be fine enough in the first place. There was another superstition actually, about if the statue was missing a head. Some people would say that the statue was luckier, because if it was missing a head that meant that it had been around for a long time and it worked better – tried and tested, like – but some people said it was an omen that the statue was cursed or had been knocked over or broken. Ours had a head but the neighbors swore by the headless statue.

 

A: And would you still do that today?

 

D.O.: I probably would for tradition’s sake if it was someone important to me getting married. I don’t think it’s as prevalent today as it was when I was younger. I suppose Ireland is a less Catholic country now than the one I grew up in.

 

Performance context: I interviewed this informant over the phone considering that I am in California and he in Dublin. He mentioned that there was a family wedding coming up and that, seeing as it’s winter, he joked about putting out a Child of Prague. My resulting questioning forms the rest of this analysis.

 

My thoughts: This is probably one of the more bizarre folk beliefs I have heard from Ireland. I don’t quite understand the connection between this statue and the weather, nor where the belief came from. The idea of hiding or burying the statue seems to be implicit to the success of its weather-controlling powers, which again seems to have no obvious links. The combination of two-fold superstition with not only the weather-controlling aspect of the statue, but the idea that it is ‘luckier’ with its’ head broken off, combines Christian beliefs with superstitions that would perhaps have more to do with Ancient Greco-Roman cult statues than Christianity in a confusing mix. Perhaps this is why Ireland is such an odd and interesting country to examine folklore from – although it seems a canonical and thoroughly Catholicized state, in isolation very unique folk beliefs to do with traditional religion, preexisting culture and superstition have been created in an eccentric and confusing mix.

Throwing of Bouquet by the Bride

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: February 11th, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Background Information:

My informant is a 22-year-old student, originally from the Southern New Jersey area. We recently got talking about weddings and we were discussing the American custom of the bride throwing her bouquet behind her after she has been married. This is not a common custom where I am from, and so I was intrigued to hear what she made of it, considering it is so prevalent in American film and television. She has seen this tradition in real life many times, and thinks it is a fun part of the wedding ceremony. She is signified in this conversation by the initials B.I.

Main Piece:

A: Have you personally seen someone throw a bouquet at a wedding?

B.I.: Yes, I’ve seen it many times. It’s always the bride that throws the bouquet of flowers that she carried up the aisle with her, so usually white roses or the like.

A: And when exactly does this take place in the ceremony?

B.I.: It normally takes place after the actual marriage itself, but sometimes I’ve seen brides throw their bouquets the second they get outside the church, and other times they wait until later on in the evening when everyone is gathered, perhaps at the reception or after the dinner, and then she throws it. It’s always thrown back over her head, so she can’t see who she’s throwing it to. Oh, and also it’s really important who tries to catch it. It’s always unmarried women who try and catch it, sometimes the bridesmaids in particular. Sometimes one of the men will try and catch it for a joke. If you catch it, it means you’re the next person to get married out of the group. I don’t know how seriously people take it as a prediction of who will actually get married next, but I’ve certainly seen some exceptionally uncomfortable men around after their girlfriend catches the bouquet!

A: And why does she throw it in the first place?

B.I.: I don’t really know to be honest, is it something to do with throwing away your virginity or something? Because flowers usually represent that, right? Yeah, and that would work well with the fact that the flowers are white, because white is the traditional color you wear at a wedding to represent your virginity.

Performance Context:

This piece was related to me in person in a conversation about American superstitions and customs including those from the natural world, such as Bigfoot, and from film and television.

My Thoughts:

This piece highlights a lot of preconceptions of the newly married woman. Firstly, that she throws a bouquet of white flowers is certainly symbolic of virginity, and the casting aside of virginal white and maidenhood to become a married and sexually active woman. This would concur with Vaz da Silva’s constructions of the ‘tricolor’ of womanhood, that white, red, and black represent the stages in a woman’s life, passing from white virginity, to red sexual activity, to black barrenness. Secondly, the act of throwing the bouquet itself is a kind of symbolic ‘deflowering,’ that the era of her girlhood has passed and she is now almost a full member of adult female society. By passing it onto another woman, she passes on the torch of her virginity, only for that woman in turn to throw her own bouquet at her wedding. This is underscored in the idea that the only women who try and catch the flowers are unmarried, as otherwise that would suggest a refusal of the classic contract of marriage in outdated terms: the person you are sanctioned to have sex with. If a married woman caught the bouquet, it would therefore suggest a critical insufficiency in their marriage. It is interesting that this tradition carries on today despite the fact that many women must have no idea behind the symbolism of what they are doing – certainly it was news to me. It reminds me of the American tradition of throwing one’s graduation cap into the air at the end of the graduation ceremony – an eschewing of one’s previous identity and entering into a new stage of one’s life.

Wren Day

Nationality: Irish
Age: 54
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Dublin, Ireland
Performance Date: March 1st, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Irish

Background Information:

Informant is 54-year-old woman living in Dublin, Ireland. She was raised in rural southern Ireland. This festival called Wren Day is celebrated on St. Stephen’s Day, December 26th. It is not a custom I have observed in Dublin, and seems to mainly be confined to rural areas, particularly in the south but it has also been seen in the Nordic countries. Wren in this tale is pronounced like “wran,” owing to the southern dialect. She learned of this festival from experiencing it, and she didn’t particularly enjoy it as she found the costumes scary. She is signified in this conversation by the initials C.D.

Main Piece:

C.D.: Wren Day is always celebrated on St. Stephen’s Day at home. It’s not so much a festival that everyone celebrates, rather there are a few people that celebrate it and try and drag the rest of us into it. It involves men, usually, dressing up in straw outfits and masks and parading through the town singing songs. Back home, they’d work their way around the mountain and would knock on your door and sing a song – sometimes it had words, and other times it was just sounds, like the Native American chants – and they’d expect a penny in return. I always thought they were terrifying, dressed up like giant haybales and shouting in the front garden. In the village there would be a kind of parade, where the marchers would hold up these long wooden poles with nets on the top, that was supposed to symbolize the catching of the wren. I think they used to actually catch a wren sometimes, but maybe that’s gone out of fashion over time.

A: Do you know what the wren symbolized?

C.D.: It was meant to symbolize the old year being put away and the new year coming in. You’d only find the wren in winter, so by caging it and putting control on it the people are sort of forcing in the spring, maybe like a Groundhog Day style thing?

A: And do you remember the kinds of songs they’d sing?

C.D.: Like I said, I was usually too scared of them to really listen to what they were saying, but when they’d come to the house they’d end their songs in “If you haven’t got a penny then a hapenny will do,/ If you haven’t got a hapenny then God bless you!” That’s usually when my mam would hand them a penny or two, as they wouldn’t go away until you gave it to them.

Performance Context:

This piece of folklore was related to me over the phone, as I am in California and she is in Ireland. I asked her about any festivals she had at home and she said that this was the strangest one she could think of that she actually experienced.

My Thoughts:

The wren is an interesting bird, as it is found in both the Catholic and Celtic traditions. In the Celtic tradition, the wren was a sacred bird that sang through the winter. In this sense, it symbolized enduring life through the harshest months. By sacrificing a wren at this time of year, the people ritualistically “killed” winter and ushered in the path for the spring birds. In the Christian tradition, the wren is thought to have betrayed St. Stephen, revealing his position whilst he hid from his enemies. This allowed for the tradition to endure through pre-Christian times until now, and explains the current dating of this festival to St. Stephen’s Day. This festival, then, projects the human and religious calendars onto the natural year cycle by eliminating winter and ushering in the Spring. Also, the idea that it is mostly men that participate in it speaks to the Catholic patriarchy in Ireland at the time that this tradition was prevalent.