About Wedding Traditions & Meanings

Thursday, February 2, 2023

History of the Celtic knot tying ceremony

The Celtic knot tying ceremony, also known as handfasting, is an ancient custom. This practice, in ages past, recognized as marriage in Scotland, Ireland, and Northern England, did not mean quite the same as what we think of marriage today. Also known by names like  'Celtic Marriage' or 'hand-wrapping' it is still practiced as one of the most popular Celtic marriage traditions. 

 

Handfasting

Origin of the Celtic knot tying ceremony

 

How did this custom start? To understand this, we need to recognize that in the past, the gesture of holding hands was a sign that the couple’s relationship was exclusive and while exchanging rings was a custom, not everyone could afford them. For those who couldn’t afford rings, a cord worked just fine.

 

 

As for the origins, the Celtic handfasting tradition can be traced back to 7000 BC when the Celts migrated from Europe and settled in Britain. They brought the ritual with them, and the practice continued well through the Tudor Period. Two people came to be married, and their hands were fastened together with a cord or strip of material. The Celtic knot ceremony publicly declared the couple’s intention to marry one year and a day in the future. In the meantime, they lived together as husband and wife. 

 

Lughnasadh

Lughnasadh harvest festival

As long as we are talking about this custom, another bit of related trivia is the ancient Irish tradition of a festival held on Lughnasadh (associated with the god Lugh). The festival was held to commemorate his marriage and was practiced until the nineteenth century. During this festival, men and women gathered on opposite sides of a high wall. Men stood on the North side and women on the South. The women stuck through hands through holes in the wall. Men came along and chose one of the hands. These new couples formed temporary partnerships called “Tailtian marriages.” They were solemnized at the festival and the couples lived together for a year and a day in a trial marriage. After the time was up, they decided whether or not they wanted to be permanently married. 

 


Why a trial marriage?

Ancient Celtic law recognized this union as a trial period. Why? Speculation was that the making a public declaration of intent to marry let suitors know both parties were no longer available. Plus, the probationary phase offered time to ensure the couple was ready to take on the commitment of marriage. 


I think of it this way, instead of an engagement ring, they made their intentions known with this Celtic knot tying ceremony. It symbolized the joining of two lives. And my two cents is that a knot can be temporary. It can be untied.

 

handfasting

Celtic wedding knot ceremony today

The Celtic wedding knot ceremony is a popular tradition in weddings today. As you can probably guess, the Celtic hand tying ceremony is where we get the modern expressions of ‘tying the knot’ and 'bonds of matrimony.' Often it is practiced across traditions and cultures as a unity ceremony with specific handfasting colors incorporated in the cords to represent personal meanings to the couple. 

 

Photo credits: Etsy, Pinterest, Etsy



Thursday, January 5, 2023

Polish Bread and salt wedding tradition

Weddings offer the perfect opportunity for couples to embrace wedding traditions tied to familial cultural roots. Among polish wedding traditions, one that many brides and grooms choose to include on their wedding day is the bread and salt tradition. 

Historically, bread and salt is at the center of traditional welcome ceremonies in Slavic and European cultures as well as Middle Eastern cultures. Over time it has been adopted as a pleasant and meaningful way to celebrate two families coming together as the parents of the bride and groom welcome the newlywed couple to the wedding reception.

 


Bread and salt tradition

While the bread and salt wedding tradition is a European tradition, its origins are generally attributed to Poland where the welcoming with bread and salt is an honored custom. Today it is most often observed as part of the wedding celebration as newlyweds are greeted with bread and salt by their parents at the wedding reception. An announcement is made:

“This is a long cherished Polish tradition which has been passed down through the centuries. It symbolizes the union of the Bride and Groom and their families.”

The parents of the bride and groom greet the newlyweds with a loaf of wedding bread sprinkled with salt and a glass of wine. The parents say, "According to our Old Polish tradition, we greet you with bread and salt so that your home might always enjoy abundance." Then they offer the bread to the newlyweds to eat followed by a glass of wine from which the bride and groom drink. The parents then kiss the bride and groom and welcome then to the family.


Symbolism of bread and salt ceremony

  • Bread: Represents the parents' hope that their children will never experience hunger or need. 
  • Salt: Salt sprinkled on the bread is a reminder to the couple that their life may be difficult at times, and they must learn to cope with life's struggles together. 
  • Wine: Wine symbolizes the parents' hope that the bride and groom will never thirst and will have a life of good health and cheer and that they will share the company of many good friends. 
  • Kiss: This parents' kiss is a symbol of their love and unity.
 

 

Sta Lot

The bread and salt ceremony concludes with the song Sta Lot. It wishes good luck to the couple that lasts for 100 years. This celebration is big and wedding guests really enjoy it. Here is a rough translation of the main verse:

May their star of prosperity

Never extinguish!

Never extinguish!

And whoever won't sing with us

May they sleep under the table!

May they sleep under the table!


At the conclusion of this short ceremony, the bride, groom, and their parents proceed to their tables and await the saying of grace before the meal.

 

Photo credits: Forever Video, Polishroots


 


Saturday, December 17, 2022

A closer look at the origins of the word wedding

The study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history is known as etymology. Since this blog takes a closer look at all things wedding and their origins, I thought it would be fun to look into the origins of the word wedding. What I found might surprise you, though if you read this blog regularly, then maybe not.

 

Etymology of the word wedding

The easiest way to learn the etymology of a word these days is to visit the online etymology dictionary. In the case of the word wedding, the dictionary started with the Old English weddung (n) "state of being wed; pledge, betrothal; action of marrying." That isn’t really any different than how we think of the word wedding today, or is it? Did those words mean something different in the past than they do today?


When you come to understand the Old English word used for the ceremony was bridelope (bridal run) it is a heads up that maybe things didn’t quite mean the same as we view them now. Turns out this term dates back to A.D. 950 (brydlopa). This custom involved a ‘run for the bride-door.’ This ancient tradition was both symbolic and actual. The bride was swept off on horseback to her husband’s home by him. At times this act involved a helper who later was known at the best man.

So, if we have the ceremony described as bridelope as described above, what did the word wedding mean? The Anglo-Saxon root word wedd (‘to gamble, wager’) first referred to livestock or other payment by the groom to the bride’s father, as a more civilized alternative to abduction. According to the etymology dictionary which differentiated the noun wed from the Old English verb weddian, “to pledge oneself, covenant to do something, vow; betroth, marry.” It moved on to the Old Norse veĆ°ja, and Danish vedde which means “to bet, wager." Interesting. The coming together of two people in marriage was considered a wager. I can see that. When we take our vows, we are betting the other person will keep their promise, or at least what we assumed the promise to mean. This carries us to the Old Frisian weddia which means "to promise." Without going more in depth, other meanings included "to pledge, to redeem a pledge."

 


20th century meaning of wedding

For more insight, I referenced a book titled Wedding Customs then and Now published in 1919 to learn what people thought in more recent times yet still long ago. The second chapter of the book is titled “Buying Wives.” It opens with, “The etymology of the very name ‘wedding’ betrays the character of the second stage in the development of matrimony. The ‘wed’ was the money, horses, cattle, or ornaments given as security by the Saxon groom and held by trustees as a pledge and as a proof of the purchase of the bride from her father.”

When I hear the word pledge used in regard to marriage, what comes to mind these days is the engagement ring. It represents a promise to marry, but I’ve never thought of it as a purchasing mechanism. Back in 18th century England, instead of just announcing engagements, the amount accompanying a bride was proudly published. Can you imagine? 

 

Marriage contracts

Before Shakespeare’s time, the parson or his clerk served like a town crier announcing from the church steps the amount given the bride and her father. Why? This act provided witnesses to the marriage contract. The amount paid was supposed to be around one-third of the husband’s property. These marriage contracts stipulated exact regulations for buying of wives. The future husband paid an amount referred to as a foster-lien. This money was given to the parents who fostered the bride through childhood, and these contracts were considered binding until death.

Not everyone held to the contract. Some parents reneged and fraud was not uncommon. Some fathers accepted multiple foster-liens from different men in the years before the marriage and then gave his daughter to someone else. Another form of fraud came in the form of what we could call false advertisement today, when a father boasted of his daughter’s attributes and qualities in exaggerated terms. 

Back in Saxon days, the king decreed the money be refunded in such cases. This caused problems of its own, so another custom was initiated to help curb the problem. They linked this new custom with a popular newlywed gift-giving tradition in which a husband gave his new wife a small gift the morning after the marriage. The new statue said the bride “could not be brought back after receiving such a token of contentment.” 

The Church got involved, too, and the clergy demanded fraudulent fathers who accepted more than one lien had to pay back four times the amount if he did not deliver the bride.


Did the bride have a say?

Think of the woman’s role in all this. According to Instruction to a Christian Woman by Louis Vives, “a decent girl should not think of expressing any wish as to what man should be her husband.” Most of the time, she was not consulted in the process. Many times, contracts were written up while the couples were still babies. At the other end of this spectrum, some marriages were postponed by relatives who didn’t want the marriage. At the extreme, is the example of the marriage of Robert Phillips, Esq., (brother of John Phillips, the poet), who was eighty when he married Miss Anna Bowdler, who was close to the same age. They had been engaged for sixty years!

I don’t know about you, but I am certainly happy to be living in this day in age in a country where I have a voice regarding my life and in a culture where the word wedding means a "marriage ceremony, especially considered as including the associated celebrations."

* * * *

Some links in this post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to amazon.com and affiliate sites.

Thanks so much for being part of our success.

 

Image credits:

Record dated Nov. 25, 1486, of financial arrangements between the Piccolomini and Bandinelli families of Siena regarding the future marriage between Bernardinus Piccolomini and Antonia Bandinelli. Bottom portion of manuscript cut off with loss of text.

 Painting by Joseph Wright of Derby: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, by Derby, J. W. o., National Gallery, London. (https://ndla.no/article/32348).