THE WEDDING CAKE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22393, 15 October 1934, Page 11

THE WEDDING CAKE

ANCIENT SYMBOLISM Of all our wedding customs, none holds such thrill and mystery, such lore of love and motherhood, as that of the bridal cake, which can be traced back to the wedding festivities of early Saxon brides, who carried ears of wheat to their weddings, eating some themselves, and scattering some of the grain amongst their friends; In the course of time the grain became ground into flour. It was baked into thin biscuits. Later, spices, eggs, and milk were added. The wheat grain became the bun which, as late as the seventeenth century, graced the wedding table. This, in turn, grew into our iced, fruit wedding cake. It is in the strange superstitions of primitive man that the idea of what we know as the wedding cake first took shape. To primitive man the most •wonderful thing in the world was the wonder of new life. For the mystery of motherhood he could only account by thinking it great magic bestowed on womankind by the gods. When he married he strove to persuade the gods to bestow on his bride this greatest gift of all. Primitive, savage races marry at set times of the year, usually at harvest time. Then, in teeming crops and prolific herds, the life-magic of the gods is most evident, and It is then that the gods are offered a sacrifice. The worshippers, eating part of the sacrificial offering, believe themselves endowed with the gods’ life-making powers. These sacrficia] offerings to strange gods were the world’s first “wedding cakes.” They are found in a thousand guises; sometimes as cannibalistic feasts. Most savage tribes to-day sacrifice cows, sheep, goats, or fowls, or offer up grain, in token of the fertility gods. Through all the centuries the wedding cake survives, symbol of a blessing, for the bride, of the gift of life-making.