Meaning & Analysis
This is a direct instruction given to a woman struggling with infertility, telling her to travel to Bromley in Essex and sit on or 'ride' a specific saddle associated with Saint Leonard, which was believed to be a folk remedy for barrenness.
Insights
Quest for Miraculous Aid
The act of riding the saddle is a metaphor for seeking miraculous or supernatural intervention for a deeply personal and biological struggle. It represents the turn to faith, ritual, and folklore when conventional solutions are unavailable or have failed.
Embodiment of Hope
The proverb symbolizes the powerful human need to maintain hope in the face of suffering. The saddle acts as a tangible object onto which desperate hopes for fertility and family are projected, representing the enduring power of belief in folk remedies.
Social Stigma and Conformity
The command to 'go ride' can be interpreted as a reflection of the social stigma associated with barrenness. It transforms a private struggle into a public performance, illustrating the pressure to conform to societal expectations of womanhood and motherhood.
Historical Folk Belief
This proverb offers a fascinating glimpse into the intersection of folk medicine, religious belief, and social pressures in pre-modern England. The saddle, a tangible relic, served as a focal point for a localized fertility cult, blending Christian hagiography (Saint Leonard) with ritualistic practices that may have had pre-Christian origins. It highlights a time when the sacred and the superstitious were deeply intertwined in daily life.
Gender and Social Pressure
The directive to 'ride' the saddle reveals the immense societal pressure on women to bear children. Infertility was not just a private sorrow but a public concern, subject to communal advice and ritual intervention. The proverb underscores how a woman's social value was historically contingent on her reproductive capacity.
Psychology of Ritual
For individuals facing the despair of infertility, the act of seeking out and interacting with the saddle provided a powerful psychological outlet. It offered a tangible course of action, a pilgrimage that channeled hope and provided a sense of agency in a situation that felt beyond one's control, regardless of the physical outcome.
Adaptation of Belief
Saint Leonard of Noblac was traditionally the patron saint of prisoners, but was also invoked for women in labor. The association of his relic with fertility illustrates how the attributes of saints could be adapted by local communities to meet specific, pressing needs, creating unique and localized traditions.
Rhetorical Devices
Imperative Mood
The proverb is phrased in the imperative mood ('Go ride...'), giving it the force of a command or a piece of urgent, non-negotiable advice. This tone underscores the seriousness of the issue (infertility) and the perceived authority of the folk remedy.
Cultural Allusion
The entire phrase is an allusion to a specific, localized cultural practice and religious figure. Its meaning is entirely dependent on external knowledge of the tradition of St. Leonard's saddle in Bromley, making it opaque to outsiders.
Symbolism
The saddle serves as a potent symbol. It represents a journey (a pilgrimage), a physical act of hope, and a ritualistic mounting that symbolically connects the rider to the saint's purported curative powers, aiming to bring the body into a state of fertility.
Transcription
Quotations
*A Speech used to be spoken to a barren woman; this saddle was kept at Bromley (in Essex).
Annotations
- A Speech used to be spoken to a barren woman; this saddle was kept at Bromley (in Essex).
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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