The earliest use of the phrase is in the 1764 English edition of a French work: the French text, describing an elopement, refers to the runaway couple hastily making un mariage sur la croix de l'épée (literally 'marriage on the cross of the sword'), an expression the English translator freely renders as 'performed the marriage ceremony by leaping over a broomstick'. A 1774 usage in the Westminster Magazine also describes an elopement.
The earliest use of the phrase is in the 1764 English edition of a French work: the French text, describing an elopement, refers to the runaway couple hastily making un mariage sur la croix de l'épée (literally 'marriage on the cross of the sword'), an expression the English translator freely renders as 'performed the marriage ceremony by leaping over a broomstick'. A 1774 usage in the Westminster Magazine also describes an elopement.
In 1789 the rumoured clandestine marriage between the Prince Regent and Maria Fitzherbert is similarly referred to in a satirical song in The Times: "Their way to consummation was by hopping o’er a broom, sir". Despite these allusions, research by the legal historian Professor R.
Welsh Kale and English Romanichals and Romanichal populations in Scotland practiced the ritual into the 1900s. According to Alan Dundes (1996), the custom originated among Romani people in Wales (Welsh Kale) and England (Romanichal). C.W.
Rhys Jones), who assumed that the custom had once existed on the basis of conversations with elderly Welsh people during the 1920s, none of whom had ever seen such a practice.
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