Engagement, wedding, and birth of a baby are the three steps of a new family. The Danes' special ways of doing these things inform their native culture.

People in other places of the world usually give their lovers a finger ring or a bundle of flowers as agift of engagement. But in some areas of Denmark, it is still considered lucky for a young man to present his fiancee with the wooden clappers once used to beat clothes washed in a stream. These clappers were engraved with love-poems, and, according to tradition, they ensured good fortune and happiness.

And their country weddings also show a tint of local convention. Until recently, a Danish country wedding was an event which concerned all who lived in the surrounding district. Everyone was tacitly invited to celebrate with the young couple. Preparations for the wedding lasted for many days but were made secretly, because to show happiness openly would arouse the anger and jealousy of evil spirits.

On the wedding morning the couple met in the courtyard of the bride's house.The relatives and friedns presented themselves to the couple, bowed and placed gifts at their feet; then they arranged themselves in a circle, ready to applaud the other guests as they arrived. Every gift was accompanied by good wishes recited in prose or inverse; the more modest the gift the more elaborate the wished had to be. Those who had neither the means to give nor the imagination to make a speech were, as a token of their goodwill, placed on guard over the presents and, in the evening, over the couple's bed.

At the conclusion of the ceremony a large jar of beer was taken to the courtyard. The hands of the betrothed were joined over the jar and it was smashed into fragments. These pieces were picked up by the girls of marriageable age who were present, the girl with the largest fragment being destined to marry first, the girl with the smallest being fated to remain a spinster.

The religious ceremony took place at moon; banqueting and festivities which lasted through the afternoon and all night followed. Before going to bed the next morning it was customary for the guests to awaken the young couple bysinging a cheerful serenade under their window; this song concerned the forthcoming trials of marriage for the husband.

After the marriage, then come the babbies. On the birth of a son, the oldest and wisest woman in the family has to go to the child's room on the night following the birth and invoke divine lessing. At one time, divine wishes were assured for the newborn child by magic dances which all the members of the family performed around the cradle at sunset.

Now, the modern and urban Danes have given up old customs like these. Nevertheless they still linger in the more traditional life of the rural people.