Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

CHAPTER XVII
CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH CERTAIN DAYS AND SEASONS

We are all of us familiar with the usual ceremonies which usher in the New Year—the sitting up to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in, the ringing of the church bells immediately after the last stroke of twelve, the handshaking, and exchange of greetings. But in England generally, New Year’s Day is of little account as a festival, being overshadowed by Christmas. In Scotland, on the other hand, New Year’s Day holds the more important place, and consequently New Year’s Eve, as a day of preparatory observances, ranks above Christmas Eve. New Year’s Eve in Scotland is known as Hogmanay, a term which is also applied to the customary gift for which children go round and beg on this day. The name and the custom are not, however, confined to Scotland, being also found in certain of the northern counties of England (Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks.). Much has been written about the history of this word, but beyond the generally accepted statement that it is of French origin, its precise derivation still remains obscure; cp. Norm. dial. hoquinano, haguinelo, cries on New Year’s Eve; hoguilanno, a New Year’s gift. On the last day of the year, children go in companies chiefly to the houses of the better class, singing some such rhyme as: Rise up, gude-wife, and shake your feathers, Dinna think that we are beggars, We’re girls and boys come out to-day, For to get our Hogmanay, Hogmanay, trol-lol-lay. Give us of your white bread, and not of your grey, Or else we’ll knock at your door a’ day (w.Sc.); or in shorter form: Hogamanay, hogamanay, Gi’s wor breed-an’-cheese, an’ set’s away (Nhb.). In earlier times it was also customary for youths to go round dressed up as guisers, performing at their neighbours’ houses a Hogmanay masque. Sometimes they went round just after midnight to enter the houses in the capacity of first-foot.

The superstitious practice of first-footing belongs also to Scotland and northern England. The first person who crosses the threshold after midnight on New Year’s Eve is the first-foot or lucky-bird, and the prosperity or misfortune of the household during the ensuing year depends on what manner of man is then admitted. On no account must the first-foot be a woman. In most places the luckiest kind of first-foot is a fair-haired man. A man of dark complexion, a flat-footed man, or one afflicted with a squint brings bad luck. But in some parts of Yorkshire where the lucky-bird is the first person who enters the house on Christmas Day, if it is a dark-haired man who thus ‘lets Christmas in’, he is welcomed as a bringer of good luck, whilst a red-haired man is esteemed a harbinger of ill-luck. On the whole, the safest plan was that of engaging some recognized lucky person to undertake the office of first-foot, instead of leaving the matter in the hands of wayward chance.

Another old Hogmanay-night custom was that of fetching the ream-water (Sc.) from the well. This could only be done by a woman, in some places only by a spinster. As soon as the clock had finished striking twelve, some female member of the household would hurry pitcher in hand to the nearest well, in order to be the first to skim off the water lying near the surface and bring it home; for whoever could secure this, the ream, crap or floo’er of the water, would bring in good fortune for the whole of the year.

A writer in Notes and Queries for Jan. 3, 1852, quotes the following song sung by children in South Wales on New Year’s morning, when carrying a jug full of water newly drawn from the well:

An ancient custom in the city of Coventry is the sending of god-cakes on New Year’s Day. The god-cake is a particular kind of cake sent by godparents to their godchildren. It varies in price, but its shape is invariably triangular, it is about one inch thick, and is filled with mincemeat. A similar custom exists in Kidderminster, where the head of the family sends out packets of blessing-cakes to the scattered representatives of the original stock, wherever they may be. Each householder who receives a gift of cakes must again distribute them among the members of his household, servants included, so that every one under his roof may receive the family blessing. The cakes are like long oval buns, rather thin, coated on the top with melted sugar, and ornamented with seven sultanas. As my father came from Kidderminster, I have eaten blessing-cakes every New Year’s Day as far back as my memory carries me, but I was never clear as to the significance of the seven sultanas. I think they are intended to symbolize a sevenfold blessing. The recipe for making the cakes is supposed to be a trade secret in the possession of a certain confectioner, though some of us think that the secret has been lost, and that the blessing-cakes now savour of the common penny bun mixture. But we should never dare to carry the comparison further, for from our earliest youth we were made to feel it almost a sacrilegious offence to call a blessing-cake a bun. After all, it is the sentiment that matters, and that remains good and beautiful.[3]

A curious New Year ceremony observed in Durham is known as crowning. The Mayor and Mayoress visit the Workhouse, and there crown the eldest of the inmates by placing a five-shilling piece in each hand.

The first Monday in the New Year is called Handsel-Monday (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Lakel.). Anything which comes into your possession that day, such as a child, a calf, a lamb, or money, augurs good luck for the rest of the year. Formerly it was the custom for presents to be given on this day by mistresses to servants, and by parents to children. At the Trinity House, Newcastle, on Handsel-Monday, every free brother who answers to his name is entitled to five shillings in money, a quarter of a pound of tobacco, a glass of wine, and as much bread and cheese and ale as he pleases.

The sixth of January is Twelfth Day, or Old Christmas Day, the church festival of the Epiphany. To this date belongs the ceremony—now nearly obsolete—of wassailing the apple-trees (Sus. Som. Dev.), also known as howling, or hollering. In some districts the performance took place on the day itself, and in others on Jan. 5, the Eve of the Epiphany. Herrick mentions the custom among Ceremonies for Christmas:

Boys called howlers used to go round wassailing the orchards. Within doors, toasted bread and sugar were soaked in new cider and made hot, part to be drunk by the farmer’s family and the howlers, and part to be poured upon the best bearing apple-tree. The tree was then encircled by the wassailers, singing a special song. Mrs. Hewitt describes the ceremony thus: ‘On Old Christmas Eve it is customary for farmers to pour large quantities of cyder on the roots of the primest apple-trees in the orchard, and to place toast sops on the branches, all the while singing the following:

When enough of this serenading has been accomplished, guns are fired into the branches,’ Peasant Speech of Devon, 2nd edit. 1892.

The first Monday after Twelfth Day is Plough Monday, once celebrated throughout the greater part of England. A company of men wearing white shirts over their jackets, decorated with ribbons, drew a plough through the village or town. They were variously designated in different localities as: Plough-bullocks, or -bullockers, Plough-jags, Plough-slots, and Plough-witchers. Among them were usually two special characters, the Fool, and a man dressed up in showy female costume called the Bessy; but in some places there were two, and even four female characters with names such as Sweet Sis, Old Joan, Maid Marian, or collectively named Bessybabs, Ladymadams, Queens. This troupe performed some kind of morris-dance or sword-dance, and collected money from the onlookers. Gradually the old ceremonies fell into disuse, the plough no longer appeared in the procession, and instead of the original ploughmen, a band of children paraded the streets to keep up the memory of Plough Monday, a day which Tusser includes among the ‘ploughmans feasting daies’, which no good housewife should forget:

The Daily Mail of Nov. 16, 1897, mentions the observance of Plough Monday in Warwickshire at that date; and three years later the Standard of Oct. 11, 1900, has: ‘“Plough Monday” is still kept up by children and “hobbledehoys”, who go round with blackened faces, and ribbons, &c., in their hats, expecting that the heads of the houses visited will “Remember the ploughboys”, though it is questionable if the party are now following the plough.’

A convivial custom in Cornwall gives the name of Paul Pitcher’s Day to Jan. 24, the Eve of the Conversion of St. Paul, a day observed as a miners’ holiday. A water-pitcher is set up and pelted with stones till it is broken to pieces. A new one is then bought and carried to a public-house by the stone-throwing miners, to be filled and refilled with beer till the whole company is drunk. On the other hand, some people say that the name Paul Pitcher’s Day originates with the custom of throwing broken pitchers against the doors of dwelling-houses. Parties of lads used to go round to the different houses, shouting as they threw the sherds: Paul’s Eve, and here’s a heave. A mischievous game similar to certain Shrove Tuesday pastimes.

Candlemas Day, February 2, the festival of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was reckoned the termination of the Christmas season. Herrick wrote: ‘End now the white loaf and the pie, And let all sports with Christmas die.’ The same poet also tells us that all the Christmas evergreens used for decorations must be taken down on Candlemas Eve. This custom was observed in Shropshire houses and churches within the last thirty years, if not still later. At this date, according to a common proverb: gooid geese all lay; New Candlemas Day, good goose will lay, Old Candlemas Day any goose will lay. There is a saying in Kent: Candlemas Day, Half your fodder and half your hay, meaning that the winter is only then half gone, and you ought not to have exhausted more than half the keep for the cattle. The same saying is also associated with Valentine’s Day. Old folks used to say that so far as the sun shone into the house on Candlemas Day, so far would the snow drive in before the winter was out (Sur.).

Old Candlemas Day is February 14, better known as Valentine’s Day. The custom of writing and of sending valentines is out of fashion, and there remains little to mark the day. In some country places it is still said that the first man you meet in the morning is your valentine; and it is a common saying that the birds on this day select their mates for nesting. Formerly it was customary for parties of children to go valentining (Nhp. Rut.). They went from house to house singing and begging, their song being usually a form of salutation, differing slightly in different localities: Good morrow, Valentine! Plaze to give me a Valentine, I’ll be yourn, if ye’ll be mine, Good morrow, Valentine!; or, Morrow, morrow, Valentine! First ’tis yours, and then ’tis mine, So please to give me a Valentine, Holly and ivy tickle my toe, Give me red apple and let me go. In Berkshire the following words were sung:

In the northern part of Northamptonshire sweet currant buns were formerly made called Valentine buns, and given by godparents to their godchildren on the Sunday preceding and the Sunday following Valentine’s Day. A like custom once prevailed in Rutland, where a lozenge-shaped bun called a Shittle was given to children and old people on Valentine’s Day.

For the farmer, Valentine’s Day means that half your firing and half your hay is already consumed. In Rutland there is an old saying: Valentine’s Day, sow your beans in the clay. David [Mch. 1] and Chad [Mch. 2], sow your beans be the weather good or bad. Then comes Benedick [Mch. 21], if you ain’t sowed your beans you may keep ’em in the rick.

Shrovetide in olden days was a season of sport and feasting, the occasion for a final burst of jollity before the beginning of Lent. As the name records, it was originally a time for confession and absolution in preparation for the Lenten Fast, whence also the name Gooddit (Lan. Chs. Stf. Der.), a corruption of Good-tide. Shrove Tuesday is Fasten’s E’en (Sc. n.Cy. n.Midl.), the Eve of the great Fast of the ecclesiastical year. There still remain in some districts traces of the former carnival gaieties, whilst the popular eating of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday keeps up the memory of the ancient feasting. The day before Shrove Tuesday is Collop Monday (n.Cy.), that is, rasher-of-bacon Monday, so called because the customary dish for this day is bacon and eggs. In parts of Cornwall it is known as Pease-Monday, from the custom of eating pea-soup that day, though such fare would seem rather to be a foretaste of Lent than a festival dainty.

Chief among the Shrovetide sports which have lasted down to modern times is the well-known pastime called Lent-crocking (Som. Dev. Wil. Dor.), or Drowin’ o’ cloam, which consists in throwing broken crockery-ware in at doorways on the night before Shrove Tuesday, known as Dappy-door-night, and Lentsherd-night. Lead-birds (Pem.) is a game played by boys as a substitute for the obsolete cock-throwing, a barbarous old Shrovetide sport, which is perhaps further to be traced in the name Lent-cocks (Dev.) for daffodils. In the old Grammar Schools it was customary for each scholar to contribute towards a fund for Shrovetide cock-fighting. This contribution was called the cock-penny (Lakel. Yks. Lan.), and it continued to be a recognized fee paid to the Head Master long after the sport itself had died out. Shrovetide ball-games still survive, such as bung-ball (Bdf.); and kep-ball, the game of catch-ball which gives the name Kepping-day (e.Yks.) to Shrove Tuesday. There is an old saying: if you don’t have a kepp on kepping-day, you’ll be sick in harvest.

The bell once rung before noon on Shrove Tuesday to summon the penitents to their shrift, came to be looked upon as a signal for preparing the day’s pancakes, and hence it was termed the Pancake bell. The practice of ringing this bell continued certainly into the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In Worcestershire the Pancake bell was said to ring out the words: Pot off, pan on; Pot off, pan on; whilst in Warwickshire the message rung out was: Pan’s a-burning; Pan’s a-burning. In Yorkshire a kind of pancake or fritter with currants in it is eaten on Ash-Wednesday, and the day is called Frutters’ Wednesday.

In parts of Cornwall a straw figure dressed in cast-off clothes and called Jack o’ Lent was formerly carried round and then burned at the beginning of Lent. The effigy was probably originally meant to represent Judas Iscariot. Now the term is applied to a scarecrow, and, as a contemptuous epithet, also to persons (Nhp. Dor.).

The Sundays in Lent, beginning with the second Sunday, are thus enumerated in an old north-country saying: Tid, Mid, Misera, Carlin, Palm, Pace egg day. It is supposed that Tid is a corruption of Te Deum, and that Misera is based on the opening words of the penitential Psalm Miserere mei, Deus. The fourth Sunday in Lent is, however, more generally known as Mothering Sunday, the day on which it was always customary for the scattered members of the family to visit the mother in the old home, carrying some small present for her in their hands. Special cakes and dishes were associated with this festival, the most popular being simnel cakes, and frummety, a dish made of hulled wheat, boiled in milk, and seasoned with sugar and spice. In some places the usual fare was veal and rice pudding; and in others fig-pie—made of dried figs, sugar, treacle, and spice—was the standing dish. In Berkshire at the present time it is considered the proper thing to eat fig-pudding on Palm Sunday.

Carl Sunday, or Carling Sunday (Sc. n.Cy.), takes its name from the grey or brown peas prepared and eaten on this day. They must be steeped all night in water, and then fried in butter. To account for this usage one tradition states that it commemorates the action of the disciples, who, going through the corn fields on the Sabbath day, ‘plucked the cars of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands,’ St. Luke vi. 1; whilst a second associates it with a famine in Newcastle, which was relieved by the arrival of a ship bearing a cargo of grey peas or carlings.

On Palm Sunday village churches used to be decorated with the catkin-laden twigs of the common sallow, or, as in Kent, with branches of yew, according to the local interpretation of the word palm. Going a-palming (Ken.) meant gathering yew twigs on the Saturday before Palm Sunday for this purpose. In some s.Midland counties Palm Sunday is known as Fig Sunday, dried figs being largely consumed on this day. The probable explanation of this practice lies in the fact that in the Gospel narrative the cursing of the barren fig-tree is the first recorded incident of the day following that of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, cp. St. Mark xi. 12-14, with the result that in the popular mind the events of two days were merged together, and the fig was adopted as an appropriate part of the Palm Sunday festival.

An old Cheshire name for Good Friday is Care Friday, a preservation of the original meaning of the word care, O.E. caru, sorrow, trouble; cp. Germ. Karfreitag, Good Friday. In Lancashire it was termed Long Friday, and also Crackling Friday, from a special kind of wheaten cake given to children on this day. The custom of eating Hot Cross buns is common even in towns, though probably nobody now preserves them throughout the year as a specific against diarrhoea. Up to the middle of last century people afflicted with eye-diseases used on Good Friday to visit St. Margaret’s Well, near Wellington, in Shropshire, a stone cistern containing spring water which was supposed on this day to possess eye-healing virtues. A Good Friday sport called cock-kibbit, practised in parts of Devonshire by boys, would seem to be a kind of survival of the old Shrove Tuesday cock-throwing. A live cock is put under an inverted earthenware milk-pan, and then cudgels or kibbits are thrown at the pan from a fixed distance until the pan is broken and the cock thus released. The cock is then chased by the whole company, and it becomes the joint property of its captor and the breaker of the milk-pan.

The custom amongst farmers of sowing and planting on Good Friday to ensure lucky crops we have already noticed in a previous chapter. For the sowing of onion seed, however, a still more propitious day is March 12, the Feast of St. Gregory.

The day after Good Friday was formerly known in East Anglia as Shitten Saturday, that is Shut-in-Saturday, the day on which the body of the Lord lay shut in the tomb.

Eastertide is marked in the northern counties of England by the custom of Pace-egging. The phrase itself is interesting, for we have in it the preservation of the Latin name beside our English Easter, cp. M.Lat. pascha, the feast of the passover. The form Pace or Paas is found in English literature as far back as the early fifteenth century. During Holy Week children, and sometimes grown-up persons too, go round to the farmhouses begging for Pace-eggs. Some of the eggs are used for special Easter Day cakes and custards, but the Pace-egg proper is stained and hard-boiled like the German Oster-Ei. On Easter Monday these coloured eggs are trundled or rolled against each other till they are broken, when they are eaten, and hence Easter Monday is termed Troll-egg-day. Another form of this game is known as jauping paste-eggs. One boy holds his egg, exposing the small end, and the jauper, or striker, knocks the end of his egg against it. The egg remaining unbroken is the conqueror, and the broken egg is forfeited. Occasionally one or two Pace-eggs are kept as ornaments. One such, stained pink, and inscribed with a child’s name, and the date, ranked among the ornaments on the parlour shelf in the Yorkshire farmhouse where we were staying this August (1912). In the days when mumming was still popular, the play of St. George was performed at Easter by mummers who called themselves Pace-eggers. No doubt originally they collected Easter eggs on their rounds; indeed, a writer on Lancashire customs says the company included a personage styled Dirty Bet, whose duty it was to carry a basket for the collection of eggs, but usually they played for money only, so that Pace-egging came to be synonymous with mumming. A Lakeland play began with an introductory verse as follows:

An Easter custom once very common in Cheshire, Lancashire, and the Midlands is variously termed Heaving, Hoisting, and Lifting. Parties of men went round from house to house on Easter Monday carrying a chair decorated with evergreens, flowers, and ribbons. Wherever they came, they seized in turn every woman of the household, and made her sit in the chair, which they then raised as high in the air as arms could reach, three times in succession. On Easter Tuesday the women returned the compliment to the men. A small fee was often paid by the lifted to the lifters. Folklorists tell us that this strange practice was originally designed to typify the Resurrection.

The prevalent practice of wearing some new article of clothing for the first time on Easter Day is not confined to any particular district but may be met with anywhere. A Lincolnshire name for Easter Day is Crow-Sunday, from the belief that rooks let fall their droppings on those that wear nothing new on that day.

Herb-pudding (Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks.) is a dish peculiar to Easter Day. It is made of the leaves of the bistort, Polygonum Bistorta—the so-called Easter-giants, or Easter-magiants—boiled in broth with barley, chives, &c., and served as an accompaniment to veal and bacon.

The old tradition that the sun rises dancing on Easter morning, which we remember because of Suckling’s allusion to it in the lines:

has been found lingering in some parts of the country. At the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century there were still some people who would get up early on Easter Day and go out into the fields to see the sun dance. The Rev. R. H. Cobbold, Rector of Ross, wrote on October 13, 1879: ‘In the district called Hockley, in the parish of Broseley, a woman whose maiden name was Evans, wife of Rowland Lloyd, a labourer, said she had heard of the thing but did not believe it true, “till,” she said, “on Easter morning last, I got up early, and then I saw the sun dance, and dance, and dance, three times, and I called to my husband and said, Rowland, Rowland, get up and see the sun dance! I used,” she said, “not to believe it, but now I can never doubt more.” The neighbours agreed with her that the sun did dance on Easter morning, and some of them had seen it,’ Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 335. According to a Sussex version the sun always dances on Easter morning, but nobody has ever seen it because the Devil is so cunning that he always puts a hill in the way to hide it. Although Sir Thomas Browne included this tradition in his lists of Vulgar Errors, he evidently felt that belief in it was an outgrowth of popular religious feeling, and that as such it must be handled with reverence: ‘We shall not, I hope, disparage the resurrection of our Redeemer, if we say the sun does not dance on Easter-day. And though we would willingly assent unto any sympathetical exultation, yet cannot conceive therein any more than a tropical expression,’ Vulgar Errors, Bk. V, Chap. XXIII. 14.

Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the Eve of May-day was in some northern districts known as Mischief-night, when rough practical jokes were played by boys upon their neighbours, gates were pulled off their hinges, and hung up in trees, tubs and mops left out of doors were carried off and left in some inaccessible place, and other property was wantonly damaged.

The original May-day sports and observances have long been dead and gone, leaving only scattered traces few and far between, but at the present time great efforts are being made to revive the old folk-songs, dances, and mumming-plays, and children are being taught in Board Schools how to celebrate May-day with the traditional songs, processions, and flowers; so that we have consequently to beware of mistaking a revival for a survival. The May-garland would seem, however, to be a genuine relic of the past. As seen in Oxford, it is formed of two willow hoops, placed transversely, and decorated with leaves and wild flowers. It is suspended from a stick, which is held at each end by a child, and carried thus from house to house on May morning. The Jack-in-the-green, very common twenty or twenty-five years ago, was a chimney-sweep enclosed in a frame of green leaves shaped like a bower, who paraded the streets on May-day. He is still occasionally to be seen. I myself saw one in Oxford in 1909. The name also lingers on in figurative use as an expression of contempt, e.g. He looked for all the world like a Jack-in-the-green. A Bedfordshire term for a scarecrow or a slattern is moggy, a name which bears a reminiscence of the maying company which consisted of: my lord and my lady, two moggys and a merry Ander. The moggy always carried a ladle.

To remind us of the revelry of May-day there is the custom among boys of making May-music with May-horns (Oxf. Brks. Cor.), or whistles made out of sycamore or willow twigs; cp. ‘Scores of youngsters, as usual, celebrated the advent of the month of flowers in their own peculiar way by creating a most hideous row with their May-horns,’ Oxford Times, May 5, 1900; and further, the use of the term may-games (Som. Dev. Cor.) for frolics, tricks, &c. In Cornwall, a half-witted person is sometimes spoken of as a may-game.

Near the beginning of May come the Rogation days, the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension-day, or Holy Thursday. These days are marked in the popular mind by the ancient and well-known custom of beating the parish bounds, whence arose the now obsolete name of Gang-days (n.Cy.), and the name Rammalation-day (Yks.), i.e. Perambulation-day, for Rogation Monday. The practice is also called Processioning (Midl. Som.), and Possessioning (Nhp.). Among dialect names for the milkwort are: Rogation Flower, Gang Flower, and Procession Flower, showing that it was formerly much used in making the garlands carried on these occasions. The reason why this perambulation of the parish boundaries takes place at Rogationtide seems to be that originally it was purely a religious observance, a procession of priest and people through the fields to pray for a fruitful spring-time and harvest. In course of time the secular object of familiarizing the growing generation with their parish landmarks gained the upper hand, but the date remained as testimony to the primary devotional character of the custom. Another remnant of the religious side may be traced in the term Gospel Tree, applied to some tree where the Gospel was read aloud by the clergy on the occasion of these parochial perambulations.

It would seem, however, that recently some of the High Church clergy have begun to revive in some form the old ceremonial processions. The following paragraph appeared in the Church Times of May 2, 1918, under the heading Sheffield: ‘The Rogation procession, revived last year at St. Matthew’s, again took place this year; a perambulation of the parish was made, incense, lights, and the beautiful silver crucifix were used, and the vicar in cope intoned the Litany. The choir and a good number of communicants of both sexes took part, and the Rogation Mass was afterwards sung in church. Another procession, with hymns and short addresses at various stations, was announced for Tuesday evening.’ Similar processions were also made here in Oxford at the same date.

In former times, the season of Whitsuntide brought round another parochial custom, namely, the holding of the Whitsun-ale (Lin. Nhp. Oxf. Hmp.). This was a village feast which, while it provided amusement for the parishioners in the shape of sports and dancing, was also at the same time made by the churchwardens a means of bringing in money to the parish coffers for the maintenance of the church. In Oxfordshire a similar festivity was known as a Lamb-ale, and with it was associated the following sport: a fat lamb was chased by girls with tied hands; she who caught the lamb with her teeth was styled Lady of the Lamb, and was conducted home with her prize in a triumphal procession. The next day the lamb was cooked and served up to the Lady and her companions.

Thirty years ago it was still customary in some west Midland districts to decorate village churches on Whit Sunday with sprigs of birch stuck in holes bored in the tops of the pews. I can remember this being done by an old parish clerk in Herefordshire, but when he was gathered to his fathers in the same profession, the custom died with him.

The north-country Rush-bearing is an annual ceremony which usually takes place concurrently with the village Wakes. It has come down from the days when the bare earthen floors of churches and chapels were strewn with rushes as their only covering. The parishioners assembled on some special day, and went out to collect the rushes, which were then piled on a gaily decorated cart, and brought back through the village to the accompaniment of music and dancing. The custom has in many places now fallen into disuse, but it is still kept up in Westmorland. Nowadays the procession is formed of children who carry garlands and emblems made of rushes and flowers, and entering the church they lay them along the aisles. The rush-bearing festival at Grasmere takes place on the Saturday next after St. Oswald’s Day, August 5, and the following Sunday and Monday. A very interesting account of it entitled ‘Rush-bearing at Grasmere’, appeared in The Outlook of August 13, 1910. No doubt it is the connexion with Wordsworth which has prolonged the life of this particular custom, and spread its fame far beyond the country of its birth. It is not given to all our ancient rural festivals to receive a ‘tributary lay’ from an immortal poet.

Passing through the village of Cuddesdon on October 11, 1912, I met two or three big farm wagons going to the hamlet of Denton, loaded with what was evidently a farm-labourer’s household stuff. On the top of the last wagon, wedged in securely amongst bedding and chairs, were four or five children, merry little people, obviously enjoying the ride through country lanes on a warm, sunny afternoon. My companion who lived in the village remarked to me, ‘You see how Michaelmas Day is kept here according to the Old Style. They always make their Michaelmas moves to-day.’

October 31 is Halloween (Sc. n.Cy.), the Eve of All Saints’ Day, a night specially devoted to love-divination ceremonies, and other superstitious customs such as we have noticed in a previous chapter. The game of hanch-apple (Cum. Lan.) is a favourite Halloween pastime, so much so that in some districts Hanchin’-neet is another name for Halloween. The game consists in biting at an apple floating in water, or suspended by a cord.

In parts of Ireland a dish called colcannon, made of potatoes and cabbage mashed together with butter, used to form part of the Halloween dinner. In it was concealed a ring, the finder whereof would be the first of the company to be married. In St. John’s, Newfoundland, the popular name for Halloween is Colcannon-night, so named because colcannon is generally eaten then.

November 2 is the Roman Catholic festival of All Souls, the day on which the Church of Rome makes supplications for the souls of the faithful departed. The ancient custom of going out souling on this day was preserved in the n.Midland counties well into the second half of last century. Poor women, or companies of children, used to go round to the houses of their wealthier neighbours singing certain doggerel lines, and begging for gifts of cakes, apples, money, &c., &c. In some districts this was done on All Saints’ Day, the Eve of All Souls, and in others on All Souls’ Day itself. Formerly special cakes called soul-cakes were baked by housekeepers in readiness for the soulers, but biscuits, apples, nuts—anything in fact given in response to their request—would be accepted under the name of soul-cakes. There are various versions of the traditional souling-song. This is a Cheshire version: Soul, soul, a apple or two; If ye han noo apples, pears ’un do; Please, good Missis, a soul-cake; Put yur hand t’yur pocket, Tak’ ait yur keys, Go dain i’ yur cellar, Bring what yo please, A apple, a pear, A plum, or a cherry, Or any good thing That’ll make us all merry. Or again, there is the simple cry: A cake, a cake, For All Souls’ sake (Der.).

Similar customs belonging to November 23, St. Clement’s Day, and to November 25, St. Catherine’s Day, were kept up in some s.Midland counties. Children went from house to house singing verses and begging for apples and pence, a practice known as Catterning and Clemmening (War. Wor. Stf. Sus.). A Worcestershire version of the Cattern Day song runs: Catten and Clemen come year by year; Some of your apples and some of your beer! Some for Peter, some for Paul, Some for Him as made us all. Clement was a good old man, For his sake give us some. Plum, plum, cherry, cherry, Give us good ale to make us merry, Apples to roast and nuts to crack, And a barrel of cider on the tap. Up the ladder and down the can, Give us a red apple and we’ll be gone. The following is a Warwickshire Clementing rhyme: Clemancing, clemancing, year by year, Apples and pears are very good cheer; One for Peter, two for Paul, And three for the Man that made us all. Up with your stocking, and down with your shoe; If you’ve got no apples, money’ll do. Clement was a good old man, For his sake give us some; None of the worst, but some of the best. I pray God send your soul to rest. This closely resembles some of the souling-songs, in which the couplet: One for Peter, &c., also occurs word for word the same.

St. Clement is the blacksmiths’ patron saint, and in parts of Sussex blacksmiths used to hold a feast on November 23 in his honour. Over the door of the inn where the feast took place a figure dressed up with a wig, a beard, and a pipe, was set up, and called Old Clem. In Surrey it was customary to fire the anvil on St. Clement’s Day. This was done by setting light to a charge of gunpowder placed beneath a wooden plug or wedge driven into a hole in the top of the anvil.

November 30 is St. Andrew’s Day. In Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire special cakes were formerly eaten on this day, called Tandrew cakes, Tandry cakes, and Tandry wigs. They were plain dough cakes or buns ornamented with currants and caraway seeds, made in honour of St. Andrew, the patron saint of lace-makers. But since the lace trade has become less profitable, to keep Tandry, i.e. to keep the festival of St. Andrew, in this way has become less common.

Bricklayers in Sussex used to go St. Andring. This meant that they went in gangs to the woods, and threw sticks at squirrels and game. Afterwards they all repaired to the inn to drink, the squirrels being carried home to be stuffed or eaten.

To December 21, the festival of St. Thomas, belongs the old custom known as going a-gooding, a-mumping, or a-Thomasing, a practice once common all over England from Cheshire and Yorkshire to East Anglia and Cornwall. In some places it has been preserved up to quite modern times. To go a-gooding means to go from house to house on St. Thomas’ Day begging for money or gifts in kind wherewith to furnish the Christmas table. This was generally done by poor widows, but also often by people who would never think of begging at any other time of year. Formerly every farmer set aside a sack of corn for the mumpers, some of them needy widows, some of them married women with their families, wives of the holders of cottages on the farm. These all went to receive each a dole of corn. In course of time the doles given took the form of money and food, including perhaps a pint of wheat for making frumenty. An old Thomasing rhyme runs thus: Well-a-day, well-a-day, St. Thomas goes too soon away, Then your gooding we do pray, For the good time will not stay. St. Thomas grey, St. Thomas grey, The longest night and the shortest day, Please to remember St. Thomas Day (Stf.). In these latter days children go a-Thomasing for halfpence, singing hymns instead of the old traditional begging rhymes.

Christmas is everywhere the most popular festival of the whole year, combining as it does the religious and social sides of life in a way none of the other ecclesiastical Holy-days do. The Church with its message of ‘Peace on earth, goodwill towards men’, as it were, comes down and takes the hand of the people and says let us unite together to celebrate the mystery of family life at the altar of the home. Hence it appeals more forcibly than any other festival to young and old, rich and poor, town-dweller and country rustic, without distinction of creed or class. Owing to this universal popularity, many of the old Christmas customs are yet with us, and most of those which are dying or dead are kept before our minds by writers of Christmas stories, and illustrators of Christmas Numbers.

Christmas Eve was the great night for the mummers who acted the play of St. George and the Dragon; or again, there were men and boys who carried round a wooden figure representing a horse’s head, the mouth of which was made to open and shut by means of a string. Sometimes it was the skull of a dead horse, decorated with ribbons, and supported on a pole by a man concealed under a sheet. This figure was called Old Hob (Chs.), Mari Lwyd or Merry Hewid (Wal.), and in Kent the performance was known as Hodening. In some northern counties the mummers were termed guisers, and in Sussex and Hampshire, tipteerers, or tip-teariers. The children used to go a-wassailing carrying a decorated bough, or a garland which they called a wessel-bob, and singing doggerel verses such as: Here we come a-wassailing, Among the leaves so green; Here we come a-singing, So fair to be seen. The vessel-cup, or bezzle-cup—both words being corruptions of wassail-cup, due to popular etymology—was a box containing two dolls representing the Virgin and Child, carried round by women or by children who sang this carol: God bless the maysther of this hoose, The mistheress also; An’ all the lahtle intepunks, That round the table go (Yks.).

There are some still living who can remember the time when people went out at midnight on Christmas Eve to the cow-byre to see the owsen kneeling in their stalls in adoration of the Heavenly Babe.

A quaint custom at Dewsbury in Yorkshire is the ringing of the Devil’s knell on Christmas Eve. The bells toll first a hundred strokes, then a pause, then three strokes, three strokes, and three strokes again, to signify that the Devil died when Christ was born.

It is still customary in the West Riding of Yorkshire to eat spice-cake at Christmas time. It is a rich cake containing currants, sultanas, spices and candied peel, made only at this season of the year, and eaten together with cheese. In Northumberland and Durham children are given a cake called a Yule-babby, or Yule-dough, a figure made in ginger-bread or dough, rolled out flat, and cut out with a head, arms and body. The arms are folded across, and two currants put in for eyes. In Shrewsbury and the neighbourhood it was customary to eat wigs or caraway buns dipped in ale for supper on Christmas Eve. An East Anglian Christmas cake is the kickel, a flat triangular cake with currants and sugar on the top, O.E. coecil, tortum, M.E. kechil, Chauc. Somnours Tale, l. 39. A very favourite Christmas dish in the north of England is—or used to be—frummety, a preparation of wheat which is creed or softened in the oven, and then boiled in milk, sweetened and flavoured with spice. In some districts it is eaten with plum loaf and cheese.

Wren-hunting was formerly a Christmas Day practice in Ireland. The following day, St. Stephen’s Day, the slaughtered birds tied to a bush decked with ribbons, were carried round by young lads, called wren-boys, who begged for money, and sang a song, one version of which begins thus: The wran, the wran, the king of all birds, St. Stephen’s Day is caught in the furze; Although he is little his family is great—Rise up, landlady, and give us a trate. Various legends are told in explanation of the origin of this custom. According to one story, the Jews were searching for St. Stephen, when his hiding-place was betrayed to them by the noisy cries of a couple of wrens flying in and out of a furze-bush where the saint lay concealed. The custom has also been found in the Isle of Man, Wales, and parts of England, the song varying in different localities, and in some places the wren being carried round on Twelfth Day instead of on St. Stephen’s Day.

December 28 is Holy Innocents’ Day, popularly called Childermas Day. In many parts of England, notably the northern counties and Cornwall, this day has always been regarded as unlucky. People would refrain from starting on a journey, or beginning a new undertaking, and housewives would even forbear to wash clothes on this day. Indeed so forceful is its evil influence that the day of the week on which it fell was marked as a black one throughout the ensuing year (Yks.). Dr. Johnson gives this superstitious belief in his definition of Childermas Day: ‘The day of the week, throughout the year, answering to the day on which the feast of the holy Innocents is solemnized, which weak and superstitious persons think an unlucky day.’

Amongst the customs connected with corporate village life must be included the observance of the local carnival variously termed the Feast, Revel, Tide, Wake, &c., coupled with the name of the village, or with that of the patron Saint of the parish church, as, for instance, St. Giles’ Fair and St. Clement’s Fair here in Oxford. The Feast is generally held on or about the name-day of the Saint to whom the church is dedicated, or on the anniversary of the church opening or consecration. It is everywhere the great gathering time for distant friends and relations; the one important event of the year from which all dates are reckoned, e.g. ’Twill be a year cum next Heetown Wake. In the north of England the mills and workshops close during the Tide; all is holiday-mirth and hospitality. People will pinch and scrape for weeks beforehand in order to be able to afford a goodly joint of Tide-beef, or Wake-beef, to provide which herds of fat oxen have been slain in readiness; and every good housewife prepares a store of cakes, tarts, pies, and pasties. Tusser felt the importance of this housewifely baking when he wrote his lines on The Wake day:

A certain sort of wake-cake in Staffordshire has passed into a proverb. As short as Marchington wake-cake is applied figuratively to a woman’s temper!

Beside the purely merry-making fairs were the Hiring, or Statute fairs, held usually in the autumn, often about Martinmas, Nov. 11; but these, too, have mostly developed into pleasure fairs. The young men and girls who came to seek places as farm-labourers and maid-servants, used to stand, clad in their ‘Sunday best’, on either side of the principal street, the men wearing emblems of service in their hats. Thus the plough-boy or carter had a piece of whip-cord; the shepherd a lock of wool; and the cowherd a tuft of cow-hair. It is said that the name Mop which is widely used in the Midlands instead of Stattis [Statutes] is derived from this old custom of carrying the badge of office, and refers to the mop borne by the servant-girls. The contracts made between employer and employed at the Mop were binding for the following twelve months. A fee, formerly termed in the northern counties the God’s-penny, but later more generally the fastening-penny, was given by the employer to the servant as earnest-money. It varied in amount from one shilling to a pound. If the servant changed his or her mind before entering the service, he or she returned the God’s-penny to the employer; and on the other hand, if the employer changed his mind and refused to take the servant, he forfeited the fee. The relative merits of various ‘places’, and warnings against ‘bad meat houses’, i.e. houses where scant rations prevailed, were transmitted to new generations of servants in doggerel verses repeated at the hirings, such as: Bradford breedless, Harnham heedless, Shaftee pick at the craa; Capheaton’s a wee bonny place, But Wallin’ton bangs [excels] them aa (Nhb.).

A Runaway Mop was a statute hiring-fair held a few weeks after the customary ones, said to be composed of servants who had been hired at a previous fair, and had run away from their situations. In the Evesham Journal of October 16, 1897, there appeared an announcement stating that ‘The runaway mop [at Stratford-on-Avon] will be held on October 22nd’. A Mop Fair is still held in Stratford-on-Avon. In the Daily Sketch of October 14, 1912, appeared an illustration entitled ‘Roasting the Ox at Stratford Mop Fair’, with this note appended: ‘The Stratford-on-Avon Mop Fair, which dates from the reign of King John, was held on Saturday. Six excursion trains ran from London, and specials arrived from many towns. The ox-roasting in the streets was one of the principal sights of the Fair, seven bullocks and a dozen pigs being spitted.’

The children’s singing game: Here comes the lady of the land, With sons and daughters in her hand; Pray, do you want a servant to-day? &c., is probably an outgrowth of the Hiring-fairs, an imitation of customs once in vogue on these occasions, either derived directly from the Fairs or from dramatic representations of them acted at Harvest Homes.