Let these notes be played on a flute with perfect crescendos and diminuendoes, and perhaps some notion of this wild sounding cry may be formed. Well, after having thus repeated “the neck” three times, and “wee yen” or “way yen” as often, they all burst out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering about and perhaps kissing the girls. One of them then gets “the neck,” and runs as hard as he can down to the farm-house, where the dairy-maid, or one of the young female domestics, stands at the door prepared with a pail of water. If he who holds “the neck” can manage to get into the house, in any way unseen, or openly, by any other way than the door at which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss her; but, if otherwise, he is regularly soused with the contents of the bucket. On a fine still autumn evening, the “crying of the neck” has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the Turkish muezzin, which lord Byron eulogizes so much, and which he says is preferable to all the bells in Christendom. I have once or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined by an equal number of female voices. About three years back, on some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, I heard six or seven “necks” cried in one night, although I know that some of them were four miles off. They are heard through the quiet evening air, at a considerable distance sometimes. But I think that the practice is beginning to decline of late, and many farmers and their men do not care about keeping up this old custom. I shall always patronise it myself, because I take it in the light of a thanksgiving. By the by, I was about to conclude, without endeavouring to explain the meaning of the words, “we yen!” I had long taken them for Saxon, as the people of Devon are the true Saxon breed. But I think that I am wrong. I asked an old fellow about it the other day, and he is the only man who ever gave me a satisfactory explanation. He says, that the object of crying “the neck” is to give the surrounding country notice of the end of harvest, and that they mean by “we yen!” we have ended. It may more probably mean “we end,” which the uncouth and provincial pronunciation has corrupted into “we yen!”

I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
R. A. R.

July, 1826.

P. S. In the above hastily written account, I should have mentioned that “the neck” is generally hung up in the farm-house, where it remains sometimes three or four years. I have written “we yen,” because I have always heard it so pronounced; they may articulate it differently in other parts of the country.

Essex.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,—As harvest has began in various counties, I beg leave to give you a description of what is called the “harvest supper,” in Essex, at the conclusion of the harvest.

After the conclusion of the harvest, a supper is provided, consisting of roast beef and plum pudding, with plenty of strong ale, with which all the men who have been employed in getting in the corn regale themselves. At the beginning of the supper, the following is sung by the whole of them at the supper.

After supper the following:—

The night is generally spent with great mirth, and the merry-makers seldom disperse till “Bright Phœbus has mounted his chariot of day.”

I am, &c.
An Essex Man and Subscriber.

It is the advice of the most popular of our old writers on husbandry, that—

“Tusser Redivivus” says, “This, the poor labourer thinks, crowns all; a good supper must be provided, and every one that did any thing towards the Inning must now have some reward, as ribbons, laces, rows of pins to boys and girls, if never so small, for their encouragement, and, to be sure, plumb-pudding. The men must now have some better than best drink, which, with a little tobacco and their screaming for their largesses, their business will soon be done.”

Whereon “Tusser Redivivus” notes, that “the goose is forfeited, if they overthrow during harvest.” A MS. note on a copy of Brand’s “Antiquities,” lent to the editor, cites from Boys’s “Sandwich,” an item “35 Hen. VIII. Spent when we ete our harvyst goose iij^s. vi^d. and the goose x^d.”

In France under Henry IV. it is cited by Mr. Brand from Seward, that “after the harvest, the peasants fixed upon some holiday to meet together and have a little regale, (by them called the harvest gosling,) to which they invited not only each other, but even their masters, who pleased them very much when they condescended to partake of it.”

According to information derived by Mr. Brand, it was formerly the custom at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, for each farmer to drive furiously home with the last load of his corn, while the people ran after him with bowls full of water in order to throw on it; and this usage was accompanied with great shouting.

It was formerly the custom in the parish of Longforgan, in the county of Perth North Britain, to give what was called a maiden feast. “Upon the finishing of the harvest the last handful of corn reaped in the field was called the maiden. This was generally contrived to fall into the hands of one of the finest girls in the field, and was dressed up with ribands, and brought home in triumph with the music of fiddles or bagpipes. A good dinner was given to the whole band, and the evening spent in joviality and dancing, while the fortunate lass who took the maiden was the queen of the feast; after which this handful of corn was dressed out generally in the form of a cross, and hung up with the date of the year, in some conspicuous part of the house. This custom is now entirely done away, and in its room each shearer is given sixpence and a loaf of bread. However, some farmers, when all their corns are brought in, give their servants a dinner and a jovial evening, by way of harvest-home.”[323]

The festival of the in-gathering in Scotland, is poetically described by the elegant author of the “British Georgics.”

In the island of Minorca, “Their harvests are generally gathered by the middle of June; and, as the corn ripens, a number of boys and girls station themselves at the edges of the fields, and on the tops of the fence-walls, to fright away the small birds with their shouts and cries. This puts one in mind of Virgil’s precept in the first book of his ‘Georgics,’

and was a custom, I doubt not, among the Roman farmers, from whom the ancient Minorquins learned it. They also use for the same purpose, a split reed, which makes a horrid rattling, as they shake it with their hands.”

In Northamptonshire, “within the liberty of Warkworth is Ashe Meadow, divided amongst the neighbouring parishes, and famed for the following customs observed in the mowing of it. The meadow is divided into fifteen portions, answering to fifteen lots, which are pieces of wood cut off from an arrow, and marked according to the landmarks in the field. To each lot are allowed eight mowers, amounting to one hundred and twenty in the whole. On the Saturday sevennight after midsummer-day, these portions are laid out by six persons, of whom two are chosen from Warkworth, two from Overthorp, one from Grimsbury, and one from Nethercote. These are called field-men, and have an entertainment provided for them upon the day of laying out the meadow, at the appointment of the lord of the manor. As soon as the meadow is measured, the man who provides the feast, attended by the hay-ward of Warkworth, brings into the field three gallons of ale. After this the meadow is run, as they term it, or trod, to distinguish the lots; and, when this is over, the hay-ward brings into the field a rump of beef, six penny loaves, and three gallons of ale, and is allowed a certain portion of hay in return, though not of equal value with his provision. This hay-ward and the master of the feast have the name of crocus-men. In running the field each man hath a boy allowed to assist him. On Monday morning lots are drawn, consisting some of eight swaths and others of four. Of these the first and last carry the garlands. The two first lots are of four swaths, and whilst these are mowing, the mowers go double; and, as soon as these are finished, the following orders are read aloud:—‘Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, I charge you, under God, and in his majesty’s name, that you keep the king’s peace in the lord of the manor’s behalf, according to the orders and customs of this meadow. No man or men shall go before the two garlands; if you do, you shall pay your penny, or deliver your scythe at the first demand, and this so often as you shall transgress. No man, or men, shall mow above eight swaths over their lots, before they lay down their scythes and go to breakfast. No man, or men, shall mow any farther than Monksholm-brook, but leave their scythes there, and go to dinner; according to the custom and manner of this manor. God save the king!’ The dinner, provided by the lord of the manor’s tenant, consists of three cheesecakes, three cakes, and a new-milk cheese. The cakes and cheesecakes are of the size of a winnowing-sieve; and the person who brings them is to have three gallons of ale. The master of the feast is paid in hay, and is farther allowed to turn all his cows into the meadow on Saturday morning till eleven o’clock; that by this means giving the more milk the cakes may be made the bigger. Other like customs are observed in the mowing of other meadows in this parish.”[326]

Harvest time is as delightful to look on to us, who are mere spectators of it, as it was in the golden age, when the gatherers and the rejoicers were one. Now, therefore, as then, the fields are all alive with figures and groups, that seem, in the eye of the artist, to be made for pictures—pictures that he can see but one fault in; (which fault, by the by, constitutes their only beauty in the eye of the farmer;) namely, that they will not stand still a moment, for him to paint them. He must therefore be content, as we are, to keep them as studies in the storehouse of his memory.

Here are a few of those studies, which he may practise upon till doomsday, and will not then be able to produce half the effect from them that will arise spontaneously on the imagination, at the mere mention of the simplest words which can describe them:—The sunburnt reapers, entering the field leisurely at early morning, with their reaphooks resting on their right shoulders, and their beer-kegs swinging to their left hands, while they pause for a while to look about them before they begin their work.—The same, when they are scattered over the field: some stooping to the ground over the prostrate corn, others lifting up the heavy sheaves and supporting them against one another, while the rest are plying their busy sickles, before which the brave crop seems to retreat reluctantly, like a half-defeated army.—Again, the same collected together into one group, and resting to refresh themselves, while the lightening keg passes from one to another silently, and the rude clasp-knife lifts the coarse meal to the ruddy lips.—Lastly, the piled-up wain, moving along heavily among the lessening sheaves, and swaying from side to side as it moves; while a few, whose share of the work is already done, lie about here and there in the shade, and watch the near completion of it.[327]