in a if they look back they will see the apparition of the man intended for their future spouse; they hang a smock before the fire on the close of the feast, and sit up all night, concealed corner of the room, convinced that his apparition will come down the chimney and turn the smock; they throw a ball of yarn out of the window, and wind it on the reel within, convinced that if they repeat the Pater Noster backwards, and look at the ball of yarn without, they will then also see his sith or apparition; they dig for apples in a tub of water, and endeavour to bring one up in the mouth; they suspend a cord with a cross stick, with apples at one point, and candles lighted at the other, and endeavour to catch the apple, while it is in a circular motion, in the mouth. These, and many other superstitious ceremonies, the remains of Druidism, are observed on this holiday, which will never be eradicated while the name of Saman is permitted to remain." A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, for May, 1784, p. 343, says, he has often met with lambs' wool in Ireland, where it is a constant ingredient at a merry-making on Holy Eve, or the evening before All Saints' Day; and it is made there by bruising roasted apples and mixing them with ale, or sometimes with milk. Formerly, when the superior ranks were not too refined for these periodical meetings of jollity, white wine was frequently substituted for ale. To lambs' wool, apples and nuts are added as a necessary part of the entertainment, and the young folks amuse themselves with burning nuts in pairs on the bar of the grate, or among the warm embers, to which they give their name and that of their lovers, or those of their friends who are supposed to have such attachments, and from the manner of their burning and duration of the flame, &c., draw such inferences respecting the constancy or strength of their passions as usually promote mirth and good humour." The feast of Allhallows is said to drive the Finns almost out of their wits. See an account of some singular ceremo nies practised by them at this time in Tooke's Russia, i. 48. THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, THE ANNIVERSARY OF GUNPOWDER PLOT. It is still customary in all parts of the country for the boys to dress up an image of the infamous conspirator Guy Fawkes, holding in one hand a dark lantern and in the other a bundle of matches, and to carry it about the streets, begging money in these words, "Pray remember Guy Fawkes!" In the evening there are bonfires, and these frightful figures are burnt in the midst of them. In Poor Robin's Almanack for the year 1677 are the following observations on the Fifth of November: "Now boys with Squibs and crackers play, Turns night to day." [The House of Commons instituted this day "a holiday for ever in thankfulness to God for our deliverance and detestation of the Papists." See a letter dated Feb. 10th, 1605-6, in the Court and Times of James I., 1848, i. 46.] When the Prince of Orange came in sight of Torbay, in 1688, we are told by Burnet, it was the particular wish of his partisans that he should defer his landing till the day the English were celebrating their former deliverance from Popish tyranny. Bishop Sanderson, in one of his Sermons, p. 242, says: "God grant that we nor ours ever live to see November the Fifth forgotten, or the solemnity of it silenced." The Standard Newspaper of Nov. 6th, 1834, has a paragraph relating to the falling off of the exhibition of Guy Fawkes; but descriptive of the old practice, in the memory of ancient people, of burning the figures of Guy Fawkes in Lincoln's Inn Fields, near what at that time was the Duke of Newcastle's house, as many as twelve or fourteen, between the hours of six and twelve at night. [The following song is used in some parts of the North of England on this occasion: "Hollo, boys, hollo, boys, Let the bells ring; Pray to remember, Gunpowder treason and plot, Therefore it shall not be forgot. "Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, Strove to blow all England up; But God's mercy did prevent, And sav'd our king and his parliament. Happy was the man, And happy was the day, That caught Guy, Going to his play, With a dark lanthorn, And a brimstone match, Ready for the prime to touch. "As I was going through the dark entry, Stand back! stand back! Queen Mary's daughter, Put your hand in your pocket And give us some money, To kindle our bonfire. Huzza! Huzza!" In the parish accounts of Islip, Oxfordshire, for 1700, is the entry, "For ringing on gunpowder treason, 2s. 6d." The following is the ballad now used in that village: "The fifth of November, Since I can remember, Gunpowder treason and plot : For Victoria's sake; I'll take two: The better for me, And the worse for you." The sovereign's name is of course adapted to the period; but the above has certainly been current in the parish for nearly a century.] OF MARTINMAS. NOVEMBER 11. FORMERLY a custom prevailed everywhere amongst us, though generally confined at present to country villages, of killing cows, oxen, swine, &c., at this season, which were cured for the winter, when fresh provisions were seldom or never to be had. In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under June, "The Farmers Daily Diet," are the following lines: "When Easter comes, who knows not than, And Martilmass Beefe doth bear good tacke, With this note in Tusser Redivivus, 1744, p. 78: "Martlemass beef is beef dried in the chimney, as bacon, and is so called because it was usual to kill the beef for this provision about the feast of St. Martin, Nov. 11." Hall, in his Satires, mentions -" dried flitcnes of some smoked beeve, "A piece of beef hung up since Martlemass" is also mentioned in the Pinner of Wakefield, 1599. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, vi, 517, parish of Forfar, we read: about fifty or sixty years ago, "between Hallowmass and Christmass, when the people laid in their winter provisions, about twenty-four beeves were killed in a week; the best not exceeding sixteen or twenty stone. A man who had bought a shilling's worth of beef, or an ounce of tea, would have concealed it from his neighbours like murder." In the same work, ix, 326, parish of Tongland, Kirkcudbright, we have some extracts from a Statistical Account, 66 drawn up about sixty or seventy years ago," i. e. from 1793, in which it is stated that "at Martilmass" the inhabitants “killed an old ewe or two, as their winter provision, and used the sheep that died of the braxy in the latter end of autumn.” İbid. xiv. 482, parish of Wigton: "Almost no beef, and very little mutton, was formerly used by the common people; generally no more than a sheep or two, which were killed about Martinmass, and salted up for the provision of the family during the year." Ibid. xvi. 460, parishes of Sandwick and Stromness, Orkney, we read: "In a part of the parish of Sandwick, every family that has a herd of swine, kills a sow on the 17th day of December, and thence it is called Sow-day. There is no tradition as to the origin of this practice." Two or more of the poorer sort of rustic families still join to purchase a cow, &c., for slaughter at this time, called always in Northumberland a mart; the entrails of which, after having been filled with a kind of pudding meat, consisting of blood, suet, groats,2 &c., are formed into little sausage links, boiled, and sent about as presents. They are called black-puddings from their colour. The author of the Convivial Antiquities, tells us that in Germany there was in his time a kind of entertainment called "The feast of Sausages, or Gut-puddings," which was wont to be celebrated with great joy and festivity. Butler mentions the black-pudding in his Hudibras, speaking of the religious scruples of some of the fanatics of his time: "Some for abolishing black-pudding, And eating nothing with the blood in." 1 Mart, according to Skinner, is a fair. He thinks it a contraction of Market. These cattle are usually bought at a kind of cow fair, or mart, at this time. Had it not been the general name for a fair, one might have been tempted to suppose it a contraction of Martin, the name of the saint whose day is commemorated. This word occurs in the Lawes and Con stitutions of Burghs made be King David the 1st at the New Castell upon the Water of Tyne,' in the Regiam Majestatem, 1609, "Chap. 70, of buchers and selling of flesh. 2. The fleshours shall serve the burgessis all the time of the slauchter of Nairts; that is, fra Michaelmes to Zule, in preparing of their flesh and in preparing of their flesh and in laying in of their lardner." 2 Groats, i. e., Oats hulled, but unground.-Gloss. of Lancashire words. The etymology is from the Anglo-Saxon. The common people, in the North of England, have a saying that "blood without groats is nothing," meaning that "family without fortune is of no consequence." There is some philosophy in this vulgarism, the pun in which is absolutely unintelligible except to those who are acquainted with the composition of a black-pudding. 3" Hujusmodi porrò conviviis in ovium tonsura apud Hebreos antiquitus celebrari solitis videntur similia esse illa quæ apud nos, cum in urbe, tum in pagis, post pecorum quorundam, ut ovium, boum, ac præsertim suum mactationem summa cum lætitia agitari solent. Farciminum convivia' vulgo appellantur." p. 62. |