wine, spices, &c., which was specially prepared for the occasion, and called the Cattern or Catharine bowl. In another paper, in the Athenæum, 1847, Mr. Allies informs us, that the following lines were sung by the children on the occasion of Catherning:

Mr. Allies adds, "I recollect that, in my juvenile days, I once saw, at the season in question, apples roasting on strings before the kitchen fire, at a farm-house, in Leigh parish, in this county, in the manner above alluded to. They were studded thickly with oats instead of cloves, and some of the apples so studded were not roasted, but each affixed on a wooden skewer, and dredged all over with flour, resembling, in a manner, a dandelion in full seed.”

The following lines were taken down verbatim from the lips of one of the merry pack, who sing them from door to door on the eve of All Souls' Day, in Cheshire, and are similar to those quoted above:

"Soul Day, Soul Day, Saul!

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for Him who made us all.

An apple or a pear, a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing that will make us all merry.

Put your hand in your pocket and pull out your keys,

Go down in the cellar, bring up what you please.

A glass of your wine, or a cup of your beer,

And we'll never come Souling till this time next year.

We are a pack of merry boys all in a mind,
We have come a souling for what we can find.
Soul! soul! sole of my shoe,

If you have no apples, money will do.

"Up with your kettle and down with your pan,
Give us an answer and let us be gone."]

STIR-UP SUNDAY.

[The twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity is called by schoolboys Stir-up Sunday, from the collect used on that day; and they repeat the following lines, without considering its irreverent application :

"Stir up, we beseech thee,

The pudding in the pot :

And when we get home,
We'll eat it all hot."]

ST. ANDREW'S DAY.

NOVEMBER 30.

LUTHER, in his Colloquia, i. 233, says, that on the evening of the feast of St. Andrew the young maidens in his country strip themselves naked: and, in order to learn what sort of husbands they shall have, they recite the following prayer: "Deus, Deus meus, O Sancte Andrea, effice ut bonum pium acquiram virum; hodie mihi ostende qualis sit cui me in uxorem ducere debet." Googe, in the translation of Naogeorgus, f. 55, probably alludes to some such observances :

"To Andrew all the lovers and the lustie woers come, Beleeving, through his ayde, and certaine ceremonies done,

(While as to him they presentes hring, and conjure all the night,) To have good lucke, and to obtaine their chiefe and sweete delight.”

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xviii. 359, Dudingsston parish, distant from Edinburgh a little more than a mile,

we read that many of the opulent citizens resort thither in the summer months to solace themselves over one of the ancient homely dishes of Scotland, for which the place has been long celebrated. The use of singed sheep's heads, boiled or baked, so frequent in this village, is supposed to have arisen from the practice of slaughtering the sheep fed on the neighbouring hill for the market, removing the carcases to town, and leaving the heads, &c., to be consumed in the place. Singed sheep's heads are borne in the procession before the Scots in London, on St. Andrew's day.

Hasted, in his History of Kent, ii. 757, speaking of the parish of Easling, says, that "On St. Andrew's Day, November 30, there is yearly a diversion called squirrel-hunting in this and the neighbouring parishes, when the labourers and lower kind of people, assembling together, form a lawless rabble, and being accoutred with guns, poles, clubs, and other such weapons, spend the greatest part of the day in parading through the woods and grounds, with loud shoutings, and under pretence of demolishing the squirrels, some few of which they kill, they destroy numbers of hares, pheasants, partridges, and, in short, whatever comes in their way, breaking down the hedges, and doing much other mischief, and in the evening betaking themselves to the alehouses, finish their career there, as is usual with such sort of gentry."

[A correspondent of the Athenæum, 993, says that this custom was kept up in Sussex till within the last thirty or forty years, many people now living having often joined in it; but in consequence of the inclosure of the coppices, and the more strict preservation of the game, it has wholly dropped.] In Scotland this day is called Andrys Day, Androiss Mess, and Andermess.

now,

ST. NICHOLAS'S DAY.

DECEMBER 6

ST. NICHOLAS was born at Patara, a city of Lycia, and, for his piety, from a layman was made bishop of Myra. He died on the 8th of the ides of December, 343.

Some have thought that it was on account of his very early abstinence' that he was chosen patron of schoolboys; but a much better reason is afforded to us by a writer in the Gent.'s Magazine for April, 1777, p. 158, who mentions having in his possession an Italian Life of St. Nicholas, 1645, from which he translates the following story, which fully explains the occasion of boys addressing themselves to St. Nicholas's patronage: "The fame of St. Nicholas's virtues was so great, that an Asiatic gentleman, on sending his two sons to Athens for education, ordered them to call on the bishop for his benediction, but they, getting to Myra late in the day, thought proper to defer their visit till the morrow, and took up their lodgings at an inn, where the landlord, to secure their baggage and effects to himself, murdered them in their sleep, and then cut them into pieces, salting them, and putting them into a pickling tub, with some pork which was there already, meaning to sell the whole as such. The bishop, however, having had a vision of this impious transaction, immediately resorted to the inn, and, calling the host to him, reproached him for his horrid villany. The man, perceiving that he was discovered, confessed his crime, and entreated the bishop to intercede on his behalf to the Almighty for his pardop; who, being moved with compassion at his contrite behaviour, confession, and thorough repentance, besought Almighty God not only to pardon the murderer, but also, for the glory of his name, to restore life to the poor innocents who had been so

This reason is indeed assigned in the English festival, f. 55. “It is sayed of his fader, hyght Epiphanius, and his moder Joanna, &c., and when he was born, &c. they made him Christin, and called hym Nycholas, that was a mannes name; but he kepeth the name of the child, for he chose to kepe vertues, meknes, and simplenes; he fasted Wednesday and Friday; these dayes he would souke but ones of the day, and therwyth held him plesed. Thus he lyved all his lyf in vertues with his childes name, and therefore children doe him worship before all other saints, &c."—Liber Festivalis in die S. Nicholai. A curious old MS. legendary metrical account of Saints, of the age of Henry VI., speaking of St. Nicholas, has the following couplet :

"Ye furst day that was y-bore, he gan to be good and clene,

For he ne wolde Wednesday ne Friday never more souke but ene."

So the Golden Legend: " He wolde not take the breast ne the pappe, but ones on the Wednesday and ones on the Fridaye."

inhumanly put to death. The saint had hardly finished his prayer, when the mangled and detached portions of the two youths were, by divine power, reunited, and perceiving themselves alive, threw themselves at the feet of the holy man to kiss and embrace them. But the bishop, not suffering their humiliation, raised them up, exhorting them to return thanks to God alone for this mark of his mercy, and gave them good advice for the future conduct of their lives; and then giving them his blessing, he sent them with great joy to prosecute their studies at Athens." And adds: "This, I suppose, sufficiently explains the naked children and tub," the wellknown emblems of St. Nicholas.1

[A curious practice, still kept up in schools, refers to this patron saint. When a boy is hard pressed in any game depending upon activity, and perceives his antagonist gaining ground upon him, he cries out Nic'las, upon which he is entitled to a suspension of the play for a moment; and on any occasion of not being ready, wanting, for instance, to fasten his shoe, or remedy any accidental inconvenience, the cry of Nic' las always entitles him to protection.]

It appears that Gregory the Great was also the patron of scholars, and that on his day boys were called, and in many places, in Hospinian's time, still continued to be called, to the school with certain songs, substituting one in the place of St. Gregory to act as bishop on the occasion with his companions

'It is remarkable that this same story is told in a metrical Life of St. Nicholas, by Maitre Wace, a priest of Jersy, and chaplain to King Henry the Second, in MS. Douce 270:

This story, however, is not to be found in the Golden Legend.