abounds in the best viands they can afford: apples and nuts are devoured in abundance; the nut-shells are burnt, and from the ashes many strange things are foretold: cabbages are torn up by the root: hemp seed is sown by the maidens, and they believe that 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 in a 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 dip 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, 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."

Vallancey's etymology of lambs-wool is as follows:

"The first day of November was dedicated to the angel presiding over fruits, seeds, &c., and was therefore named La Mas Ubhal, that is, the day of the apple fruit, and being pronounced Lamasool, the English have corrupted the name to LAMBS-WOOL."

The feast of Allhallows is said to drive the Finns almost out of their wits. An account of some singular ceremonies practised by them at this time may be read in Tooke's Russia.

THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER,

THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.

IN Poor Robin's Ale anack for the year

N Poor Robin's Almanack for the year 1677 are the following

"Now boys with

Squibs and crackers play,
And bonfires' blaze

Turns night to day."

It is still customary in London and its vicinity 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.

Nor is the celebration confined to London and its neighbourhood. When the Prince of Orange came in sight of Torbay, in 1688, it was the particular wish of his partizans (says Burnet) 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, prays: "God grant that we nor ours ever live to see November the fifth forgotten, or the solemnity of it silenced."

OF MARTINMAS.

11th of November.

FORMERLY at this seas generally to prevailed everywhere

amongst us, though now generally confined to country villages, of killing cows, oxen, swine, and other animals, 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, we have

"When Easter comes, who knows not than
That veale and bacon is the man?

And Martilmass Beefe doth beare good tacke,
When countrey folke do dainties lacke."

With this note in Tusser Redivivus, “Martlemas 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 flitches of some smoked beeve,

Hang'd on a writhen wythe since Martin's Eve."

"A piece of beef hung up since Martlemass" is also mentioned in the Pinner of Wakefield (1599).

In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1793), of the parish of Forfar we learn that half a century before, "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."

Of the parish of Tongland, county of Kirkcudbright, we have some extracts from a Statistical Account, "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."

Of the parish of Wigton we read: "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."

And so of the parishes of Sandwick and Stromness, county of Orkney, "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 club to purchase a cow, or other animal, 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, &c., are formed into little sausage links, boiled, and sent about as presents. They are called black-puddings from their colour.

Black-pudding is not forgotten by Butler in his Hudibras. Among the religious scruples of the fanatics of his time, he notes

"Some for abolishing black-pudding,

And eating nothing with the blood in."

There is a vulgar saying in the North of England that "blood without groats is nothing," meaning that birth without fortune is of no value. The vulgarism is not destitute of philosophy; but the pun is absolutely unintelligible except to those familiar with the composition of a black-pudding.

* 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 Constitutions of Burghs made be king David the 1st at the New Castell upon the Water of Tyne," in the Regiam Majestatem, printed after the edit. of 1609 (1774)—

-2.

"Chap. 70. of Buchers and selling of flesh.

"The fleshours sall serve the burgessis all the time of the slauchter of Mairts; that is, fra Michaelmes to Zule, in preparing of their flesh and in laying in of their lardner.'"

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.

The Feast of Saint Martin is a day of debauch among Christians on the Continent. The new wines are then begun to be tasted, and the Saint's day is celebrated with carousing. Aubanus tells us that

in Franconia there was a great deal of eating and drinking at this season; no one was so poor and niggardly that on the Feast of St Martin had not his dish of the entrails either of oxen, swine, or calves. As he also informs us, they drank very liberally of wine on the

occasion.

The Ancient Calendar of the Church of Rome thus marks the 11th of November: "Wines are tasted and drawn from the lees. The Vinalia, a feast of the ancients, removed to this day. Bacchus in the figure of Martin.'

Among the Churchwardens' Accounts of St Martin Outwich are the following articles

A. D. 1517. "Payd on Seynt Marten's Day for bred and drynke for the syngers, vd."

A. D. 1524. "It'm for mendyng of the hovell on Sent Marten, vjd."

"It'm for rose garlands, brede, wyne, and ale, on ij Sent Marten's Days, xvd. ob."

A. D. 1525. "Payd for brede, ale, and wyne, and garlonds, on Sent Martyns Day, ye translacyon xvjd."

Stukeley, referring to Martinsal-hill, observes: "I take the name of this hill to come from the merriments among the Northern people, call'd Martinalia, or drinking healths to the memory of St Martin, practis'd by our Saxon and Danish ancestors. I doubt not but upon St Martin's Day, or Martinmass, all the young people in the neighbourhood assembled here, as they do now upon the adjacent St Ann'shill, upon St Ann's Day." A note adds: "St Martin's Day, in the Norway clogs, is marked with a goose; for on that day they always feasted with a roasted goose: they say, St Martin, being elected to a bishoprick, hid himself (noluit episcopari), but was discovered by that animal. We have transferred the ceremony to Michaelmas."

Moresinus refers the great doings on this occasion, which, he says, were common to almost all Europe in his time, to an ancient Athenian Festival, observed in honour of Bacchus, upon the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth days of the month Anthesterion, corresponding with our November. Aubanus seems to confirm this conjecture, though there is no mention of the slaughter of any animal in the description of the rites of the Grecian Festival. The eleventh month had a name from the ceremony of "tapping their barrels on it ;" when it was customary to make merry.

It is very observable that the fatted goose, so common in England at MICHAELMAS, is, by the above foreign authors and others, marked as one of the delicacies in common use at every table on the Continent at Martinmas.

Forster's Perennial Calendar calls attention to the fact that the

"It is

festival of St Martin occurs when geese are in high season. always celebrated with a voracity the more eager, as it happens on the eve of the petit carême, when fowls can no longer be presented on the tables of a religious age. A German monk has made it a case of conscience whether, even on the eve of the Little Lent, it be allowable to eat goose-An liceat Martinalibus anserem comedere?' After diving into the weedy pool of the casuist's arguments, the delighted devotee emerges with the permission to roast his goose : and thus the goose came to be a standing dish on Martinmas as well as Michaelmas day."

We read in the Glossary to Kennet's Parochial Antiquities: "SALTSILVER. One penny paid at the Feast of Saint Martin by the servile tenants to their lord, as a commutation for the service of carrying their lord's SALT from market to his larder."

According to Douce's MS. Notes, on St Martin's night boys expose vessels of water, which they suppose will be converted into wine. The parents deceive them by substituting wine.

In the Popish Kingdome we read

"To belly cheare yet once againe doth Martin more encline,
Whom all the people worshippeth with rosted geese and wine:
Both all the day long and the night now ech man open makes
His vessels all, and of the must oft times the last he takes,
Which holy Martyn afterwarde alloweth to be wine;

Therefore they him unto the skies extoll with prayse devine,

And drinking deepe in tankardes large, and bowles of compasse wide:
Yea, by these fees the schoolemaisters have profite great beside :
For with his scholars every one about do singing go,

Not praysing Martyn much, but at the Goose rejoyceing tho',
Whereof they oftentimes have part, and money there withall;
For which they celebrate this Feast, with song and musicke all."

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S ACCESSION.

The 17th of November.

ROM a variety of notices scattered in different publications, the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's Accession appears to have been constantly observed even within the last century. In many of the Almanacks it was noted certainly as late as 1684, and probably considerably later.

In A Protestant Memorial for the Seventeenth of November, being the Inauguration Day of Queen Elizabeth (1713), is the following passage

"In a grateful remembrance of God's mercy, in raising up, continuing, and prospering this most illustrious benefactor of England, the good Protestants of this nation (those especially of LONDON and WESTMINSTER) have annually taken notice (and not without some degree of decent and orderly solemnity) of the 17th of November,