In the Gentleman's Magazine for Dec. 1733 is an essay on Christmas Pye, in which the author tells us: "That this dish is most in vogue at this time of year, some think is owing to the barrenness of the season, and the scarcity of fruit and milk to make tarts, custards, and other deserts; this being a compound that furnishes a dessert itself. But I rather think it bears a religious kind of relation to the festivity from whence it takes its name. Our tables are always set out with this dish just at the time, and probably for the same reason, that our windows are adorned with Ivy. I am the more confirmed in this opinion from the zealous opposition it meets with from the Quakers, who distinguish their feasts by an heretical sort of pudding, known by their name, and inveigh against Christmas Pye as an invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon, an hodge-podge of superstition, popery, the devil, and all his works.

"The famous Bickerstaff rose up against such as would cut out the clergy from having any share in it. The Christmas Pye,' says he, 'is in its own nature a kind of consecrated cake, and a badge of distinction, and yet 'tis often forbidden to the Druid of the family. Strange! that a sirloin of beef, whether boiled or roasted, when entire, is exposed to his utmost depredations and incisions: but if minced into small pieces, and tossed up with plumbs and sugar, changes its property, and forsooth is meat for his master.' Thus with a becoming zeal he defends the chaplains of noblemen in particular, and the clergy in general, who it seems were debarred, under pretence that a sweet tooth and liquorish palate are inconsistent with the sanctity of their character."

In the North of England, a goose is always the chief ingredient in the composition of a Christmas-pie.

Allan Ramsay, in his Elegy on Lucky Wood (1721), tells us that, among other baits by which the good ale-wife drew customers to her house, she never failed to tempt them at Christmas with a Goose-pie

"Than ay at Yule whene'er we came,

A bra' Goose Pye,

And was na that a good Belly-baum?
Nane dare deny."

. "We have never been witnesses,” says Johnson in his Life of Butler, "of animosities excited by the use of Minced Pies and Plum-porridge, nor seen with what abhorrence those who could eat them at all other times of the year would shrink from them in December."

Both plum-porridge and Christmas pies are adverted to in Nedham's History of the Rebellion(1661)—

"All Plums the Prophet's sons defy,

And Spice-broths are too hot;

Treason's in a December-pye,

And death within the pot.

"Christmas, farewell; thy days I fear
And merry days are done;

So they may keep feasts all the year,
Our Saviour shall have none.

"Gone are those golden days of yore,
When Christmass was a high day :
Whose Sports we now shall see no more;
'Tis turn'd into Good-Friday."

Misson, in continuation of the passage recently quoted, observes— "They also make a sort of soup with plums which is not at all inferior to the pye, which is in their language called Plum-porridge." In the first year of the present century, the author dined with the chaplain of St James's on Christmas Day, when the first thing served up was a tureen full of rich luscious plum-porridge.

In Round about our Coal-fire, or Christmas Entertainments, is the following account of the usual diet and drink of this season, with other curious particulars

"An English Gentleman at the opening of the great day, i.e., on Christmass Day, in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours entered his Hall by day-break. The strong beer was broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, nutmegg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin (the great sausage) must be boiled by day-break, or else two young men must take the maiden (i.e., the cook) by the arms and run her round the market-place till she is ashamed of her laziness.

"In Christmas Holidays, the tables were all spread from the first to the last; the sirloins of beef, the minced pies, the plumb-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese, and plumb-puddings, were all brought upon the board: every one eat heartily, and was welcome, which gave rise to the proverb, ‘Merry in the hall when beards wag all.'" +

Morant, in his Account of Horn Church, in the Liberty of Havering informs us that “the Inhabitants pay the Great Tithes on Christmas Day, and are treated with a Bull and Brawn. The Boar's Head is wrestled for. The poor have the scraps."

Poor Robin, for 1677, notes the festive doings of Christmas—

"Now grocer's trade

Is in request,

For Plums and Spices
Of the best.

Good cheer doth with

This month agree,

And dainty chaps

Must sweetned be.

Mirth and gladness

Doth abound,

And strong beer in

Each house is found.

Minc'd Pies, roast Beef,

With other cheer
And feasting, doth
Conclude the year."

* HACKIN is thus explained in Ray's Glossarium Northanhymbricum: “A Hackin. Lucanica. A.S. gehaccod. Flerc. Farcimen; & gehæcca. Farcimentum."

+ Aubrey, in a MS. of the date of 1678, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, says: "Before the last Civil Wars in Gentlemen's houses at Christmass the first diet that was brought to table, was a Boar's Head with a Lemon in his mouth."

They are likewise indicated in King's Art of Cookery-
"At Christmas time-

Then if you wou'd send up the Brawner's Head,
Sweet Rosemary and Bays around it spread;
His foaming tusks let some large Pippin * grace,
Or 'midst these thundring spears an Orange place;
Sauce, like himself, offensive to its foes,

The roguish Mustard, dang'rous to the nose,
Sack, and the well-spic'd Hippocras the wine
Wassail the bowl with antient ribbands fine,

Porridge with Plumbs, and Turkeys with the chine."

}

In Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland (1793), the minister of Montrose, county of Angus, under the head of Amusements, writes"At Christmas and the New Year, the opulent Burghers begin to feast with their friends, and go a round of visits, which takes up the space of many weeks. Upon such occasions the gravest is expected to be merry and to join in a cheerful song."

Luther's Table Talk has it that, "upon the Eve of Christmas Day the women run about and strike a swinish hour (pulsant horam suillam): if a great hog grunts, it denotes the future husband to be an old man; if a small one, a young man."

ST STEPHEN'S DAY.

26th of December.

HOSPINIAN quotes a superstitious notion from Naogeorgus that

it is good to gallop horses till they are all over in a sweat, and then bleed them, on St Stephen's Day, to prevent their having any disorders for the ensuing year. Googe's version runs

"Then followeth Saint Stephen's Day, whereon doth every man
His Horses jaunt and course abrode, as swiftly as he can,
Until they doe extreemely sweate, and than they let them blood,
For this being done upon this day, they say doth do them good,
And keepes them from all maladies and sicknesse through the yeare,
As if that Steven any time tooke charge of Horses heare."

In Tusser's Husbandry (1580), under December, are the following lines

"Yer Christmas be passed, let Horsse be let blood,

For manie a purpose it dooth them much good :
The Day of S. Steeven, old fathers did use,
If that do mislike thee, some other day chuse."

"At Ripon, in Yorkshire, on Christmas Day, the singing boys come into the church with large baskets full of red Apples, with a sprig of Rosemary stuck in each, which they present to all the Congregation, and generally have a return made them of 2d., 4d., or 6d. according to the quality of the lady or gentleman."-Gentleman's Magazine for August 1790.

On this the Note in Tusser's Redivivus is: "About Christmas is a very proper time to bleed Horses in, for then they are commonly at house, then Spring comes on, the Sun being now coming back from the Winter Solstice, and there are three or four days of rest, and if it be upon St Stephen's Day it is not the worse, seeing there are with it three days of rest, or at least two."

Among the Receipts and Disbursements of the Canons of St Mary in Huntingdon, under the year 1517, we have the following entry— "Item, for letting our Horses blede in Chrystmasse Weke iiijd." The practice of bleeding horses on this day (according to Douce's MS.) is extremely ancient, and appears to have been brought into this country by the Danes.

In Wits, Fits, and Fancies (a rare b.l. quarto: 1595) we read: "On S. Stevens Day it is the Custome for all Horses to be let bloud and drench'd. A gentleman being (that morning) demaunded whether it pleased him to have his Horse let bloud and drencht, according to the fashion? he answered, No, sirra, my horse is not diseas'd of the fashions." [farcin.]

Aubrey in the Remains of Gentilisme (MS. Lands. Brit. Mus. 226) says: "On St Stephen's Day the Farrier came constantly and blouded all our Cart-horses."

The Finns, on this day, throw a piece of money, or a bit of silver, into the trough out of which the horses drink, under the impression that it contributes to the prosperity of those who do so.

On St Stephen's Day blessings are implored upon pastures, writes Bishop Hall in his Triumphs of Rome.

In the North Riding of Yorkshire they make large goose pies, all of which they distribute among their needy neighbours, except one which is carefully laid up, and not tasted till the feast of the Purification of the Virgin.

Perhaps it will not be thought an uninteresting article in this little Code of Vulgar Antiquities to mention that the well-known interjection-Heit or Heck-used by the country people to their Horses, dates back to the days of Chaucer—

"They saw a cart, that charged was with hay,
The which a carter drove forth on his way:
Depe was the way, for which the carte stode;
The carter smote and cryde as he were wod,

Heit Scot! Heit Brok what spare ye for the stones?
The Fend quoth he, you fetch, body and bones."

The name of Brok is still in frequent use amongst farmers' draught

oxen.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1799 derives "Whoohe!" the well-known exclamation to stop a team of horses, from the Latin: "The exclamation used by our waggoners, when they wish for any purpose to stop their team (an exclamation which it is less difficult to speak than to write, although neither is a task of great facility), is probably a legacy bequeathed us by our Roman ancestors : precisely a translation of the antient classical Ohe! an Interjection

strictly confined to bespeaking a pause-rendered by our Lexicographers Enough! Oh, Enough!

'Ohe, jam satis est-Ohe, Libelle.'"

A learned friend contributes the following note: The exclamation "Geho! Geho!" which carmen use to their horses is probably of great antiquity. It is not peculiar to this country, but is also used in France. In the story of the milkmaid who kicked down her pail, and with it all her hopes of getting rich, as related in a very ancient collection of apologues, entitled Dialogus Creaturarum, printed at Gouda in 1480, is the following passage: "Et cum sic gloriaretur, et cogitaret cum quanta gloria duceretur ad illum virum super equum dicendo gio gio, cepit pede percutere terram quasi pungeret equum calcaribus; i.e.: "And while she was thus boasting and reflecting with what pomp she would set out on horseback, saying Gio! Gio! she began to stamp the ground with her feet as though she were urging the steed with the spurs."

ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST.

The 27th of December.

NAOGEORGUS supplies custom of giving

wine on the Day of St John the Evangelist

"Nexte John the sonne of Zebedee hath his appoynted Day,
Who once by cruell Tyraunts will, constrayned was they say
Strong poyson up to drinke, therefore the Papistes doe beleeve
That whoso puts their trust in him, no poyson them can greeve.
The wine beside that halowed is, in worship of his name,
The Priestes doe give the people that bring money for the same,
And after with the selfe same wine are little manchets made
Agaynst the boystrous winter stormes, and sundrie such like trade.
The men upon this solemne day, do take this holy wine

To make them strong, so do the maydes to make them faire and fine."

In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1793) we read: "Our common people here [Duffus in Moray] still celebrate (perhaps without ever thinking of the origin of the practice) St JOHN'S DAY, St Stephen's Day, Christmas Day, &c., by assembling in large companies to play at Foot-Ball, and to dance and make merry. That horror at the name of Holidays, which was once a characteristic of the Puritans and true blue Presbyterians, never took possession of them."