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HARVEST HOME;

OTHERWISE, MELL SUPPER, KERN (or CHURN) SUPPER, or FEAST of INGATHERING.

MACROBIUS narrates that, with the heathen, the masters of

families, when they had got in their harvest, were wont to feast with their servants, who had laboured for them in tilling the ground. In exact conformity with this practice, it is common among Christians, when the fruits of the earth are gathered in and stored in their proper repositories, to provide a plentiful supper for the harvest men and the servants of the family. At this entertainment all are, in the modern revolutionary idea of the word, perfectly equal. There is no distinction of persons, but master and servant sit at the same table, converse freely together, and spend the remainder of the night in dancing and singing, on terms of easy familiarity.

Bourne regards both these customs as of Jewish origin, and cites Hospinian to the effect that the heathen followed the example of the Jews, and at the end of their harvest offered up the first-fruits to their gods; for the Jews rejoiced and feasted at the getting-in of the harvest.

This festivity is undoubtedly of the most remote antiquity. That men of all nations with whom agriculture flourished should have expressed their joy on this occasion by some outward ceremonies, has its foundation in the nature of things. Sowing is hope; reaping is fruition of the expected good. To the husbandman, whom the fear of wet and blights had harassed with great anxiety, the completion of his wishes could not but impart an enviable feeling of delight. Festivity is but the reflex of inward joy; and it could hardly fail of being produced on this occasion, which is a temporary suspension of every care.

In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under the month of August, are these lines

"Grant Harvest-Lord more, by a penny or twoo,

To call on his fellowes the better to doo :
Give Gloves to thy Reapers a Larges to crie,
And daily to loiterers have a good eie;"

On which the note in Tusser Redivivus is: “He that is the Lord of Harvest is generally some stayed sober-working man, who understands all sorts of Harvest-work. If he be of able body, he commonly leads the swarth in reaping and mowing. It is customary to give Gloves to Reapers, especially where the Wheat is thistly. As to crying a Largess, they need not be reminded of it in these our days, whatever they were in our author's time."

Stevenson in The Twelve Moneths (1661), referring to August, thus glances at the customs of Harvest Home: The Furmenty Pot welcomes home the Harvest Cart, and the Garland of Flowers crowns the Captain of the Reapers; the battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work, and the

lad and the lass will have no lead on their heels. O'tis the merry time wherein honest neighbours make good cheer and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth.”

Herrick sings the praises of

"The Hock-Cart, or Harvest Home: to the Right Honourable Mildmay, Earle of Westmorland.

"Come, Sons of Summer, by whose toile
We are the Lords of Wine and Oile,
By whose tough labours, and rough hands,
We rip up first, then reap our lands,
Crown'd with the eares of corne, now come,
And to the pipe sing Harvest Home.
Come forth, my Lord, and see the Cart,
Drest up with all the country art.
See here a Maukin, there a sheet
As spotlesse pure as it is sweet :
The horses, mares, and frisking fillies,
(Clad, all, in linnen, white as lillies,)
The harvest swaines and wenches bound
For joy, to see the Hock-Cart crown'd.
About the Cart, heare, how the rout
Of rural younglings raise the shout; *
Pressing before, some coming after,

Those with a shout, and these with laughter.
Some blesse the Cart; some kisse the sheaves;
Some prank them up with oaken leaves :
Some crosse the fill-horse; some, with great
Devotion, stroak the home-borne wheat:
While other Rusticks, lesse attent

To prayers than to merryment,
Run after with their breeches rent.

Well, on brave boyes, to your Lord's hearth
Glitt'ring with fire; where, for your mirth,
You shall see, first, the large and cheefe
Foundation of your feast, fat beefe :
With upper stories, mutton, veale,
And bacon, (which makes full the meale)
With sev'rall dishes standing by,

And here a custard, there a pie,

And here all-tempting Frumentie."

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The respect shown to servants at this season seems to have sprung from a grateful sense of their good services, everything at this juncture depending on their labour and despatch.

Vacina or Vacuna (so called as it is said à vacando, the tutelar deity, as it were, of rest and ease) with the ancients was the name of the goddess to whom rustics sacrificed at the conclusion of harvest.

* In Poor Robin's Almanack for 1676, among the Observations on August, we read

"Hoacky is brought

Home with hallowin,
Boys with Plumb-Cake
The Cart following."

In imitation of this, writes Moresinus, Popery brings home her chaplets of corn, which she suspends on poles, and offerings are made on the altars of her tutelar gods, while thanks are returned for the collected stores, and prayers are made for future ease and rest. Images of straw or stubble, he adds, are wont to be carried about; and in England he himself saw the rustics bringing home in a cart a figure made of corn, round which men and women were singing promiscuously, preceded by a drum or piper.

Newton, in his Tryall of a Man's owne Selfe (1602), under Breaches of the Second Commandment, censures "the adorning with garlands, or presenting unto any image of any Saint, whom thou hast made speciall choise of to be thy patron and advocate, the firstlings of thy increase, as CORNE and GRAINE, and other oblations."

“

In A Journey into England by Paul Hentzner in the year 1598, speaking of Windsor, he says: As we were returning to our inn, we happened to meet some country people celebrating their Harvest Home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres: this they keep moving about, while men and women, men and maidservants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn."

"I have seen," says Hutchinson in his History of Northumberland, "in some places, an Image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, and a scycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with musick and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres."

An old woman, who in a case of this nature is respectable authority, at a village in Northumberland, informed the writer that, not half a century ago, they used everywhere, at the end of harvest, to dress up something similar to the figure above described, which was called a Harvest Doll, or Kern Baby. This Northern word is plainly a corruption of Corn Baby, or Image, as Kern Supper, which we shall presently consider, is of Corn Supper. In Carew's Survey of Cornwall," an ill kerned or saved Harvest" occurs.

At Werington in Devonshire, the clergyman of the parish informed the author that, when a farmer finishes his reaping, a small quantity of the ears of the last corn is twisted or tied together into a curious kind of figure, which is brought home with great acclamations, hung up over the table, and kept till the next year. The owner would think it extremely unlucky to part with this, which is called "a Knack." The reapers whoop and hollow "A Knack! a Knack! well cut! well bound! well shocked!" and, in some places, in a sort of mockery it is added: "Well scattered on the ground." A countryman gave me a somewhat different account, as follows: "When they have cut the Corn, the reapers assemble together; a Knack is made, which one placed in the middle of the company holds up, crying thrice a Knack,' which all the rest repeat; he then

says

"Well cut! well bound!

Well shocked! well saved from the ground;'

he afterwards cries 'Whoop,' and his companions holla as loud as they can."

Purchas, in his Pilgrimage, treating of the Peruvian superstitions, tells us: "In the sixth moneth they offered a hundred sheep of all colours, and then made a feast, bringing the Mayz from the fields into the house, which they yet use. This feast is made, coming from the farm to the house, saying certain songs, and praying that the Mayz may long continue. They put a quantity of the Mayz (the best that groweth in their farms) in a thing which they call Pirva, with certain ceremonies, watching three nights. Then do they put it in the richest garment they have, and, being thus wrapped and dressed, they worship this Pirva, holding it in great veneration, and saying, it is the mother of the Mayz of their inheritance, and that by this means the Mayz augments and is preserved. In this moneth they make a particular sacrifice, and the witches demand of this Pirva if it hath strength enough to continue until the next year: and if it answeres No, then they carry this Maiz to the Farm whence it was taken, to burn and make another Pirva as before: and this foolish vanity still continueth."

This Peruvian Pirva bears a strong resemblance to what is called in Kent an Ivy Girl; which is a figure composed of some of the best corn the field produces, and made, as well as may be, into a human shape. This is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings, cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, &c., of the finest lace. It is brought home with the last load of corn from the field upon the waggon, and they hold that it entitles them to a supper at the expense of their employers.*

Dr E. D. Clarke, noticing the annual custom at Rhodes of carrying Silenus in procession at Easter, says: "Even in the town of Cambridge, and centre of our University, such curious remains of antient customs may be noticed, in different seasons of the year, which pass without observation. The custom of blowing horns upon the First of May (Old Stile) is derived from a festival in honour of Diana. At the Hawkie, as it is called, I have seen a Clown dressed in woman's clothes, having his face painted, his head decorated with ears of corn, and bearing about him other symbols of Ceres, carried in a waggon, with great pomp and loud shouts, through the streets, the horses being covered with white sheets; and when I inquired the meaning of the ceremony, was answered by the people that they were drawing the HARVEST QUEEN."

In Otia Sacra (1648), we read

"How the Hock-Cart with all its Gear

Should be trick'd up, and what good chear."

Hockey Cake is that which is distributed to the people at Harvest

Here a note informs us: "This antient custom is, to this day, faintly preserved all over Scotland, by what we call the Corn Lady, or Maiden, in a Small Packet of Grain, which is hung up when the Reapers have finished."

Home The Hockey Cart is that which brings the last corn and the children rejoicing with boughs in their hands, with which the horses also are attired.

In the Lancashire Lovers (1640), the rustic lover entices his mistress to marriage with promise of many rural pleasures, among which occurs "Wee will han a Seed-Cake at Fastens ;" and in Sir Thomas Overbury's Wife (1638), under the character of a Franklin, we find enumerated the several country sports; among which occurs "the Hoky or Seed-Cake."

In some parts of Yorkshire, as a clergyman of that county informed me, at the end of shearing or reaping the corn, a prize sheaf is given to be run for; and, when all the corn is got home into the stackyard an entertainment is given called the Inning Goose. Different places adopt different ceremonies. Both in Hertfordshire and Shropshire they have a sport at this season called "Crying the Mare;" when the reapers tie together the tops of the last blades of corn, which is Mare, and, standing at some distance, throw their sickles at it; and he who cuts the knot has the prize, with acclamations and good cheer. At Hitchin, in the same county, the farmers drive furiously home with their last loads of corn, while the people run after them with bowls full of water to throw thereon. Great shouting attends this operation also.

Blount further tells us: "After the knot is cut, then they cry with a loud voice three times, 'I have her.' Others answer, as many times, 'What have you?'-'A Mare, a Mare, a Mare.'-' Whose is she?' thrice also.-J. B. (naming the owner three times).— Whither will you send her?' To J. a Nicks' (naming some neighbour who has not all his corn reaped). Then they all shout three times, and so the ceremony ends with good chear.

"In Yorkshire, upon the like occasion they have a Harvest Dame; in Bedfordshire, a Jack and a Gill."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for Feb. 1795, touching Ancient Customs in the Isle of Skye, says: "In this Hyperborean country, in every district, there is to be met with a rude stone consecrated to Gruagach, or Apollo. The first who is done with his reaping sends a man or a maiden with a bundle of Corn to his next neighbour, who hath not yet reaped down his Harvest, who when he has finished, dispatches to his own next neighbour, who is behind in his work, and so on, until the whole corns are cut down.* This sheaf is called the Cripple Goat, an Gaobbir Bhacagh, and is at present meant as a brag or affront to the farmer, for being more remiss, or later than others in reaping the harvest, for which reason the bearer of it must make as good a pair of heels, for fear of being ill used for his indiscretion, as he can. Whether the appellation of Cripple Goat may have any or the least

* A newspaper of 1773 says: "A few days ago a melancholy accident happened near Worcester at a Harvest Home. As near thirty persons were coming from the field in a waggon, it overturned, whereby great part of the company had one or other of their limbs broken, or were dangerously bruised; and one young woman was killed on the spot."