neglected, and the supper, so far as meal was concerned, was made indifferently of old or new corn, as was most agreeable to the founder.

In Hutchinson's Durham we read of the Parish of Easington: "In this part of the country are retained some antient customs evidently derived from the Romans, particularly that of dressing up a figure of Ceres, during Harvest, which is placed in the field while the reapers are labouring, and brought home on the last evening of reaping, with musick and great acclamation. After this a feast is made, called the Mell-supper, from the antient sacrifice of mingling the new meal."

The unfortunate Eugene Aram derived mell either from meal, or from the instrument by us called a mell,* wherewith corn was anciently reduced to meal in a mortar.

There were also a churn, or more properly, a kern, supper (as it is vulgarly pronounced in Northumberland), and a shouting the churn, or kern. This, on the authority of Aram, was different from the mell supper; the former invariably being provided when all was shorn, the latter after all was got in. One would have thought that kern supper was no more than corn supper, were it not for Aram's testimony that it was called the churn supper, because from time immemorial it was customary to produce in a churn a great quantity of cream, which they dispensed in cups to the rustic company, for consumption with bread.

This custom, in Aram's time, survived about Whitby and Scarborough in the east of Yorkshire, and round about Gisburne and other places in the west. Elsewhere cream has been commuted

for ale, and the tankard politely preferred to the churn.

Martin mentions a singular harvest superstition in the Orkneys: "There is one day in Harvest on which the vulgar abstain from work, because of an antient and foolish tradition, that if they do their work the ridges will bleed."

Armstrong writes of the Island of Minorca: "Their Harvests are generally gathered by the middle of June; and as the corn ripens, a number of boys and girls station themselves at the edges of the fields, and on the tops of the fence-walls, to fright away the small birds with their shouts and cries. This puts one in mind of Virgil's precept in the first book of his Georgics

'Et sonitu terrebis aves,'

and was doubtless a custom among the Roman farmers, from whom the antient Minorquins learned it. They also use, for the same purpose, a split Reed; which makes a horrid rattling, as they shake it with their hands."

Within the Liberty of Warkworth, writes Bridges in his History of Northamptonshire, is Ashe Meadow, divided amongst the neighbouring parishes, and famed for the following customs observed in the

He adds, as the harvest was last concluded with several preparations of meal, or brought to be ready for the mell, this term became, by translation, to mean the last of other things; as when a horse comes last in the race, they often say in the North, he has got the mell.

mowing of it. "The meadow is divided into fifteen portions, answering to fifteen lots, which are pieces of wood cut off from an arrow, and marked according to the landmarks in the field. To each lot are allowed eight mowers, amounting to one hundred and twenty in the whole. On the Saturday sevennight after Midsummer Day, these portions are laid out by six persons, of whom two are chosen from Warkworth, two from Overthorp, one from Grimsbury, and one from Nethercote. These are called Field-men, and have an entertainment provided for them upon the day of laying out the Meadow, at the appointment of the Lord of the Manor. As soon as the Meadow is measured, the man who provides the feast, attended by the Hay-ward of Warkworth, brings into the field three gallons of ale. After this the Meadow is run, as they term it, or trod, to distinguish the lots: and, when this is over, the Hay-ward brings into the field a rump of beef, six penny loaves, and three gallons of ale, and is allowed a certain portion of Hay in return, though not of equal value with his provision. This Hay-ward, and the Master of the feast, have the name of Crocus-men. In running the field each man hath a boy allowed to assist him. On Monday morning lots are drawn, consisting some of eight swaths and others of four. Of these the first and last carry the garlands. The two first lots are of four swaths, and whilst these are mowing the mowers go double; and, as soon as these are finished, the following orders are read aloud: Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, I charge you, under God, and in his Majesty's name, that you keep the King's peace in the Lord of the Manor's behalf, according to the Orders and Customs of this Meadow. No man or men shall go before the two Garlands; if you do, you shall pay your penny, or deliver your scythe at the first demand, and this so often as you shall transgress. No man, or men, shall mow above eight swaths over their lots, before they lay down their scythes and go to breakfast. No man, or men, shall mow any farther than Monks-holm-Brook, but leave their scythes there, and go to dinner; according to the custom and manner of this Manor. God save the King!' The dinner, provided by the Lord of the Manor's tenant, consists of three cheesecakes, three cakes, and a new-milk-cheese. The cakes and cheesecakes are of the size of a winnowing-sieve; and the person who brings them is to have three gallons of ale. The Master of the feast is paid in hay, and is farther allowed to turn all his cows into the meadow on Saturday morning till eleven o'clock; that by this means giving the more milk the cakes may be made the bigger. Other like customs are observed in the mowing of other meadows in this parish."

To the festivities of Harvest Home must be referred the popular custom among the hop-pickers in Kent, thus described in Smart's Hop Garden (1752)—

"Leander leads Lætitia to the scene

Of shade and fragance-Then th' exulting band
Of pickers, male and female, seize the fair
Reluctant, and with boisterous force and brute,
By cries unmoved, they bury her in the bin.
Nor does the youth escape-him too they seize,

And in such posture place as best may serve

To hide his charmer's blushes. Then with shouts
They rend the echoing air, and from them both

(So custom has ordain'd) a largess claim."

To the same festal time is referable the MEADOW VERSE. In Herrick's Hesperides we have

"The Meddow Verse, or Aniversary, to Mistris Bridget Lowman:.
"Come with the Spring-time forth, fair Maid, and be

This year again the Medow's Deity.
Yet ere ye enter, give us leave to set
Upon your head this flowery coronet ;
To make this neat distinction from the rest,
You are the Prime, and Princesse of the Feast;
To which, with silver feet lead you the way,
While sweet-breath Nimphs attend on you this day.
This is your houre; and best you may command,
Since you are Lady of this Fairie land.

Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shall
Cherrish the cheek, but make none blush at all."

The parting Verse, the Feast there ended.
"Loth to depart, but yet at last, each one
Back must now go to's habitation :

Not knowing thus much, when we once do sever,
Whether or no, that we shall meet here ever."

In parts of Suffolk and Essex, at the termination of the Harvest Home feast, till recently there survived the old custom of "Hallooing Largess." At the beginning of their operations the most skilful of the reapers was appointed a leader with the title of "the lord ;" and under his presidency the husbandmen were borne home upon the last load of grain; their wives and children and immediate friends following in procession, carrying the implements used during harvest, with green boughs, a sheaf of wheat, and perhaps a flag or two extemporised from handkerchiefs. At the farmer's house they were provided with a substantial supper, to which neighbouring farmers were generally invited. This was called the "horkey," or Harvest Home. During the day it was the office of "the lord" to collect "largess money" from neighbours and friends; and, at the conclusion of the horkey, the farm labourers assembled upon some adjacent eminence and shouted "Holla, holla, holla,"-Largess; the "holla" being repeated quickly, and all their vocal strength reserved for "largess," on which they dwelt to the full of their voice. These shouts were repeated as often as they had received largess."

In Hertfordshire it was customary for those employed in getting in the corn to meet in companies on the morning next after" Harvest

Home," for the purpose of perambulating the neighbourhood to beg what they termed a "fow-largess."

In the north of Devon, after the wheat was all cut, they were careful to observe the old custom of "crying the neck." While the labourers were reaping the last field, one of their number most familiar with the traditions of the season, went round to the shocks and sheaves, and selected a little bundle of all the best ears he could find. This bundle, which he tied up very neatly, plaiting and arranging the straws most tastefully, was called "the neck." At the termination of their operations, the reapers, binders, and women, stood round in a circle, in the centre of which was the person with "the neck,” which he grasped with both hands. He first stooped and held it near the ground, and all the men around him took off their hats, stooping and holding them with both hands downwards. Then they began to cry, all together, in a very prolonged and harmonious tone, "the neck! at the same time slowly raising themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads; the holder of "the neck" also raising it on high. This was repeated thrice; after which they changed their cry to wee yen!" way yen!" which they prolonged as they did "the neck," and also sounded thrice; with the same movements of the body and arms. Thereupon the company burst out into boisterously joyous laughter, and hats and caps were flung up into the air. Next one of the men secured "the neck" and ran with all possible haste to the farmhouse, where one of the young female domestics stood at the door with a pail of water ready to her hands. If the holder of "the neck" could contrive to get into the house otherwise than by the door at which the girl stood, he could lawfully kiss her; if, however, he failed, he was regularly soused with the contents of the bucket.

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The explanation of "crying the neck" was that it was designed to give the surrounding country notice of the end of the harvest; we yen" being the rustic delivery of "we end."

It should be added that "the neck" generally was suspended in the farmhouse, sometimes for three or four years.

THE FEAST OF SHEEP-SHEARING.

that the life was accounted

an honourable one, particularly among the Jews and the Romans. In the Old Testament we have record of the festive entertainments of the former on this occasion, particularly in the Second Book of Samuel, where Absalom the king's son was master of the feast; while Varro may be consulted as to the mode of celebration by the latter. In England, particularly in the South, for these festivities are not so common in the North, on the day they begin to shear their sheep they provide a plentiful dinner for the shearers and their friends who visit them on the occasion. A table also, if the weather permit, is spread in the open village for the young people and children. The washing and shearing of sheep is attended with great mirth and

festivity. Indeed, the value of the covering of this very useful animal must always have made shearing time, in all pastoral countries, a kind of Harvest Home.

In Tusser's Husbandry, under The Ploughman's Feast Days, we have these lines, bearing upon this festivity

"Sheep Shearing.

"Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corne,
Make wafers and Cakes, for our Sheepe must be shorne.
At Sheepe shearing, neighbours none other things crave,
But good cheere and welcome like neighbours to have."

The following passage in Ferne's Glory of Generositie would seem to imply that Cheese Cakes were the principal dainty at the Feast of Sheep-shearing. "Well vor your paines (if you come to our Sheep Shering Veast) bum vaith yous taste of our CHEESE CAKE." This is put into the mouth of Columell the Plowman. In The Lancashire Lovers (1640), Camillus the clown, courting Doriclea, tells her: "We will have a lustie CHEESE-CAKE at our Sheepe Wash."

The expense attending these festivities seems to have afforded matter of complaint. Thus in Questions of profitable and pleasant Concernings (1594) we read: "If it be a Sheep Shearing Feast, Master Baily can entertaine you with his Bill of Reckonings to his Maister of three Sheapherd's Wages, spent on fresh Cates, besides Spices, and Saffron Pottage."

There is a beautiful description of this festivity in Dyer's Poem, called The Fleece, at the end of the first book.

According to Piers, on the first Sunday in Harvest, that is, in August, they are careful in Westmeath to drive their cattle into some pool or river and therein swim them. This observance is followed as if it were a point of religion, for they think no beast can live the whole year through unless it be thus drenched. The swimming of cattle, especially at this season of the year (writes he), is healthful unto them, as the poet Virgil hath observed

"Balantumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri ;
In th' healthful flood to plunge the bleating flock;

"but precisely to do this on the first Sunday in Harvest, I look on as not only superstitious but profane."

IN

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

IN Bourne's time it was usual in country villages, where the politeness of the age had made no great conquest, to pay greater deference to Saturday afternoon than to any other of the working days of the week.

The first idea of this cessation from labour at that time was that every one might attend evening prayers as a kind of preparation for the ensuing Sabbath. The eve of the Jewish Sabbath is called the