As also that at the end of barley and bean seed-time there is a custom there to give the ploughmen froise, a species of thick pancake."

Bishop Kennett mentions the seed cake as an old English custom. It is also noticed by Tusser in his Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1580, f. 75:

"Wife, some time this weeke, if the wether hold cleere,
An end of wheat-sowing we make for this yeare.
Remember you, therefore, though I do it not,

The Seed-cake, the Pasties, and Furmentie-pot."

"It is worth remarking," says Tollett, in a note on the Two Gent. of Verona, ii. 2, "that on All Saints' Day, the poor people in Staffordshire, and perhaps in other country places, go from parish to parish a souling, as they call it, i. e. begging and puling (or singing small, as Bailey's Dictionary explains puling) for soul cakes, or any good thing to make them merry. This custom is mentioned by Peck, and seems a remnant of Popish superstition to pray for departed souls, particularly those of friends. The Souler's Song in Staffordshire is different from that which Mr. Peck mentions, and is by no means worthy of publication."

[The custom of going a Souling still continues in some parts of the county, peasant girls going to farmhouses, singing,

"Soul, soul, for a soul cake,

Pray you, good mistress, a soul cake."

And other verses sung on the same occasion, but which I suspect are not the ancient ones, will be found under the article Catherning, Nov. 25th. It was formerly usual to keep a soulmass-cake for good luck. Mr. Young, in his History of Whitby, says, a lady in Whitby has a soul-mass loaf near a hundred years old."]

Aubrey, in the Remains of Gentilisme, S. Lansd. 227, says that, in his time, in Shropshire, &c., there was set upon the board a high heap of soul-cakes, lying one upon another, like the picture of the shew-bread in the old Bibles. They

used to light in wheat seeding; these they likewise carried about their wheat grounds, believing verily that hereby neither darnell, tares, nor any other noisome weedes would grow that yeare amongst the new corne."

were about the bigness of twopenny cakes, and every visitant that day took one. He adds, "there is an old rhyme or saying, 'A soule-cake, a soule-cake, have mercy on all Christen soules for a soule-cake.'"

Brand, in his Description of Orkney, p. 62, speaking of the superstitions of the inhabitants, says, "when the beasts, as oxen, sheep, horses, &c., are sick, they sprinkle them with a water made up by them, which they call fore-spoken water; wherewith likewise they sprinkle their boats when they succeed and prosper not in their fishing. And especially on Hallow Even they use to sein or sign their boats, and put a cross of tar upon them, which my informer hath often seen. Their houses also some use then to sein." In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xii. 459, the minister of Kirkmichael, in Banffshire, tells us, the appearance of the three first days

66

of winter is observed in verses thus translated from the Gaelic : 'Dark, lurid, and stormy, the first three days of winter; whoever would despair of the cattle, I would not till summer.'

It is stated in Kethe's Sermon preached at Blandford Forum, 1570, p. 19, that "there was a custom, in the Papal times, to ring bells at Allhallow-tide for all Christian souls. In the draught of a letter which Henry VIII. was to send to Cranmer "against superstitious practices," (Burnet's Hist. Ref. 1683, p. ii., Records and Instr. i. 237,) "the vigil and ringing of bells all the night long upon Allhallow Day at night" are directed to be abolished; and the said vigil to have no watching or ringing. In the Appendix also to Strype's Annals of the Reformation, vol. i., the following injunction, made early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, occurs: "That the superfluous ringing of bels, and the superstitious ringing of bells at Allhallowntide, and at Al Souls Day, with the two nights next before and after, be prohibited."

" ["Somas-cake, that is, soul-mas-cake, a sweet cake made on the 2d of November, All Souls' Day, and always in a triangular form. The custom of making a peculiar kind of cake on this day is recognised in a deposition of the year 1574, given in Watson's History of the House of Warrren, i. 217, wherein the party deposes that his mother knew a certain castle of the Earl of Warren's, having, when a child, according to the custom of that country, gathered soul-cakes there on All Souls' Day. The making of these cakes is now almost the sole relic of ancient customs which had their origin in the superstitious usages of the Catholic times."-Hunter's Hallamshire Glossary.]

In Nichols's Churchwarden's Accounts, p. 154, parish of Heybridge, near Maldon, Essex, 1517, are the following items: "Inprimis, payed for frankyncense agense Hollowmasse, Ol. Os. 1d. Item, payed to Andrew Elyott, of Maldon, for newe mendinge of the third bell knappell agenste Hallowmasse, Ol. 18. 8d. Item, payed to John Gidney, of Maldon, for a new bell-rope agenste Hallowmasse, Ol. Os. 8d." In articles to be inquired of within the archdeaconry of York by the Churchwardens and sworn men, 163.. any year till 1640), I find the following: "Whether there be any within your parish or chappelry that use to ring bells superstitiously upon any abrogated holiday, or the eves thereof."

In a poem entitled Honoria, or the Day of All Souls, 1782, the scene of which is supposed to be in the great church of St. Ambrose at Milan, the 2d of November, on which day the most solemn office is performed for the repose of the dead, are these lines:

"Ye hallowed bells, whose voices thro' the air

The awful summons of afflictions bear."

The description of "All Soulne Day," in Barnabe Googe's Translation of Naogeorgus's Popish Kingdome, is grossly exaggerated.

There is a great display of learning in Vallancey's Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, vol. iii., on Allhallow Eve. "" On the Oidhche Shamhna (Ee Owna) or Vigil of Saman," he says, "the peasants in Ireland assemble with sticks and clubs (the emblems of laceration), going from house to house, collecting money, bread-cake, butter, cheese, eggs, &c. &c., for the feast, repeating verses in honour of the solemnity, demanding preparations for the festival in the name of St. Columb Kill, desiring them to lay aside the fatted calf, and to bring forth the black sheep. The good women are employed in making the griddle cake and candles; these last are sent from house to house in the vicinity, and are lighted up on the (Saman) next day, before which they pray, or are supposed to pray, for the departed soul of the donor. Every house 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 dig 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, p. 343, 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."

The feast of Allhallows is said to drive the Finns almost out of their wits. See an account of some singular ceremonies practised by them at this time in Tooke's Russia, i. 48.

THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER,

THE ANNIVERSARY OF GUNPOWDER PLOT.

It is still customary in all parts of the country 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, 66 Pray remember Guy Fawkes!" In the evening there are bonfires, and these frightful figures are burnt in the midst of them. In Poor Robin's Almanack for the year 1677 are the following observations on the Fifth of November:

"Now boys with

Squibs and crackers play,
And bonfires blaze

Turns night to day."

[The House of Commons instituted this day "a holiday for ever in thankfulness to God for our deliverance and detestation of the Papists." See a letter dated Feb. 10th, 1605-6, in the Court and Times of James I., 1848, i. 46.]

When the Prince of Orange came in sight of Torbay, in 1688, we are told by Burnet, it was the particular wish of his partisans 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, p. 242, says: "God grant that we nor ours ever live to see November the Fifth forgotten, or the solemnity of it silenced." The Standard Newspaper of Nov. 6th, 1834, has a paragraph relating to the falling off of the exhibition of Guy Fawkes; but descriptive of the old practice, in the memory of ancient people, of burning the figures of Guy Fawkes in Lincoln's Inn Fields, near what at that time was the Duke of Newcastle's house, as many as twelve or fourteen, between the hours of six and twelve at night.

[The following song is used in some parts of the North of England on this occasion: