dexterity and force of the nail-driving was so quick and sure that a single blow seldom failed of doing the business effectually. Withdrawal of the nail without a proper instrument was out of the question, and consequently, the person nailed was forced either to leave part of his coat as a cognisance of his attachment, or quit the spot with a hole in it. At every nailing and pinning shouts of laughter arose from the perpetrators, yet it often happened to one who turned and smiled at the duress of another, that he also found himself nailed. Efforts at extrication increased mirth; nor was the presence of a constable, who was usually employed to attend and preserve free "ingress, egress, and regress," sufficiently awful to deter the offender.-Every Day Book, vol. i. p. 50.

A curious custom of medieval origin is observed at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, on the festival of the Epiphany. After the reading of the sentence at the offertory, "Let your light so shine before men," &c., while the organ plays, two members of her Majesty's household, wearing the royal livery, descend from the royal pew and advance to the altar rails, preceded by the usher, where they present to one of the two officiating clergymen a red bag, edged with gold lace or braid, which is received in an offertory basin, and then reverently placed on the altar. This bag or purse is understood to contain the Queen's offering of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, in commemoration of the gifts of the Magi to the infant Saviour.-Echo, Jan. 7th, 1869.

In the Lady's Mag. for 1760, is the following:

Sunday Jan. 6th, being Twelfth Day, and a collar and offering day at St. James', his Majesty, preceded by the heralds, pursuivants, &c., and the knights of the Garter, Thistle, and Bath, in the collars of their respective orders, went to the Royal Chapel at St. James', and offered gold, myrrh, and frankincense, in imitation of the Eastern Magi offering to our Saviour.

ISLE OF MAN.

In this island there is not a barn unoccupied on the whole twelve days after Christmas, every parish hiring fiddlers at the public charge. On Twelfth Day the fiddler

D

lays his head in the lap of some one of the wenches, and the mainstyr fiddler asks who such a maid, or such a maid, naming all the girls one after another, shall marry, to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during the time of merriment, and whatever he says is absolutely depended on as an oracle; and if he happen to couple two people who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth; this they call "cutting off the fiddler's head," for after this he is dead for a whole year.— Waldron's Description of the Isle of Man, 1859, p. 156.

SOMERSETSHIRE.

A friend of mine, says Mr. C. W. Bingham in N. & Q. (3rd S. vol. ix. p. 33), met a girl on Old Christmas Day, in a village of North Somerset, who told him that she was going to see the Christmas thorn in blossom. He accompanied her to an orchard, where he found a tree, propagated from the celebrated Glastonbury thorn, and gathered from it several sprigs in blossom. Afterwards the girl's mother informed him that it had been formerly the custom for the youth of both sexes to assemble under the tree at midnight on Christmas Eve, in order to hear the bursting of the buds into flower, and she added, "As they comed out, you could hear 'um haffer."

Jennings, and after him Halliwell, give this word haffer for to crackle, to patter, to make repeated loud noises.

STAFFORDSHIRE.

At Paget's Bromley a curious custom went out in the seventeenth century. A man came along the village with a mock horse fastened to him, with which he danced, at the same time making a snapping noise with a bow and arrow. He was attended by half a dozen fellow-villagers, wearing mock deers' heads, and displaying the arms of the several landlords of the town. This party danced the Hays, and other country dances, to music, amidst the sympathy and applause of the multitude. There was also a huge pot of

ale with cakes, by general contribution of the village, out of the very surplus of which "they not only repaired their church, but kept their poor too; which charges," quoth Dr. Plot, "are not now, perhaps, so cheerfully borne." -Plot's Nat. Hist. of Staffordshire, 1680, p. 434.

WESTMORELAND.

Twelfth Night, or Holly Night, was formerly celebrated at Brough, by carrying through the town a holly-tree with torches attached to its branches. The procession set out at 8 o'clock in the evening preceded by music, and stopped at the town-bridge, and again at the cross, where it was greeted each time with shouts of applause. Many of the inhabitants carried lighted branches as flambeaux; and rockets, squibs, &c., were discharged on the joyful occasion. After the tree had been carried about, and the torches were sufficiently burnt, it was placed in the middle of the town, when it was again cheered by the surrounding crowd, and then was thrown among them. The spectators at once divided into two parties, one of which endeavoured to take the tree to one of the inns, and the other to a rival inn. The innkeeper whose party triumphed was expected to treat his partisans liberally. Hone's Table Book, 1838, p. 26; Handbook for the Lakes, Murray, 1866, p. 113.

WALES.

In some parts of Pembrokeshire, the following practice is observed. A wren is secured in a small house made of wood, with door and windows, the latter glazed. Pieces of ribbon of various colours are fixed to the ridge of the roof outside. Sometimes several wrens are brought in the same cage, and oftentimes a stable-lantern, decorated as above mentioned, serves for the wren's-house. The proprietors of this establishment go round to the principal houses in their neighbourhood: where, accompanying themselves with some musical instrument, they announce their arrival by singing the Song of the Wren.' The wren's visit is a source of much amusement to children and servants, and the

·

wren's men, or lads, are usually invited to have a draught from the cellar, and receive a present in money. The 'Song of the Wren' is generally encored, and the proprietors very commonly commence high life below stairs, dancing with the maid-servants, and saluting them under the kissing bush, where there is one. The following is the 'Song of the Wren :'

"Joy, health, love, and peace,
Be to you in this place.
By your leave we will sing,
Concerning our king:
Our king is well drest;
In silks of the best;
With his ribbons so rare,
No king can compare.
In his coach he does ride,
With a great deal of pride;
And with four footmen
To wait upon him.

We were four at watch,

And all nigh of a match;

And with powder and ball
We fired at his hall.

We have travell'd many miles,
Over hedges and stiles,
To find you this king,

Which we now to you bring.
Now Christmas is past,
Twelfth Day is the last.
Th' Old Year bids adieu;
Great joy to the New."

It would appear from the ninth line of the song that the wren at one time used to occupy a coach, or that her house was placed upon wheels.-N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. v. p. 109.

JAN. 7.] ST. DISTAFF'S DAY.-ROCK DAY.

THE day after Twelfth Day was called Rock Day* and St. Distaff's Day, because on that day women resumed their spinning, which had been interrupted by the sports of

* See 'Things not generally known,' by John Timbs, 1859, pp. 1–6.

Christmas; for our ancestors, it seems, returned to their work in a very leisurely manner. From Herrick's Hesperides (p. 374) we learn that the men, in boisterous merriment, burned the women's flax, and that they in retaliation dashed pails of water upon the men :

THIS was the name of a rustic festival, held the first Monday after Twelfth Day, formerly of great account in England, bearing in its first aspect, like St. Distaff's Day, reference to the resumption of labour after the Christmas holidays. In Catholic times, the ploughmen kept lights burning before certain images in churches to obtain a blessing on their work; and they were accustomed on this day to go about in procession, gathering money for the support of these plough lights, as they were called. The Reformation put out the lights, but it could not extinguish the festival. The peasantry contrived to go about in procession, collecting money, though only to be spent in conviviality in the public-house. It was at no remote date a very gay and rather pleasant-looking affair. A plough was dressed up with ribbons and other decorations-the Fool plough. Thirty or forty stalwart swains, with their shirts over their jackets, and their shoulders and hats