CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS.
On the confines of Worcestershire, towards Ledbury, it was some years ago the custom, on Twelfth Night, for the farmers to make twelve fires upon the head (east side) of one of their wheat fields. One of these fires was larger than the others, which they called "Old Meg," and around this the farm servants, with their families and friends, congregated to drink warm cider, with plum-cake toasted in it, and with loud hurrahs wishing success to the master and his crops; then they proceeded to the cow-house, which had been nicely cleaned for the occasion, and the cows had also been cleaned and tied up, being allowed a good supply of their best provender. A large plum-cake, bound round with tape, was stuck on the horns of the best cow, and buckets of cider with plum-cake were carried in. Each person present then drank to the health of the cow, using this doggrel:
"Here's to thee, Ball, and to thy white horn;
Pray God send thy master a good crop of corn,
Of wheat, rye, and barley, and all sorts of grain,
And at this time twelve months we meet here again.
The leaves they are green,
The nuts they are brown,
They all hang so high
That they cannot come down.
They cannot come down until the next year,
So thee eat thy oats and we'll drink our beer" (or cider, as the case might be.)
Then the cowman went up to the cow, and caused her by some movement to shake her head, and if the cake tumbled over in front of her it belonged to the cowman; if it fell behind, it became the property of the dairymaid. The party then retired to the house, and made the evening jolly, never concluding the festivity without a dance. I have heard that to this day the custom of lighting twelve fires on the same night still prevails at Preston, near Ledbury, and other places. A correspondent informs me that he remembers a custom similar to the above being observed in the neighbourhood of Tenbury on Christmas Eve, and that Neen Sollars was the last parish in which he witnessed it.
The twelve fires on the eve of Twelfth Day, kindled with great rejoicing before a pole wrapped up in straw, called "the old woman," in a field that has been sown with grain, are supposed to be the remains of some heathen ceremony derived from the Romans or Saxons, allusive to Ceres and the months, but afterwards adopted to a holiday season of the Christian year. This practice (as the Rev. J. Webb, of Tretire, near Ross, informs us) is still continued in parts of Herefordshire.
It is the custom at the present day in some parishes in Worcestershire (Longdon for instance) for boys and girls to go early on New Year's morning to all the farmhouses and say as follows, all in one breath:
"Bud well, bear well,
God send you fare well,
Every sprig and every spray
A bushel of apples next New Year's Day.
Morning, master and mistress,
A happy New Year,
A pocket full of money,
A cellar full of beer.
Please to give me a New Year's gift."
A clergyman in Worcestershire communicated to the editor of "Brand's Antiquities" the following doggrel lines, but the occasion and use of them appear to be unknown, and it is not unlikely that some corruption has crept into them:
"Wassail brews good ale,
Good ale for Wassail;
Wassail comes too soon
In the wane of the moon."
In the neighbourhood towards Ledbury it was customary for the farmers to complete wheat-sowing by what was called Allontide (Allhallows)—Nov. 1st. If they had finished by the previous night, a cake was divided between the dairymaid and the waggoner. If the latter could succeed in going into the kitchen by a certain hour at night, and cracking his whip three times, the cake belonged to him; but if the dairymaid, by any means in her power, could prevent the performance of the whip ceremony, she claimed one half of the cake. The maid was on the look-out an hour or so before the required time, and the wits of both parties were on the alert to counteract each other's movements, affording much amusement to the rustic spectators. Respecting the period for the completion of wheat-sowing, the following old saying prevailed in the above district many years ago:
"At Michaelmas fair (Oct. 2)
The wheat should hide a hare."
Everybody knows that in the present day they do not begin sowing till after that date.
Old Christmas is still observed, especially in the western parts of the county. In old-fashioned farmhouses the misletoe remains till the following Christmas Eve, when it is burned, and a fresh bough put up.