Buckinghamshire.
On Cattern Day the lace makers hold merry-makings, and eat a sort of cakes called “wigs”[85] and drink ale. Tradition says it is in remembrance of Queen Catherine, who, when the trade was dull, burnt all her lace, and ordered new to be made. The ladies of the court could not but follow her example, and the consequence was a great briskness in the manufacture.—N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. i. p. 387.
[85] Cakes called “wigs” were very commonly sold in the Midland counties some years ago, and they are even mentioned as allowable at the collation in Lent by a Catholic writer nearly two centuries ago. They were light and spongy, and something like very light gingerbread. As to the derivation of the name “wig” as applied to them, a correspondent of Notes and Queries says he never dreamed of seeing it any where but in the shape of these cakes, which greatly resembled a wig; being round, and having a thick rim round them, which turned up like the curls of a wig of the olden times.—See N. & Q. 3rd. S. vol. i. p. 436.