Devonshire.
The ashton faggot is burned in Devonshire on Christmas Eve. The faggot is composed entirely of ash timber, and the separate sticks or branches are securely bound together with ash bands. The faggot is made as large as can conveniently be burned in the fire-place, or rather upon the floor, grates not being in use. A numerous company is generally assembled to spend the evening in games and amusements, the diversions being heightened when the faggot blazes on the hearth, as a quart of cyder is considered due and is called for and served upon the bursting of every hoop or band round the faggot. The timber being green and elastic, each band generally bursts open with a smart report when the individual stick or hoop has been partially burned through.—N. &. Q. 1st S. vol. iv. p. 309.
In one or two localities, it is still customary for the farmer with his family and friends, after partaking together of hot cakes and cider (the cake being dipped in the liquor previous to being eaten), to proceed to the orchard, one of the party bearing hot cake and cider as an offering to the principal apple-tree. The cake is formally deposited on the fork of the tree, and the cider thrown over the latter.[88]—See Book of Days, vol. ii. p. 736.
[88] In some places this custom is observed on New Year’s Eve.
A superstitious notion prevails in the western parts of Devonshire that, at twelve o’clock at night on Christmas Eve, the oxen in their stalls are always found on their knees, as in an attitude of devotion, and that since the alteration of the style they continue to do this only on the eve of Old Christmas Day.—Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 473.
It appears, from a statement of charities in an old book, that John Martyn, by will, 28th of November, 1729, gave to the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the parish of St. Mary Major, Exeter, twenty pounds, to be put out at interest, and the profits thereof to be laid out every Christmas Eve in twenty pieces of beef, to be distributed to twenty poor people of the parish, such as had no relief on that day, for ever.—Old English Customs and Charities, 1842, p. 4.