Herefordshire.
At this season, in the neighbourhood of Ross, the rustics have a custom called corn-showing. Parties are made to pick out cockle from the wheat. Before they set out they take with them, cake, cider, and a yard of toasted cheese. The first person who picks the cockle from the wheat has the first kiss of the maid and the first slice of the cake. This custom, doubtless, takes its origin from the Roman as appears from the following line of Ovid (Fasti, i. 691):—
“Et careant loliis oculos vitiantibus agri.”
“Let the fields be stripped of eye-diseasing cockle.”
—Fosbroke, Ariconensia or Archæological Sketches of Ross and Archenfield, 1822.