Kent.
In Rogation week, about Keston and Wickham, a number of young men meet together and with a most hideous noise run into the orchards, and, encircling each tree, pronounce these words:
“Stand fast, root; bear well top;
God send us a youling sop!
Every twig, apple big;
Every bough, apple enow.”
For this incantation the confused rabble expect a gratuity in money, or drink, which is no less welcome; but if they are disappointed of both, they with great solemnity anathematize the owners and trees with altogether as insignificant a curse. It seems highly probable that this custom has arisen from the ancient one of perambulation among the heathen, when they made prayers to the gods for the use and blessing of the fruits coming up, with thanksgiving for those of the preceding year; and as the heathens supplicated Æolus, god of the winds, for his favourable blasts, so in this custom they still retained his name with a very small variation: this ceremony is called youling, and the word is often used in their invocations.—Hasted, History of Kent, vol. i. p. 109.