Lancashire.
The following description of primitive manners in the houses of the gentry at Christmas is extracted by Baines (Hist. of Lancashire, vol. iii. p. 294) from a family manuscript of the Cunliffes, of Wycoller, in Lancashire, and refers to an age antecedent to the wars of the Parliament:—“At Wycoller-Hall the family usually kept open house the twelve days at Christmas. Their entertainment was a large hall of curious ashler wood, a long table, plenty of furmerty, like new milk, in a morning, made of husked wheat boiled, roasted beef with fat goose and a pudding, with plenty of good beer for dinner. A roundabout fire-place, surrounded with stone benches, where the young folks sat and cracked nuts, and diverted themselves; and in this manner the sons and daughters got matching without going much from home.”—See Med. Ævi Kalend. vol. i. p. 91.