SOULING
The most curious Cheshire custom still existent, and one which has not attracted the attention it deserves, is called “souling.” The day after All Saints’ Day (now November 1st) is All Souls’ Day. This was established as a festival of the Church about the tenth century, and in the Middle Ages it was customary for persons dressed in black to traverse the streets, ringing a bell at every corner and calling on all to join in prayer for the souls in Purgatory, and to contribute towards the paying of masses for them. After the Reformation the demand for money was transformed into demands for liquid and solid refreshment by the “soulers.”
But at Salerno, we are told that a custom prevailed previous to the fifteenth century of providing in every home on the eve of All Souls’ Day, a sumptuous entertainment for souls in Purgatory, who are supposed to revisit temporarily the scene of their earthly labours. Every one left their house and remained in church all night, while the feast was consumed by thieves who made a harvest out of this pious custom. Such is the origin of our “souling,” and it seems probable, therefore, that “soul-cakes” were not, at first, meant for consumption by the “soulers” themselves. The custom is still observed, and on the eve of All Souls’ (i.e. on the night of All Saints’ Day) bodies of children still parade Chester and Cheshire villages singing a portion of the old souling song, but tacked on to debased and incorrect versions of the old words, and in many cases amounting to mere doggerel.[52]
Now, the melody sung is most interesting, for it is undoubtedly pre-Reformation and is cast in the style of the Church music of the period, for there was no sharp dividing line between secular and sacred music when “souling” first began.[53] The “punctum” or drop of a fifth is very characteristic, and will be found in Merbecke and Church writers of the period.
[52] e.g. Instead of “Soul, soul, for an apple or two,” I have heard them sing, “Sole, sole, sole of my shoe”!
[53] I heard a comic song sung by a rustic in Sussex a few years ago to the plain-song which is used for the hymn “O come! O come! Emmanuel,” in Hymns Ancient and Modern.
The following is the tune as taken down by me many times in the past thirty years, though it is now getting greatly corrupted and altered, and will probably soon die out. No accompaniment is used:—
Souling night has come at last,
And we are souling here;
And all that we are souling for,
Is apples and good cheer.
Soul, soul for an apple or two,
If you’ve no apples, pears will do;
If you’ve no pears, a good jug of beer
Will last us all till this time next year.
God bless the master of this house,
God bless the mistress too;
And all the little children that
Around the table go.
Other verses are:—
Likewise you men and maidens,
Your cattle and your store,
And all that dwells within your gates,
We wish you ten times more.
The lanes are very dirty,
My shoes are very thin;
I have a little pocket,
To put a penny in.
It will be noticed that the “refrain”[54] practically consists of only two notes, so that it could easily be lengthened at the will of the singer and new lines inserted. Here are some of the oldest rimes to which it is sung:—
Soul! Soul! for a soul-cake,
Pray, good missis! a soul-cake,
An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,
Or any good thing to make us merry—
One for Peter, two for Paul,
And three for Him who made us all.
Up with the kettle and down with the pan
Give us { an answer } and we’ll be gone.[55]
{ our souling }
[54] Mr. Fuller-Maitland gives this as the tune in English County Songs, p. 30. This is a mistake: he only has the “refrain.”
[55] There is always an “up” and “down” in all the versions met with, but, as pointed out in Shropshire Folk-Lore, the original no doubt was:—
“Up with the ladder and down with the can,”
i.e. the ladder is to be raised to the apple-loft and the can taken down in the cellar for ale or cider.
The following Staffordshire version is valuable for the statement that they “have all been praying for the soul departed.”
“Soul day, soul day,
We be come a-souling;
Pray, good people, remember the poor,
And give us all a soul-cake.
Soul day, soul day, soul,
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for Him who made us all.
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,
Or any good thing to make us merry.
Soul day, soul day,
We have all been praying
For the soul departed:
So pray, good people, give us a cake,
For we are all poor people,
Well known to you before;
So give us a cake, for charity’s sake,
And our blessing we’ll leave at your door.
Soul! soul! for an apple or two,
If you have no apples, pears will do;
If pears are scarce, then cakes from your pan,
Give us our souling, and we’ll be gone.”[56]
[56] The Customs, Superstitions and Legends of the County of Stafford, by C. H. Poole, p. 34.
The following is a Lancashire reference:—
“There is a singular custom still kept up at Great Marton in the Fylde district on this day. In some places it is called ‘soul-caking,’ but there it is named ‘psalm-caking’—from their reciting psalms for which they receive cakes. The custom is changing its character also—for in place of collecting cakes from house to house, as in the old time, they now beg for money. The term ‘psalm’ is evidently a corruption of the old word ‘Sal,’ for soul; the mass or requiem for the dead was called ‘Sal-mass,’ as late as the reign of Henry VI.”[57]
[57] Lancashire Folk-Lore, p. 251, by Harland and Wilkinson.
As time went on this tune was probably considered dull and old-fashioned, and the following has, to a limited extent, supplanted it. It is evidently an adaptation of a “pace-egging” song (see post):—
We are one, two, three hearty lads, and we’re all of one mind,
We have come here a-souling, good nature to find;
We have come here a-souling as it doth appear,
And it’s all that we are souling for is your ale and strong beer.
There are two other Verses.
At Northwich, Tarporley, and other places the soulers are accompanied by one bearing an imitation head of a horse, which snaps its jaws in an alarming manner. Thus “souling” has got grafted on to the pagan custom of “hodening.” At Over the soulers blacken their faces. This is a survival of the wearing of black already mentioned.
The “Soulers’ Song,” as given by Egerton Leigh, is a poor modern version, evidently adapted from a Maying song:—
“Ye gentlemen of England I could have ye draw near
To these few lines which we have wrote,
And all ye soon shall hear
Sweet melody of music all on this evening clear,
For we are gone a-souling for apples and strong beer.”
This is the fourth series of rimes on the subject, and the constant demand for apples and ale was to make a “wassail” bowl of “lambswool,” or hot spiced ale, with toast and roasted apples in it.
Souling seems to have been confined to, or at all events to have only survived, in the counties of Cheshire and Shropshire, though why this should be so it is difficult to say. It is also met with in the adjacent counties of Staffordshire and Lancashire, but only because it seems to have drifted over the borders. One curious reference to it occurs in Tales and Traditions of Tenby:[58]—
“What was called ‘souling,’ or ‘sowling,’ was practised by the female portion of the poor, who visited their wealthier neighbours, demanding ‘soul’ (possibly from the French soûl, signifying ‘one’s fill,’ or from saouler, ‘to satisfy with food.’ See Wright’s Provincial Dictionary), which signified, in its provincial acceptation, any condiment eaten with bread, such as meat, fish, etc., but especially cheese. As the usage was very generally recognised, souling-day proved, and still proves, one of the most profitable days in the calendar.”
[58] Published by R. Mason, Tenby, 1858, p. 17.
The fanciful derivation of “souling” may be passed by, but it is hard to account for this reference to it in “little England beyond Wales.”
At Oswestry, on the Welsh border, it is customary to begin with:—
“Wissal, wassal, bread and possel,
Cwrw da, plas yma,[59]
Apple or a pear, plum or a cherry,
Any good thing that will make us merry.”
—Bye-gones, December 11, 1872.
[59] i.e. “good ale (in) this place.”
Aubrey wrote regarding Shropshire thus:—
“In Salop the die õnium Animarum (All Soules-day, Novemb. 2d) there is sett on the Board a high heap of soule-cakes lyeing one upon another like the picture of the Sew-bread in the old Bibles. They are about the bignesse of 2d cakes, and n’ly all the visitors that day takes one; and there is an old Rhythm or saying—
‘A soule-cake, a soule-cake,
Have mercy on all Christian soules for a soule-cake.’”
“The late Mrs. Gill, of Hopton, near Hodnet, had soul-cakes made in her house to give away to souling children every year up to her death in 1884. They were flat round, (or sometimes oval) cakes, made of very light dough, spiced and sweetened.”[60]
[60] Burne-Jackson’s Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 382 et seq. Mr. Wirt Sykes, in his British Goblins, quotes this, and also the information about Tenby, but adds nothing to our knowledge.
We find some of the words of the “Souling Song” in nearly every itinerant begging custom. In Montgomeryshire a New Year’s rhyme is:—
“The road is very dirty,
My shoes are very thin;
Please give me a penny
To put some nails in.”
Several of the verses are found in a “Wessel-cup Hymn”—a carol popular in Shropshire thirty years ago—and in customs in Worcestershire and Yorkshire.