HARVEST-HOME.
The ingathering of the harvest was a season of great rejoicing from the most remote antiquity. "Sowing is hope; reaping, fruition of the expected good." To the husbandman to whom the fear of wet, blights, and other mischances has been a source of anxiety between seedtime and harvest, the fortunate completion of his long labors cannot fail to be a relief and a delight.
Paul Hentzner, writing in 1598 at Windsor, says: "As we were returning to our inn we happened to meet some country-people celebrating their harvest-home. Their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres. This they keep moving about, while men and women, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn." In the reign of James I., Moresin, another foreigner, saw a figure made of corn drawn home in a cart, with men and women singing to the pipe and the drum.
Matthew Stevenson, in the Twelve Months (1661), under August, alludes to this festival thus: "The furmenty-pot welcomes home the harvest-cart, and the garland of flowers crowns the captain of the reapers; the battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work; and the lad and the lass will have no lead on their heels. O, 't is the merry time wherein honest neighbors make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth."
Robert Herrick, in his Hesperides (1648), refers to the harvest-home as follows:—
"Come, sons of summer, by whose toil
We are the lords of wine and oil,
By whose tough labor and rough hands
We rip up first, then reap our lands,
Crown'd with the ears of corn, now come,
And to the pipe sing harvest-home.
Come forth, my lord, and see the cart,
Drest up with all the country art.
See here a mawkin, there a sheet
As spotless pure as it is sweet:
The horses, mares, and frisking fillies
Clad all in linen, white as lilies;
The harvest swains and wenches bound
For joy to see the hock-cart crown'd.
About the cart hear how the rout
Of rural younglings raise the shout;
Pressing before, some coming after,
Those with a shout, and these with laughter.
Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves,
Some prank them up with oaken leaves;
Some cross the fill-horse; some, with great
Devotion, stroke the home-borne wheat.
* * * * *
Well, on, brave boys, to your lord's hearth,
Glittering with fire; where, for your mirth,
You shall see, first, the large and chief
Foundation of your feast, fat beef;
With upper stories, mutton, veal,
And bacon (which makes full the meal),
With several dishes standing by,
And here a custard, there a pie,
And here all-tempting frumenty."
The "hock-cart" was the cart that brought home the last load of corn. It was sometimes called the "hockey-cart"; and one of the dainties of the feast was the "hockey-cake." In an almanac for 1676, under August, we read:—
"Hocky is brought home with hallowing,
Boys with plum-cake the cart following."
The harvest-home is alluded to in 1 Henry IV. (i. 3. 35), where Hotspur, describing the "popinjay" lord who came to demand his prisoners, says:—
"and his chin new-reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home."
In The Merry Wives of Windsor (ii. 2. 287) Falstaff says of Mistress Ford, to whom he intends to make love, "and there's my harvest-home."
In the interlude in The Tempest (iv. 1. 134) the dance of the Reapers was apparently a reminiscence of harvest-home sports. Iris says:—
"You sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary,
Come hither from the furrow and be merry.
Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on,
And these fresh nymphs encounter every one
In country footing."
The following passage in the 12th Sonnet, though it has nothing of festival joyousness, may have been suggested by the ceremonial bringing home of the last load of grain:—
"When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard," etc.