On no word has amateur philology been more riotous. It has been derived from ‘au gui menez,’ ‘à gui l’an neuf,’ ‘au gueux menez,’ ‘Hálig monath,’ ἁγία μήνη, ‘Homme est né,’ and the like. Tille thinks that the whole of December was formerly Hogmanay, and derives from monâth and either *hoggva, ‘hew,’ hag, ‘witch,’ or hog, ‘pig.’ Nicholson tries the other end, and traces auguilanleu to the Spanish aguinaldo or aguilando, ‘a New Year’s gift.’ This in turn he makes the gerund of *aguilar, an assumed corruption of alquilar, ‘to hire oneself out.’ Hogmanay will thus mean properly ‘handsel’ or hiring-money,’ and the first Monday in the New Year is actually called in Scotland ‘Handsel Monday.’ This is plausible, but, although no philologist, I think a case might be made out for regarding the terms as corruptions of the Celtic Nos Galan-gaeaf, ‘the night of the winter Calends’ (Rhys, 514). This is All Saints’ eve, while the Manx ‘Hob dy naa’ quête is on Hollantide (November 12; cf. p. 230).
[886] A Gloucestershire wassail song in Dixon, Ancient Poems, 199, ends,
‘Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best:
I hope your soul in heaven will rest;
But if you do bring us a bowl of the small,
Then down fall butler, bowl and all.’
[887] In Herefordshire and the south of Scotland it is lucky to draw ‘the cream of the well’ or ‘the flower of the well,’ i. e. the first pail of water after midnight on New Year’s eve (Dyer, 7, 17). In Germany Heilwag similarly drawn at Christmas is medicinal (Grimm, iv. 1810). Pembroke folk sprinkle each other on New Year’s Day (F. L. iii. 263). St. Martin of Braga condemns amongst Kalends customs ‘panem in fontem mittere (Appendix N, No. xxiii), and this form of well-cult survives at Christmas in the Tyrol (Jahn, 283) and in France (Müller, 500). Tertullian chaffs the custom of early bathing at the Saturnalia (Appendix N, No. ii). Gervase of Tilbury (ed. Liebrecht, ii. 12) mentions an English belief (†1200) in a wonder-working Christmas dew. This Tille (Y. and C. 168) thinks an outgrowth from the Advent chant Rorate coeli, but it seems closely parallel to the folk belief in May-dew.
[888] Burne-Jackson, 388; Simpson, 202; F. L. v. 38; Dyer, 410. The festival in its present form can only date from the reign of James I, but the Pope used to be burned in bonfires as early as 1570 upon the accession day of Elizabeth, Nov. 17 (Dyer, 422).
[889] Dyer, 389 (Sussex).
[890] Brand, i. 210, 215 (Buchan, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, North Wales).