After the burial came the funeral feast held in the house where the deceased had lived, or provided at the village inn. In some places if the family was poor, it would be a pay-berring (Yks.), and each of the invited guests would give some small contribution towards the expenses. To provide a handsome entertainment on these occasions was looked upon as a mark of fitting respect for the dead: Ah’ve nivver been at sike a sitting-doon i’ mah leyfe; ther war nowt bud tea-cakes, an’ badly buttered at that. Noo ah’ve sahded fahve o’ my awn, bud thank the Lord, ah buried ’em all wi’ ham. It is on record that at the funeral of a farmer who died near Whitby in 1760, meat and drink were provided as follows: ‘110 dozen penny loaves, 9 large hams, 8 legs of veal, 20 stone of beef (14 lbs. to the stone), 16 stone of mutton, 15 stone of Cheshire cheese, and 30 ankers of ale; besides what was distributed to 1,000 poor people who had 6d. each in money.’
Telling the Bees
One of the most interesting of all the ceremonies connected with funerals is the superstitious practice known as telling the bees, once common throughout the greater part of England. To tell the bees is to inform them of the occurrence of the death of the head of the house, or of some member of the family. If this is not done, they are supposed to leave their hives and never return, or else they all die. The right time for making the communication is either just before the funeral leaves the house, or else at the moment when the procession is starting. On the Welsh Border people say it must be made in the middle of the night. The form of words used varies in different parts of the country, but they must always be whispered words, or the bees may take offence. These are some of the recognized formulae: The master is dead; Your friend’s gone; The poor maister’s dead, but yo mun work fur me; Bees, bees, bees, your master is dead, and you must work for ——, naming the future owner. This is accompanied in some instances by three taps on the hive. The hives are ‘put into mourning’ by attaching to them a piece of black crape. In some places it was customary to give the bees a piece of funeral cake; and elsewhere, small portions of every item of the funeral feast were collected in a saucer and put in front of the hive. In Devonshire the popular belief was that if the bees were not told of the death in the family, some other member of the household would die before the expiration of the year. A writer in Lloyd’s Weekly News, July 3, 1910, speaks of the superstition of telling the bees as still extant; and at about the same date a girl in Oxford told me that an uncle of hers—yet living—had lost all his bees by neglecting to tell them of the death of his mother.
A Month’s Mind
In some districts is found the observance of the month’s end (Hrf. w.Cy. Wales), a certain Sunday after the funeral when the mourners attend church. A trace of an old religious custom belonging also to the days subsequent to the funeral has been crystallized in the phrase: to have a month’s mind to anything (Chs. Midl. e.An. I.W. Som. Cor.). This alludes to a pre-Reformation practice of repeating one or more masses at the end of a month after death for the repose of a departed soul. In the Churchwardens’ accounts of Abingdon, Berkshire, occurs the following, among other similar entries: ‘1556. Receyved att the buryall and monethe’s mynde of Geo. Chynche xxiid.’ The phrase, however, long ago acquired the meaning it bears to-day, cp.: ‘I see you have a month’s mind to them,’ Shaks. Two Gent. I. ii. 137; ‘I have a month’s mind to be doing as much,’ Jervas, Don Quixote; ‘The King [Henry VII] had more than a moneth’s mind ... to procure the pope to canonize Henry VI for a saint,’ Fuller, Church Hist. Bk. IV. 23; I’d a month’s mind to a knock’d un down (I.W.).
CHAPTER XVII
CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH CERTAIN DAYS AND SEASONS
Beside the customs connected with the changes and chances of man’s mortal life, which we have considered in the foregoing chapter, there are those which belong to certain fixed days of the year, Saints’ Days, and other church seasons and festivals. To give an account of each and all of the customs and pastimes which would come under this category would indeed be a tremendous task, so great is their number, and so varied their nature. I shall only attempt here to give a small selection, arranged according to the sequence of the dates to which they belong.