All Souls and All Saints
November 2 is the Roman Catholic festival of All Souls, the day on which the Church of Rome makes supplications for the souls of the faithful departed. The ancient custom of going out souling on this day was preserved in the n.Midland counties well into the second half of last century. Poor women, or companies of children, used to go round to the houses of their wealthier neighbours singing certain doggerel lines, and begging for gifts of cakes, apples, money, &c., &c. In some districts this was done on All Saints’ Day, the Eve of All Souls, and in others on All Souls’ Day itself. Formerly special cakes called soul-cakes were baked by housekeepers in readiness for the soulers, but biscuits, apples, nuts—anything in fact given in response to their request—would be accepted under the name of soul-cakes. There are various versions of the traditional souling-song. This is a Cheshire version: Soul, soul, a apple or two; If ye han noo apples, pears ’un do; Please, good Missis, a soul-cake; Put yur hand t’yur pocket, Tak’ ait yur keys, Go dain i’ yur cellar, Bring what yo please, A apple, a pear, A plum, or a cherry, Or any good thing That’ll make us all merry. Or again, there is the simple cry: A cake, a cake, For All Souls’ sake (Der.).
St. Clement, St. Andrew, St. Thomas
Similar customs belonging to November 23, St. Clement’s Day, and to November 25, St. Catherine’s Day, were kept up in some s.Midland counties. Children went from house to house singing verses and begging for apples and pence, a practice known as Catterning and Clemmening (War. Wor. Stf. Sus.). A Worcestershire version of the Cattern Day song runs: Catten and Clemen come year by year; Some of your apples and some of your beer! Some for Peter, some for Paul, Some for Him as made us all. Clement was a good old man, For his sake give us some. Plum, plum, cherry, cherry, Give us good ale to make us merry, Apples to roast and nuts to crack, And a barrel of cider on the tap. Up the ladder and down the can, Give us a red apple and we’ll be gone. The following is a Warwickshire Clementing rhyme: Clemancing, clemancing, year by year, Apples and pears are very good cheer; One for Peter, two for Paul, And three for the Man that made us all. Up with your stocking, and down with your shoe; If you’ve got no apples, money’ll do. Clement was a good old man, For his sake give us some; None of the worst, but some of the best. I pray God send your soul to rest. This closely resembles some of the souling-songs, in which the couplet: One for Peter, &c., also occurs word for word the same.
St. Clement is the blacksmiths’ patron saint, and in parts of Sussex blacksmiths used to hold a feast on November 23 in his honour. Over the door of the inn where the feast took place a figure dressed up with a wig, a beard, and a pipe, was set up, and called Old Clem. In Surrey it was customary to fire the anvil on St. Clement’s Day. This was done by setting light to a charge of gunpowder placed beneath a wooden plug or wedge driven into a hole in the top of the anvil.
November 30 is St. Andrew’s Day. In Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire special cakes were formerly eaten on this day, called Tandrew cakes, Tandry cakes, and Tandry wigs. They were plain dough cakes or buns ornamented with currants and caraway seeds, made in honour of St. Andrew, the patron saint of lace-makers. But since the lace trade has become less profitable, to keep Tandry, i.e. to keep the festival of St. Andrew, in this way has become less common.
Bricklayers in Sussex used to go St. Andring. This meant that they went in gangs to the woods, and threw sticks at squirrels and game. Afterwards they all repaired to the inn to drink, the squirrels being carried home to be stuffed or eaten.
To December 21, the festival of St. Thomas, belongs the old custom known as going a-gooding, a-mumping, or a-Thomasing, a practice once common all over England from Cheshire and Yorkshire to East Anglia and Cornwall. In some places it has been preserved up to quite modern times. To go a-gooding means to go from house to house on St. Thomas’ Day begging for money or gifts in kind wherewith to furnish the Christmas table. This was generally done by poor widows, but also often by people who would never think of begging at any other time of year. Formerly every farmer set aside a sack of corn for the mumpers, some of them needy widows, some of them married women with their families, wives of the holders of cottages on the farm. These all went to receive each a dole of corn. In course of time the doles given took the form of money and food, including perhaps a pint of wheat for making frumenty. An old Thomasing rhyme runs thus: Well-a-day, well-a-day, St. Thomas goes too soon away, Then your gooding we do pray, For the good time will not stay. St. Thomas grey, St. Thomas grey, The longest night and the shortest day, Please to remember St. Thomas Day (Stf.). In these latter days children go a-Thomasing for halfpence, singing hymns instead of the old traditional begging rhymes.
Customs on Christmas Eve
Christmas is everywhere the most popular festival of the whole year, combining as it does the religious and social sides of life in a way none of the other ecclesiastical Holy-days do. The Church with its message of ‘Peace on earth, goodwill towards men’, as it were, comes down and takes the hand of the people and says let us unite together to celebrate the mystery of family life at the altar of the home. Hence it appeals more forcibly than any other festival to young and old, rich and poor, town-dweller and country rustic, without distinction of creed or class. Owing to this universal popularity, many of the old Christmas customs are yet with us, and most of those which are dying or dead are kept before our minds by writers of Christmas stories, and illustrators of Christmas Numbers.