From the “Good-Fellow’s Counsel, or the Bad Husband’s Recantation.”
(Roxburghe Ballads).
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The twelfth day after Christmas was celebrated in the old days in honour of the three Kings, as the Wise Men were called who came out of the East to worship the Messiah. One of the chief ceremonies connected with the day was the election of the King and Queen of the Bean. A large cake—the Twelfth Cake—had been previously made, in which a bean and a pea were inserted, the cake was cut up and distributed by lot among the company, and whoever got the piece which contained the bean was crowned King of the Bean, while the pea conferred the distinction of Queen upon its happy recipient.
Now, now the mirth comes, With the cake full of plums, Where beane’s the king of the sport here; Besides we must know, The pea also Must revell as queene in the court here.
Give then to the king And queen wassailing; And though with ale ye be whet here, Yet part ye from hence, As free from offence As when ye innocent met here.[54]
[54] Herrick’s Twelfth Night.
Dr. Plot, in his Natural History of Staffordshire (1685), describes a curious custom called the Hobby-horse dance, which he says had been practised at Pagets Bromley within memory of persons living when he wrote. On Twelfth Day a man on a hobby-horse used to dance down the village street, holding in his hand a bow and arrow, and accompanied by six men, carrying deers’ heads on their shoulders. “To this Hobby-horse dance,” says our author, “there also belong’d a pot, which was kept by turnes by 4 or 5 of the chief of the Tow, whom they call’d Reeves, who provided Cakes and Ale to put in this pot; all people who had any kindness for the good intent of the Institution of the sport, giving pence a piece for themselves and families; and so forraigners too, that came to see it: with which mony (the charge of the Cakes and Ale being defrayed) they not only repaired their Church but {240} kept their poore too: which charges are not now perhaps so cheerfully boarn.”
It would be going too far from the special subject of this work to detail the more elaborate festivities of the Court and the Universities, or the masques and revels of those ancient abodes of legal learning, the Inns of Court, where Twelfth Night formed the annual excuse for much feasting and pageantry. On these occasions, no doubt, costly wines and liqueurs formed the staple of the liquids consumed,