"GOOSE-INTENTOS."
In "An Universal Etymological English Dictionary," by N. Bailey, London, 1745, I read:—"Goose-intentos, a goose claimed by custom by the husbandmen in Lancashire, upon the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, when the old Church prayers ended thus: 'ac bonis operis jugiter præstat esse intentos.'" These words occur in the old Sarum books, in the Collect for the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost; in the present Liturgy, in that for the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.[177]
Blount, in his Glossographia, says that "in Lancashire the husbandmen claim it as a due to have a goose-intentos on the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost: which custom takes its origin from the last word of the old Church prayer of that day:—'Tua nos Domine, quæ sumus, gratia semper et præveniat et sequatur; ac bonis operibus jugiter præstet esse intentos.' The vulgar people called it 'a goose with ten toes.'" Beckwith, in his new edition of Blount's Fragmenta Antiquitatis (London, 4to, 1815, p. 413), after quoting this passage, remarks:—"But besides that the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, or after Trinity rather, being movable, and seldom falling upon Michaelmas Day, which is an immovable feast, the service for that day could very rarely be used at Michaelmas, there does not appear to be the most distant allusion to a goose in the words of that prayer. Probably no other reason can be given for this custom, but that Michaelmas Day was a great festival, and geese at that time most plentiful. In Denmark, where the harvest is later, every family has a roasted goose for supper on St. Martin's Eve [Nov. 10]." It must be borne in mind that the term husbandman was formerly applied to persons of a somewhat higher position in life than an agricultural labourer, as for instance to the occupier and holder of the land. In ancient grants from landlords of manors to their free tenants, among other reserved rents, boons, and services, the landlord frequently laid claim to a good stubble goose at Michaelmas. After all, the connexion between the goose and the collect is not apparent.[178]
ALL SOULS' DAY.—NOV. 2.
So named, because in the Church of Rome prayers are offered on this day for "all the faithful deceased."
There is a singular custom still kept up at Great Marton, in the Fylde district, on this day. In some places it is called "soul-caking," but there it is named "psalm-caking,"—from their reciting psalms for which they receive cakes. The custom is changing its character also—for in place of collecting cakes from house to house, as in the old time, they now beg for money. The term "psalm" is evidently a corruption of the old word "sal," for soul; the mass or requiem for the dead was called "Sal-mas," as late as the reign of Henry VI.
GUNPOWDER PLOT AND GUY FAWKES.
The anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605, is still more or less kept in many parts of Lancashire, in towns by the effigy of Guy Fawkes being paraded about the streets, and burnt at night with great rejoicing; and by the discharge of small cannon, guns, pistols, &c., and of fireworks. In the country the more common celebration is confined to huge bonfires, and the firing of pistols and fireworks. In some places, especially about Blackburn, Burnley, and that district, as well as in villages about Eccles, Worsley, &c., it is customary for boys for some days before the 5th of November, to go round to their friends and neighbours to beg for coals. They generally take their stand before the door, and either say or sing some doggerel, to the following effect:—
"Remember, remember,
The Fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot;
A stick and a stake,
For King George's sake,
We hope it will ne'er be forgot."