XXVI.—WASSAILS.
Wassail, or rather the wassail bowl, which was a bowl of spiced ale, formerly carried about by young women on New-year's eve, who went from door to door in their several parishes singing a few couplets of homely verses composed for the purpose, and presented the liquor to the inhabitants of the house where they called, expecting a small gratuity in return, Selden alludes to this custom in the following comparison: "The Pope, in sending reliques to princes, does as wenches do by their wassails at New-year's tide, they present you with a cup, and you must drink of a slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them monies ten times more than it is worth." [1058] The wassail is said to have originated from the words of Rowena, the daughter of Hengist; who, presenting a bowl of wine to Vortigern, the king of the Britons, said, Wæs hæel, or, Health to you, my lord the king; (Ƿæꞅ hæl laꝼoꞃꝺ cẏnnınᵹ). If this derivation of the custom should be thought doubtful, I can only say that it has the authority at least of antiquity on its side. The wassails are now quite obsolete; but it seems that fifty years back, some vestiges of them were remaining in Cornwall; but the time of their performance was changed to twelfth-day. [1059]
XXVII.—SHEEP-SHEARING AND HARVEST-HOME.
There are two feasts annually held among the farmers of this country, which are regularly made in the spring, and at the end of the summer, or the beginning of autumn, but not confined to any particular day. The first is the sheep-shearing, and the second the harvest-home; both of them were celebrated in ancient times with feasting and variety of rustic pastimes: at present, excepting a dinner, or more frequently a supper, at the conclusion of the sheep-shearing and the harvest, we have little remains of the former customs.
The particular manner in which the sheep-shearing was celebrated in old time is not recorded; but respecting the harvest-home we meet with several curious observations. Hentzner, a foreign gentleman, who was in England at the close of the sixteenth century, and wrote an account of what he saw here, says, "as we were returning to our inn, (in or near Windsor) we happened to meet some country people celebrating their harvest-home: their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides, an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they signify Ceres; this they keep moving about, while the men and women, and men and maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn." Moresin, another foreign writer, also tells us that he saw "in England, the country people bring home," from the harvest field, I presume he means, "a figure made with corn, round which the men and the women were promiscuously singing, and preceded by a piper or a drum." [1060] "In the north," says Mr. Brand, "not half a century ago, they used every where to dress up a figure something similar to that just described, at the end of harvest, which they called a kern-baby, plainly a corruption of corn-baby, as the kern, or churn supper, is of corn-supper." [1061]
The harvest-supper in some places is called a mell-supper, and a churn-supper. Mell is plainly derived from the French word mesler, to mingle together, the master and servant promiscuously at the same table. [1062] At the mell-supper, Bourne [1063] tells us, "the servant and his master are alike, and every thing is done with equal freedom; they sit at the same table, converse freely together, and spend the remaining part of the night in dancing and singing, without any difference or distinction. There was," continues my author, "a custom among the heathens much like this at the gathering of their harvest, when the servants were indulged with their liberty, and put upon an equality with their masters for a certain time. Probably both of them originated from the Jewish feast of tabernacles." [1064]
XXVIII.—WAKES.
The wakes when first instituted in this country were established upon religious principles, and greatly resembled the agapæ, Αγαπαι, or love feasts of the early Christians. It seems, however, clear, that they derived their origin from some more ancient rites practised in the times of paganism. Hence Pope Gregory, in his letter to Melitus, a British abbot, says, "whereas the people were accustomed to sacrifice many oxen in honour of dæmons, let them celebrate a religious and solemn festival, and not slay the animals, diabolo, to the devil, but to be eaten by themselves, ad laudem Dei, to the praise of God." [1065] These festivals were primitively held upon the day of the dedication of the church in each district, or the birth-day of the saint whose relics were therein deposited, or to whose honour it was consecrated; for which purpose the people were directed to make booths and tents with the boughs of trees adjoining to the churches, circa easdem ecclesias, [1066] and in them to celebrate the feast with thanksgiving and prayer. In process of time the people assembled on the vigil, or evening preceding the saint's-day, and came, says an old author, "to churche with candellys burnyng, and would wake, and come toward night to the church in their devocion," [1067] agreeable to the requisition contained in one of the canons established by king Edgar, whereby those who came to the wake were ordered to pray devoutly, and not to betake themselves to drunkenness and debauchery. The necessity for this restriction plainly indicates that abuses of this religious institution began to make their appearance as early as the tenth century. The author above cited goes on, "and afterwards the pepul fell to letcherie, and songs, and daunses, with harping and piping, and also to glotony and sinne; and so tourned the holyness to cursydness; wherefore holy faders ordeyned the pepull to leve that waking and to fast the evyn, but it is called vigilia, that is waking, in English, and eveyn, for of eveyn they were wont to come to churche." In proportion as these festivals deviated from the original design of their institution, they became more popular, the conviviality was extended, and not only the inhabitants of the parish to which the church belonged were present at them, but they were joined by others from the neighbouring towns and parishes, who flocked together upon these occasions, and the greater the reputation of the tutelar saint, the greater generally was the promiscuous assembly.
The pedlars and hawkers attended to sell their wares, and so by degrees the religious wake was converted into a secular fair. The riot and debaucheries which eventually took place at these nocturnal meetings, became so offensive to religious persons that they were suppressed, and regular fairs established, to be held on the saint's-day, or upon some other day near to it as might be most convenient; and if the place did not admit of any traffic of consequence, the time was spent in festive mirth and vulgar amusements. These fairs still retain the ancient name of wakes in many parts of the kingdom.