Mr King makes this interesting note on it: 'This custom, so far as I know, is unnoticed by anyone but Herrick.
'A solitary watcher,
'"Having his eyes still in his ear,
And a deal of mighty fear,"
guarded the pie through the night before Christmas.
'The pie represented the manger of Bethlehem, and its contents the wise men's offerings. The Devonshire "Christmas play" has had a curious fate. Except, perhaps, in some of the moorland parishes, it has disappeared at home. But the Newfoundland fisheries were long carried on for the most part by sailors from the neighbourhood of Dartmouth and Tor Bay, and Mr Jukes tells us that the streets of St John's at Christmas-time continue to exhibit St George, the Turkish Knight, and all their companions, in full vigour.'
The charm of Herrick's verses on country joys is deepened—to the folk-lorist in particular—by remembering that the rustic ceremonies he commemorates were probably the usual customs observed at Dean Prior in his time. On a hot August evening he may have watched the happy and excited children who are described in the poem 'The Hock-Cart, or Harvest-Home.'
'About the cart, hear how the rout
Of rurall youngling raise the shout.
Pressing before, some coming after,
These with a shout, and those with laughter.
Some blesse the carte, some kisse the sheaves,
Some prank them up with oaken leaves;
Some cross the fill-horse, some with great
Devotion stroake the home-borne wheat.'
And many lines point to his acquaintance with all kinds of village festivals, as, for instance, those which he addresses to 'Master Endymion Porter.'
'Thy wakes, thy quintels, here them hast,
Thy May-poles too, with garlands grac't,
Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale,
Thy sheering feast, which never faile,
Thy harvest home, thy wassaile bowle,
That's tost up after Foxi'th'hole,
Thy mummeries, thy twelfth-tide kings,
And quenes, thy Christmas revellings,
Thy nut-browne mirth, thy russet wit,
And no man pays too deare for it.'
('Foxi'th'hole' is a hopping game, in which boys beat each other with gloves.)