[56] The Customs, Superstitions and Legends of the County of Stafford, by C. H. Poole, p. 34.
The following is a Lancashire reference:—
“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-mass,’ as late as the reign of Henry VI.”[57]
[57] Lancashire Folk-Lore, p. 251, by Harland and Wilkinson.
As time went on this tune was probably considered dull and old-fashioned, and the following has, to a limited extent, supplanted it. It is evidently an adaptation of a “pace-egging” song (see post):—
We are one, two, three hearty lads, and we’re all of one mind,
We have come here a-souling, good nature to find;