Harvest Home.
Among the old-world customs connected with the times and seasons, that of celebrating the ingathering of the harvest with a rustic festival has survived many which have either passed away, and almost out of memory, or have come to have only a partial and precarious hold upon the minds of the present generation. The rush-cart maintains a feeble struggle for existence in a few northern localities, but each year shows diminished vigour; the May-day festival of the chimney-sweepers has become obsolete, and the dance round the May-pole an open-air ballet; and many old observances connected with the Christmas season which were formerly common to all England are now kept up only in these northern counties, where the flavour of antiquity seems to be much more highly appreciated than in the south. But the harvest home festival holds its ground with equal persistency in both portions of the kingdom, and has of late years been invested with additional glories, sometimes with a superabundance of them which threatens a reaction. There were some features of the older celebrations of the ingathering of the fruits of the earth, however, which, from various causes, have fallen into disuse, and which many of us would gladly, if it were possible, see restored.
We could welcome, for instance, the songs into which the joyous feelings of the harvesters broke forth in the old times as the last load of grain was carried off the field, and when the lads and lasses, with the older rustics, had partaken of a good supper in the farmer’s kitchen, and afterwards danced to the music of the fiddle or pipes in the barn. There are many references to the feasting and singing and dancing customs of this season in the poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Tusser tells us that:—
“In harvest time, harvest folk, servants and all,
Should make all together, good cheer in the hall,
And fill the black bowl, so blithe to their song,
And let them be merry, all harvest time long.”
Peele, in his “Old Wives’ Tales,” makes his harvesters sing:—
“Lo, here we come a-reaping, a-reaping,
To reap our harvest fruit;
And thus we pass the year so long,
And never be we mute.”
Stevenson, in his “Twelve Months,” says, “In August the furmety pot welcomes home the harvest cart, and the garland of flowers crowns the captain of the reapers. The battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work, and the lad and the lass will have no lead in their heels. Oh, ’tis a merry time, wherein honest neighbours make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth.” Tusser’s verse reminds us of another feature of these old celebrations of which little trace remains at the present day, that is, the temporary suspension of all social inequality between employer and employed. There would be less reason to regret this change, however, if, in place of the temporary obliviousness of class distinctions, we could see more genial intercourse all through the year.
The clergy seem to have been less in evidence at the harvest rejoicings of those days than at present. There was a tithe question even two centuries ago, for Dryden, in his King Arthur, makes his festive rustics sing:—
“We’ve cheated the parson, we’ll cheat him again,
For why should the blockhead have one in ten?
One in ten! one in ten!
For staying while dinner is cold and hot,
And pudding and dumpling are burnt to the pot!
Burnt to pot! burnt to pot!
We’ll drink off our liquor while we can stand.
And hey for the honour of England!
Old England! Old England!”
There is some comfort for the loss of the singing and dancing customs of the old times in that the fact the heavy drinking of the period has also become a thing of the past, and perhaps also in the reflections arising from the misuse of music of which some curious illustrations have been preserved by Mr. Surtees. The historian mentions, in his “History of Durham,” having read a report of the trial of one Spearman, for having made a forcible entry into a field at Birtley, and mowed and carried away the crop, a piper playing on the top of the loaded waggon for the purpose of making the predatory harvesters work the faster, so as to get away before their roguish industry could be interrupted. It may be noted in passing that a similar use of music is shown in the following entry in the parish accounts of Gateshead, under the date of 1633:—“To workmen for making the streets even at the King’s coming, 18s. 4d.: and paid to the piper for playing to the menders of the highway, five several days, 3s. 4d.”