Old Customs.
For the Table Book.
HAGMENA.
The hagmena is an old custom observed in Yorkshire on new year’s eve. The keeper of the pinfold goes round the town, attended by a rabble at his heels, and knocking at certain doors, sings a barbarous song, according to the manner “of old king Henry’s days;” and at the end of every verse they shout “Hagman Heigh.”
When wood was chiefly used by our forefathers as fuel, this was the most proper season for the hagman, or wood-cutter, to remind his customers of his services, and solicit alms from them. The word “hag” is still used among us for a wood, and the “hagman” may be a compound name from his employment. Some give it a more sacred interpretation, as derived from the Greek ἁγια μηνη, the “holy month,” when the festivals of the church for our Saviour’s birth were celebrated. Formerly on the last day of December, the monks and friars used to make a plentiful harvest by begging from door to door, and reciting a kind of carol, at the end of every stave of which they introduced the words “agia mene,” alluding to the birth of Christ. A very different interpretation has, however, been given to it by one John Dixon, a Scotch presbyterian parson, when holding forth against this custom, in one of his sermons at Kelso—“Sirs, do you know what hagman signifies?—It is the devil to be in the house: that is the meaning of its Hebrew original.” It is most probably a corruption of some Saxon words, which length of time has rendered obsolete.
Old St. Luke’s Day.
On this day a fair is held in York for all sorts of small wares, though it is commonly called “Dish Fair,” from the quantity of wooden dishes, ladles, &c. brought to it. There was an old custom at this fair, of bearing a wooden ladle in a sling on two stangs, carried by four sturdy labourers, and each labourer supported by another. This, without doubt, was a ridicule on the meanness of the wares brought to this fair, small benefit accruing to the labourers at it. It is held by charter, granted 25th Jan., 17th Hen. VII.
St. Luke’s day is also known in York by the name of “Whip-Dog Day,” from a strange custom that schoolboys use there, of whipping all the dogs that are seen in the streets on that day. Whence this uncommon persecution took its rise is uncertain. The tradition of its origin seems very probable; that, in times of popery, a priest, celebrating mass at this festival in some church in York, unfortunately dropped the pix after consecration, which was forthwith snatched up suddenly and swallowed by a dog that laid under the altar. The profanation of this high mystery occasioned the death of the dog; the persecution, so begun, has since continued to this day, though now greatly abridged by the interference of some of the minor members of the honourable corporation, against the whole species in that city.
D. A. M.