“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_):--
[Music:
We are one, two, three hearty lads, and we’re all of one mind,
We have come here a-souling, good nature to find;
We have come here a-souling as it doth appear,
And it’s all that we are souling for is your ale and strong beer.
]
_There are two other Verses._
At Northwich, Tarporley, and other places the soulers are accompanied
by one bearing an imitation head of a horse, which snaps its jaws in
an alarming manner. Thus “souling” has got grafted on to the pagan
custom of “hodening.” At Over the soulers blacken their faces. This is
a survival of the wearing of _black_ already mentioned.
The “Soulers’ Song,” as given by Egerton Leigh, is a poor modern
version, evidently adapted from a _Maying_ song:--
“Ye gentlemen of England I could have ye draw near
To these few lines which we have wrote,
And all ye soon shall hear
Sweet melody of music all on this evening clear,
For we are gone a-souling for apples and strong beer.”
This is the fourth series of rimes on the subject, and the constant
demand for apples and ale was to make a “wassail” bowl of “lambswool,”
or hot spiced ale, with toast and roasted apples in it.
Souling seems to have been confined to, or at all events to have only
survived, in the counties of Cheshire and Shropshire, though why this
should be so it is difficult to say. It is also met with in the
adjacent counties of Staffordshire and Lancashire, but only because it
seems to have drifted over the borders. One curious reference to it
occurs in _Tales and Traditions of Tenby_:[58]--
“What was called ‘souling,’ or ‘sowling,’ was practised by the female
portion of the poor, who visited their wealthier neighbours, demanding
‘soul’ (possibly from the French _soûl_, signifying ‘one’s fill,’
or from _saouler_, ‘to satisfy with food.’ See Wright’s _Provincial
Dictionary_), which signified, in its provincial acceptation, any
condiment eaten with bread, such as meat, fish, etc., but especially
_cheese_. As the usage was very generally recognised, souling-day
proved, and still proves, one of the most profitable days in the
calendar.”
[58] Published by R. Mason, Tenby, 1858, p. 17.
The fanciful derivation of “souling” may be passed by, but it is hard
to account for this reference to it in “little England beyond Wales.”