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.