NOVEMBER.
"The ploughman, though he labour hard,
Yet on the holiday
Heigh trolollie, lollie loe.
No emperor so merrily
Doth pass his time away;
Then care away,
And wend along with me."--_Complete Angler_.
"The curious preciseness,
And all pretended gravity of those
That seek to banish hence these harmless sports,
Have thrust away much ancient honesty."--IRVING'S _Sketch Book_.
All-hallow Eve--"Soul Cakes"--Diving for Apples--The Fifth of
November--Martinmas--_Demands Joyous_--Indoor Games.
The first of November is All Saints' Day, and the eve of that day,
called All-hallow Even, was the occasion of some very ancient and
curious customs. It seems to have been observed more by the
descendants of the Celts than by the Saxons; and Wales, Scotland,
and Ireland were the homes of many of the popular superstitions
connected with this festival. In Scotland the bonfires were set up
in every village, and each member of a family would throw in a white
stone marked with his name; and if that stone could not be found
next morning, it was supposed that that person would die before the
following All Saints' Day. This foolish superstition may be classed
with the other well-known superstition with regard to the sitting of
thirteen people at one table, in which some are still foolish enough
to believe.
All-hallow Even was supposed to be a great night for witches:
possibly it was with the intention of guarding against their spells
that the farmers used to carry blazing straw around their cornfields
and stacks. It was the custom for the farmer to regale his men with
seed cake on this night; and there were cakes called "Soul Mass
Cakes," or "Soul Cakes," which were given to the poor. These were of
triangular shape, and poor people in Staffordshire used to go
_a-souling_, i.e. collecting these soul cakes, or anything else they
could get.
On this night the fishermen of Scotland signed their boats, that is
put a cross of tar upon them, in order that their fishing might
prosper. The church bells were rung all night long for all Christian
souls, and we find from some old account books that the good folk
were very careful to have all their bell-ropes and bells in good
order for All-hallow Even. This ringing was supposed to benefit the
souls of the dead in Purgatory, and was suppressed after the
Reformation.
There were some very homely pastimes for All-hallow Even for the
young folk in the north of England. Apples were placed in a vessel
of water and "dived for"; or they were suspended from the roof and
caught at by several expectant mouths. Sometimes a rod was suspended
with an apple at one end, and at the other a lighted candle. The
youths had their hands tied behind their backs, and caught at the
apple, often causing the candle to swing round and burn their hair.
The cracking of nuts was an important ceremony among the young men
and maidens, who threw nuts into the fire, and from the way in which
they cracked, or burned, foretold all kinds of happiness or misery
for themselves. The nuts that burned brightly prophesied prosperity
to their owners, but those that crackled or burned black denoted
misfortune. In olden times, when people were more superstitious than
they are now, they attached great importance to these omens and
customs, but happily the young people of our times have ceased to
believe in magic and foolish customs, and country girls strive to
attract their swains by other charms than those of nut-cracking on
All-hallow Even.
We have still our bonfires on November 5th, but the event which
happened on that day is very recent as compared with many of the old
customs of which I have been writing. However, it is nearly three
hundred years ago since Guy Fawkes and his companions attempted to
blow up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder; and yet we still
light our bonfires and burn Guy Fawkes' effigy, with much
accompaniment of squibs and crackers, just as if the event which we
commemorate only occurred last year. Probably very few of our
rustics think much of the origin of the customs observed on November
the Fifth, or remember that it was instituted by the House of
Commons as "a holiday for ever in thankfulness to God for our
deliverance, and detestation of the Papists;" but this ignorance
does not prevent them from keeping up the custom and enjoying the
excitement of the bonfire and fireworks. If you are not acquainted
with the history of the conspiracy, I would advise you to read it in
some good history book, and--
"Pray to remember
The fifth of November
Gunpowder treason and plot,
When the King and his train
Had nearly been slain,
Therefore it shall not be forgot."
The Berkshire boys, as they carried their Guy and collected wood for
their bonfires, used to add the words--
"Our king's a valiant soldier,
With his blunderbuss on his shoulder,
Cocks his pistol, draws his rapier;
Pray give us something for his sake here.
A stick and a stake, for our good king's sake:
If ye won't give one, I'll take two,
The better for me, and the worse for you.
CHORUS--
"Hollow, boys, hollow, boys, make the bells ring,
Hollow, boys, hollow, boys, God save the King."
Some of the rhymes tell us about the nefarious deeds of wicked Guy
Fawkes, who
"... with his companions did contrive
To blow the House of Parliament up alive,
With three score barrels of powder down below,
To prove Old England's wicked overthrow;
But by God's mercy all of them got catched,
With their dark lantern, and their lighted match.
Ladies and gentlemen sitting by the fire,
Please put hands in pockets and give us our desire:
While you can drink one glass, we can drink two,
The better for we, and none the worse for you."
This rhyme was concluded with the following strange jingle--
"Rumour, rumour, pump a derry,
Prick his heart and burn his body,
And send his soul to Purgatory."[17]
The streets of Oxford used to be the scenes of great encounters
between the townsmen and gownsmen (or college students) on this
night, who, on any other night in the year, never thought of
fighting. Happily in recent years these fights have ceased, but even
now the gownsmen are "gated" on the night of the Fifth of November,
_i.e._ are confined to their colleges, lest there should be a
renewal of these encounters. So severe were the battles in ancient
times, that the tower of Carfax Church was lowered because the
townsfolk used to ascend thither and shoot their arrows at the
undergraduates; and the butchers were obliged to ply their trade
beyond the city walls, because they had used their knives and
cleavers in their annual fight.
At Martinmas, or the Feast of St. Martin, it was the custom to lay
in a stock of winter provisions, and many cows, oxen, and swine were
killed at this time, their flesh being salted and hung up for the
winter, when fresh provisions were seldom to be had.
And now the long evenings have set in, and our ancestors in hall or
cottage assemble round the blazing hearth, and listen to the
minstrel's lays, and recite their oft-told tales of adventure and
romance. Sometimes they indulge in asking each other riddles, and
there exists at the present time an old collection of these early
efforts of wit and humour which are not of a very high order. The
book is called _Demands Joyous,_ and was printed in A.D. 1511. I may
extract the following riddles:--"What is it that never was and never
will be? Answer: A mouse's nest in a cat's ear. Why does a cow lie
down? Because it cannot sit. How many straws go to a goose's nest?
Not one, for straws, not having feet, cannot go anywhere."
With such feeble efforts of wit did the country folk try to beguile
the long evenings. In those days there were no newspapers, very few
books, even if they could be read, and the only means of gathering
information from other parts of the country were the peddlers or
wandering minstrels, who told them the news as they passed from
place to place. Consequently, the above humble efforts of wit were
not to be despised, and served to beguile the tediousness of the
long winter's night. Besides, the villagers had the carols to
practise for Christmas, many of which were handed down from father
to son for many generations, and probably both words and music
received many variations in their course. Old collections of these
carols still exist, such as the one entitled, "Good and True, Fresh
and New, Christmas Carols," which was made in the middle of the
seventeenth century. As an instance of the way in which the words
became changed as they were passed on by illiterate singers, I may
mention a carol of which the refrain is now printed "Now Well, Now
Well"; originally this must have been "Noel, Noel." Some of the
carols degenerated into songs about the wassail bowl, and the
virtues of strong ale, and our forefathers were not unlike some of
their children, who forget the Saviour in the enjoyment of His
gifts. And besides the carols the villagers had the ordinary hymns
to practise, with grand accompaniment of violins, flutes,
clarionets, etc., for each village had its own musicians, who took
great pride and interest in their playing, and used to practise
together in the evenings. The old instruments have vanished: we have
our organs and harmoniums: our choirs sing better and more
reverently; but there are no reunions of the village orchestra,
which used to afford so much pleasure to the rustics of former days.
In the lord's hall there were plenty of sedentary games, and amongst
these pre-eminently stands the noble pastime of chess. It is very
ancient, and is supposed to have been invented by Xerxes, a
philosopher in the court of Evil-Merodach, king of Babylon. It was
well known in England before the Conquest, and Canute was very fond
of the chessboard. King John was so engrossed in this game that when
some messengers came to tell him that the French king had besieged
one of his cities, he would not listen to them until he had finished
his chess. The complicated movements of the various men seem to show
that the game was developed and improved, and not the invention of
one man, but few changes have been made during several centuries.
Players are checkmated now in very much the same way as they were
five hundred years ago.
Besides chess they had backgammon, or tables, as the game was
called, Merelles, or Nine men's Morris (which also found its way to
the shepherds' cottages), dice, and card games, some of which I have
described before. Gambling was often carried on to a great extent,
but evidently our modern people are not wiser than their ancestors
in this matter; and instead of playing games for recreation, are not
satisfied until they lose fortunes on the hazard of a dice or a
card. Let us hope that men will at length become wiser as the world
grows older.
[Illustration: TWO INDIVIDUALS PLAYING CHESS AS TWO OTHERS LOOK ON.]
Erasmus, the learned Dutchman, in his _Colloquies_ suggests some
curious awards for victors. He represents two youths, Adolphus and
Bernard, who begin to play a game at bowls. Adolphus says, "What
shall he that beats get, or he that is beaten lose?" Bernard
replies, "What if he that beats shall have a piece of his ear cut
off? It is a mean thing to play for money: you are a German, and I a
Frenchman: we will both play for the honour of his country. If I
shall beat you, you shall cry out thrice, 'Let France flourish!' if
I shall be beat (which I hope I shall not), I will in the same words
celebrate your Germany." They bowl away: a stone represents the
Jack: a mischievous bit of brickbat rather interferes with the
German's accuracy, of aim, but in the end he wins, and the French
cock has to crow thrice, "Let Germany flourish." In another game
between two students who are contending in the play of striking a
ball through an iron ring, it is arranged that he that is beat shall
make and repeat extempore some verses in praise of him that beat
him. This certainly would make many a youth keen to win the contest!