us, was different from that of the mell-supper: the former being always provided when all was shorn, the latter after all was got in. I should have thought that most certainly kernsupper was no more than corn-supper, had not Aram asserted that it was called the churn-supper, because, from immemorial times, it was customary to produce in a churn a great quantity of cream, and to circulate it in cups to each of the rustic company, to be eaten with bread. This custom in Aram's time (he was executed in August 1759) survived about Whitby and Scarborough in the eastern parts of Yorkshire, and round about Gisburne, &c., in the west. In other places cream has been commuted for ale, and the tankard politely preferred to the churn.

To festivities of the same kind must be referred the Meadow Verse. In Herrick's Hesperides, p. 161, we have—

"The Meddow Verse, or Anniversary, to Mistris Bridget Lowman.

"Come with the spring-time forth, fair maid, and be
This year again the medow's deity.

Yet ere ye enter, give us leave to set
Upon your head this flowry coronet;

To make this neat distinction from the rest,
You are the prime, and princesse of the feast:
To which, with silver feet, lead you the way,
While sweet-breath nymphs attend on you this day.
This is your houre; and best you may command,
Since you are lady of this fairie land.

Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shall
Cherrish the cheek, but make none blush at all.

The parting Verse, the Feast there ended.
Loth to depart, but yet at last, each one
Back must now go to's habitation:

Not knowing thus much, when we once do sever,
Whether or no that we shall meet here ever."

"If Fates do give

Me longer date, and more fresh springs to live,
Oft as your field shall her old age renew,

Herrick shall make the meddow-verse for you."

Armstrong, in his History of the Island of Minorca, p. 177, "Their harvests are generally gathered by the middle of June; and, as the corn ripens, a number of boys and girls

says:

station themselves at the edges of the fields, and on the tops of the fence-walls, to fright away the small birds with their shouts and cries. This puts one in mind of Virgil's precept in the first book of his Georgics—

'Et sonitu terrebis aves,'

and was a custom, I doubt not, among the Roman farmers, from whom the ancient Minorquins learned it. They also use, for the same purpose, a split reed: which makes a horrid rattling, as they shake it with their hands.'

وو

Bridges, in his History of Northamptonshire, i. 219, tells ns: "Within the Liberty of Warkworth in Ashe Meadow, divided amongst the neighbouring parishes, and famed for the following customs observed in the mowing of it. The meadow is divided into fifteen portions, answering to fifteen lots, which are pieces of wood cut off from an arrow, and marked according to the landmarks in the field. To each lot are allowed eight mowers, amounting to one hundred and twenty in the whole. On the Saturday sevennight after Midsummer Day, these portions are laid out by six persons, of whom two are chosen from Warkworth, two from Overthorp, one from Grimsbury, and one from Nethercote. These are called Fieldmen, and have an entertainment provided for them upon the day of laying out the meadow, at the appointment of the lord of the manor. As soon as the meadow is measured, the man who provides the feast, attended by the Hay-ward of Warkworth, brings into the field three gallons of ale. After this the meadow is run, as they term it, or trod, to distinguish the lots; and, when this is over, the hay-ward brings into the field a rump of beef, six penny loaves, and three gallons of ale, and is allowed a certain portion of hay in return, though not of equal value with his provision. This hay-ward and the master of the feast have the name of Crocus-men. In running the field, each man hath a boy allowed to assist him. On Monday morning lots are drawn, consisting some of eight swaths, and others of four. Of these the first and last carry the garlands. The first two lots are of four swaths, and whilst these are mowing the mowers go double; and as soon as these are finished, the following orders are read aloud: 'Oyez! oyez ! oyez ! I charge you, under God, and in his Majesty's name, that you keep the King's peace in the lord of

the manor's behalf, according to the order and customs of this meadow. No man or men shall go before the two garlands; if you do, you shall pay your penny, or deliver your scythe at the first demand, and this so often as you shall transgress. No man or men shall mow above eight swaths over their lots, before they lay down their scythes and go to breakfast. No man or men shall mow any farther than Monks-holm-Brook, but leave their scythes there and go to dinner, according to the custom and manner of this manor. God save the King!' The dinner, provided by the lord of the manor's tenant, consists of three cheesecakes, three cakes, and a new-milk-cheese. The cakes and cheesecakes are of the size of a winnowing-sieve; and the person who brings them is to have three gallons of ale. The master of the feast is paid in hay, and is further allowed to turn all his cows into the meadow on Saturday morning till eleven o'clock; that by this means giving the more milk the cakes may be made the bigger. Other like customs are observed in the mowing of other meadows in this parish."

To the festivities of Harvest Home must be referred the following popular custom among the hop-pickers in Kent, thus described in Smart's Hop Garden, b. ii. 1. 477, and of which he gives an engraved representation in the title-page to his Poems, 1752. He is describing their competitions :

"Who first may fill

The bellying bin, and cleanest cull the hops.

Nor aught retards, unless invited out

By Sol's declining, and the evening's calm,
Leander leads Lætitia to the scene

Of shade and fragrance-then th' exulting band
Of pickers, male and female, seize the fair
Reluctant, and with boisterous force and brute,
By cries unmov'd, they bury her in the bin.
Nor does the youth escape him too they seize,
And in such posture place as best may serve
To hide his charmer's blushes. Then with shouts
They rend the echoing air, and from them both
(So custom has ordain'd) a largess claim."

Martin, in his Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, p. 368, mentions a singular harvest superstition. Speaking of the Orkneys, he says: "There is one day in harvest on which the vulgar abstain from work, because of an ancient

and foolish tradition, that if they do their work the ridges will bleed." Brand also mentions this in his Description of the Orkney Islands, 1805.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, vii. 303, Parish of Mouswald, co. Dumfries, we read: "The inhabitants can now laugh at the superstition and credulity of their ancestors, who, it is said, could swallow down the absurd nonsense of a boon of shearers,' i. e. reapers being turned into large grey stones on account of their kemping, i. e. striving. These stones, about twenty years ago, after being blasted with gunpowder, were used in building the farmhouses then erecting near the spot, which had formerly been part of a common.

THE HARVEST MOON.

[THE following charm is found in an edition of Mother Bunch, and is stated to be efficacious during the continuance of the harvest moon, a well-known astronomical phenomenon. When you go to bed, place under your pillow a common prayer-book, open at the part of the matrimonial service in which is printed, "With this ring I thee wed." Place on it a key, a ring, a flower, a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards, viz. the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds: wrap all these round in a hankerchief of thin gauze or muslin. getting into bed, cross your hands and say—

"Luna, every woman's friend,
To me thy goodness condescend;
Let me this night in visions see
Emblems of my destiny."

On

If you dream of flowers, trouble will betide you; if the storm ends in a fine calm, so will your fate; if of a ring or the ace of diamonds, marriage; bread, an industrious life; cake, a prosperous life; flowers, joy; willow, treachery in love, spades, death; diamonds, money; clubs, a foreign land; hearts, illegitimate children; keys, that you will rise to great trust and power, and never know want; birds, that you will have many children ; geese, that you will marry more than once.]

34

THE FEAST OF SHEEP-SHEARING.

And

THE author of the Convivial Antiquities tells us that the pastoral life was anciently accounted an honorable one, particularly among the Jews and the Romans. Mention occurs in the Old Testament of the festive entertainments of the former on this occasion, particularly in the second book of Samuel, where Absalom the king's son was master of the feast. Varro may be consulted for the manner of celebrating this feast among the latter. In England, particularly in the southern parts, for these festivities are not so common in the north, on the day they begin to shear their sheep, they provide a plentiful dinner for the shearers and their friends who visit them on the occasion: a table, also, if the weather permit, is spread in the open village for the young people and children. The washing and shearing of sheep, is attended with great mirth and festivity. Indeed, the value of the covering of this very useful animal must always have made the shearing-time, in all pastoral countries, a kind of Harvest Home. In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under "The Ploughman's Feast-days," are the following lines, alluding to this festivity:

"Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corne,

Make wafers and cakes, for our sheepe must be shorne; At sheepe shearing, neighbours none other things crave, But good cheere and welcome like neighbours to have." There is a beautiful description of this festivity in Dyer's

1 "Apud Latinos oves tondere, ut et sementem facere omnino non fuit licitum, priusquam Catulatio, hoc est, ex cane sacrum fieret: ut Gyraldus testatur de Diis gentium. Ex his ergo omnibus constat illam ovium tonsuram (quam Luna decrescente à veteribus fieri fuisse solitam M. Varro testatur: de tempore autem oves lavandi et tondendi, vide Plin. lib. xviii. c. 17) magna cum festivitate, lætitia, atque conviviis fuisse celebratam ; id quod mirum non est. Nam in animalibus primum non sine causa putant oves assumptas, et propter utilitatem et propter placiditatem: maxime enim hæ natura quietæ et aptissimæ ad vitam hominum. Ad cibum enim lac et caseum adhibitum : ad corpus vestitum et pelles attulerunt. Itaque cum in illis tot presertim numero tondendis plurimum pastoribus atque famulis esset laboris exantlandum, justa profectò de causa patres-familias atque Domini illos conviviali hujusmodi lætitia recreare rursus atque ex. hilarare voluerunt."-Antiq. Conviv. p. 62.