up as high as they can a sieve of oats, and in it a dozen of candles set round, and in the centre one larger, all lighted. This in memory of our Saviour and His Apostles, lights of the world." A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1764 thinks the practice of choosing king and queen on Twelfth Night owes its origin to the custom among the Romans, which they took from the Greeks, of casting dice who should be the Rex Convivii, or, as Horace calls him, the Arbiter Bibendi. Whoever threw the lucky cast, which they termed Venus, or Basilicus, gave laws for the night. In the same manner the lucky clown, who out of the several divisions of a plum-cake draws the King, thereby becomes sovereign of the company; and the poor clodpole to whose lot the Knave falls is as unfortunate as the Roman whose hard fate it was to throw the damnosum Caniculum. It appears that the Twelfth Cake formerly was made full of plums, and with a bean and pea. Whoever got the former was to be king; whoever found the latter was to be queen. In Nichols's Queen Elizabeth's Progresses is an account of an entertainment to her at Sudley, wherein were Melibæus, King of the Bean, and Nisa, Queen of the Pea "Mel. Cut the cake: who hath the beane shall be King; and where the peaze is, shee shal be Queene. "Nis. I have the peaze, and must be Queene. "Mel. I the beane, and King; I must commaunde." Thus in Herrick's Hesperides “TWELFE NIGHT, OR KING AND QUEENE. "Now, now the mirth comes With the cake full of plums, Where Beane's the King of the sport here ; Beside we must know, The Pea also Must revell, as Queene, in the Court here. Begin then to chuse, (This night as ye use) And let not a man then be seen here, A health to the King and the Queene Next crowne the bowle full Adde sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, With store of ale too; And thus ye must doe Who shall for the present delight To make the Wassaile a swinger. Thy Wakes, thy Quintels, here thou hast, In many parishes in Gloucestershire there is a custom on Twelft Day of having twelve small fires made, and one large one, in honour of the day. The Gentleman's Magazine for 1791 records that "In the Southhams of Devonshire, on the Eve of the Epiphany, the farmer attended by his workmen goes to the orchard with a large pitcher of cyder, and there, encircling one of the best bearing trees, they drink the following toast three several times 'Here's to thee, old apple-tree, Whence thou may'st bud, and whence thou may'st blow! And my pockets full too! Huzza!' This done, they return to the house, the doors of which they are sure to find bolted by the females, who, be the weather what it may, are inexorable to all entreaties to open them till some one has guessed at what is on the spit, which is generally some nice little thing, difficult to be hit on, and is the reward of him who first names it. The doors are then thrown open, and the lucky clod pole receives the titbit as his recompense. Some are so superstitious as to believe that if they neglect this custom the trees will bear no apples that year." On the Eve of Twelfth Day it was formerly the custom for the Devonshire people to go after supper into the orchard, with a large milk-pan full of cider, having roasted apples pressed into it. Out of this each person in company takes (what is called a clayen cup, i.e.), an earthenware cup full of liquor, and standing under each of the more fruitful apple-trees, passing by those that are not good bearers, he addresses it in the following words "Health to thee, good apple-tree, Well to bear, pocket-fulls, hat-fulis, And then drinking up part of the contents, he throws the rest, with the fragments of the roasted apples, at the tree. At each cup the company set up a shout. So we read in the Glossary to the Exmoor dialect: "Watsail, a drinking song, sung on Twelfth-day Eve, throwing toast to the apple trees, in order to have a fruitful year, which seems to be a relic of the heathen sacrifice to Pomona." This seems to have been done in some places upon Christmas Eve, for in Herrick's Hesperides we find the following among the Christmas Eve ceremonies : "Wassaile the trees, that they may beare The same is done in Herefordshire, under the name of Wassailing, as follows: At the approach of the evening on the vigil of the Twelfth Day, the farmers, with their friends and servants, meet together, and about six o'clock walk out to a field where wheat is going. In the highest part of the ground, twelve small fires, and one large one, are lighted up. The attendants, headed by the master of the family, pledge the company in old cider, which circulates freely on these occasions. A circle is formed round the large fire, when a general shout and hallooing takes place, which you hear answered from all the adjacent villages and fields. Sometimes fifty or sixty of these fires may be all seen at once. This being finished, the company return home, where the good housewife and her maids are preparing a good supper. A large cake is always provided, with a hole in the middle. After supper, the company all attend the bailiff (or head of the oxen) to the Wain-house, where the following particulars are observed. The master, at the head of his friends, fills the cup (generally of strong ale), and stands opposite the first or finest of the oxen. He then pledges him in a curious toast: the company follow his example with all the other oxen, addressing each by his name. This being finished, the large cake is produced, and with much ceremony, put on the horn of the first ox, through the hole above mentioned. The ox is then tickled, to make him toss his head if he throw the cake behind, then it is the mistress's perquisite; if before (in what is termed the boosy), the bailiff himself claims the prize. The company then return to the house, the doors of which they find locked, nor will they be opened till some joyous songs are sung. On their gaining admittance, a scene of mirth and jollity ensues, and which lasts the greatest part of the night. Pennant's account has it that, after drinking a cheerful glass to their master's health, success to the future harvest, and so forth, on their return home they feasted on cakes made of carraways, &c., soaked in cider, which they claimed as a reward for their past labours in sowing the grain. "This," observes he, seems to resemble a custom of the antient Danes, who, in their addresses to their rural deities, emptied on every invocation a cup in honour of them." 66 In the Gentleman's Magazine for February 1784, Mr Beckwith relates that "near Leeds, in Yorkshire, when he was a boy, it was customary for many families, on the Twelfth Eve of Christmas, to invite their relations, friends, and neighbours, to their houses, to play at cards, and to partake of a supper, of which minced pies were an indispensable ingredient; and after supper was brought in, the Wassail Cup or Wassail Bowl, of which every one partook, by taking with a spoon, out of the ale, a roasted apple, and eating it, and then drinking the healths of the company out of the bowl, wishing them a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. (The festival of Christ B mas used in this part of the country to hold for twenty days, and some persons extended it to Candlemas). The ingredients put into the bowl, viz., ale, sugar, nutmeg, and roasted apples, were usually called Lambs' Wool, and the night on which it is used to be drunk (generally on the Twelfth Eve) was commonly called Wassail Eve." This custom is now disused. A Nottinghamshire correspondent of the same Magazine says "that when he was a schoolboy, the practice on Christmas Eve was to roast apples on a string till they dropt into a large bowl of spiced ale, which is the whole composition of Lambs' Wool." It is probable that from the softness of this popular beverage it has gotten the above name. See Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream "Sometimes lurk I in a Gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab; And when she drinks, against her lips I bob, In Vox Graculi we read: "This day, about the houres of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10; yea in some places till midnight well nigh, will be such a massacre of spice-bread, that, ere the next day at noone, a two-penny brown loafe will set twenty poore folkes teeth on edge, Which hungry humour will hold so violent, that a number of good fellowes will not refuse to give a statute marchant of all the lands and goods they enjoy, for halfe-a-crowne's worth of two-penny pasties. On this night much masking in the Strand, Cheapside, Holburne, or Fleet-Street." Waldron, in his Description of the Isle of Man, says: "There is not a barn unoccupied the whole twelve days, every parish hiring fiddlers at the public charge. On Twelfth Day, the fiddler lays his head in some one of the wenches' laps, and a third person asks, who such a maid, or such a maid shall marry, naming the girls then present one after another; to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during this time of merriment. But whatever he says is as absolutely depended on as an oracle; and if he happens to couple two people who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth. This they call cutting off the fiddler's head; for, after this, he is dead for the whole year." In a curious Collection entitled Wit a sporting in a pleasant Grove of New Fancies, by H. B. (1657), occurs the following description, taken from Herrick's Hesperides, of the pleasantries of what is there called "ST DISTAFF'S DAY, OR THE MORROW AFTER TWELFTH-DAY. "Partly worke and partly play, You must on St Distaff's day: From the plough soon free your teame; If the Maides a spinning goe, Burne the flax and fire the tow Scorch their plackets, but beware Then bid Christmas-sport good night. To his owne vocation." It may rather seem to belong to religious than popular customs to mention, on the authority of the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1731, that at the Chapel-Royal at St James's, on Twelfth Day that year," the King and the Prince made the offerings at the altar of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, according to custom. At night their Majesties, &c., played at Hazard, for the benefit of the groom-porter." On Twelfth Night, 1753, it is recorded that George II. played at hazard for the benefit of the same functionary, and that all the members of the Royal Family who played were winners, particularly the Duke of York, who won £3000. ST AGNES' DAY, OR EVE. January 21. Stent Persecution under the Emperor Diocletian, A.D. 306. She TAGNES was a Roman virgin and martyr, who suffered in the was condemned to be debauched in the public stews before her execution, but her virginity was miraculously preserved by lightning and thunder from heaven. About eight days after her execution, her parents going to lament and pray at her tomb, they saw a vision of angels, among whom was their daughter, and a lamb standing by her as white as snow; on which account it is that in every graphic representation of her there is a lamb pictured by her side. On the eve of her day many kinds of divination are practised by virgins to discover their future husbands. It is popularly called fasting St Agnes' Fast. Ben Jonson alludes to this "And on sweet St Agnes' night Please you with the promis'd sight, Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, directs that "upon St Agnes' Night you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry." Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, speaks of "Maids fasting on St Agnes' Eve, to know who shall be their first husband." Naogeorgus has this account of the festival "SAINT AGNES. "Then commes in place St Agnes' Day, which here in Germanie Is not so much esteemde nor kept with such solemnitie: |