poor people go from house to house begging: "Please to give against a good day." Wheat for bread was often given.
On Christmas Eve at midnight, the cattle kneel and the rosemary bursts into flower—"people used to sit up to see it, down in the Meen." It is also said that where the rosemary grows well "the mistress is master."
First foot, either on Christmas or New Year's Day, should be a man, for luck's sake.
Those watching in a churchyard between twelve and one at night on New Year's Eve, will see the people who are to die within the year.
On New Year's Day you should get the newest pin you can and drop it in the water, "because it is the blood of Christ." I can get no explanation of this saying.
There is a very pretty custom that is now dying out, which I can, however, illustrate by an exhibit,[1] of presenting on New Year's Day, what they call "The gift." It is an apple set on three wooden legs, and having a sprig of box, hung with hazel nuts, stuck into it after the manner of a Christmas tree.
In old days, it used to be customary to light twelve small fires in the cornfields on Christmas Eve that there might be a good crop.
On old New Year's Day you should burn the Christmas holly. On "Soft Tuesday" there should be pancakes.
Mothering Sunday is a well-established custom with us, and the following is Fathering Sunday. Sweet cakes are made for both occasions.
Palm Sunday is called "Flowering Sunday," and all graves are dressed with flowers. It is a very pretty sight, and there is some rivalry between the different villages as to which shall turn out the best decorated churchyard. Parties go round visiting from church to church, looking and comparing.[2] I was told the origin of the custom is this: "It says in the Bible, that the day Jesus Christ was buried, people strewed palm-leaves on the road
- ↑ [See ante, p. 115; infra, p. 202: and the Report of International Folklore Congress, 1891, p. 452.—Ed.]
- ↑ [Noted in Wales by Mr. A. J. C. Hare, Life of Baroness Bunsen, ii., 392; and a sporadic (?) instance at Albrigthon, near Wolverhampton, Shropshire Folklore, 330.—Ed. I am quite familiar with the custom, which is practised everywhere in Wales.—E. S. H.]
