When any Theeues, his Hens and Duckes pursewe,
He knowes it by the Candles burning blew.
Or if a Rauen cry, iust or'e his head,
Some in the Towne have lost their mayden head.
For losse of Cattell, and for fugitiues,
Heele find out with a Sine, and rusty Kniues.
His good dayes are, when's Chaffer is well sold,
And bad dayes, when his wife doth brail and scold."
—Rowlands' More Knaues Yet? (c. 1613), p. 20, of Hunterian Club's Reprint.
Isle of Wight Custom.—There is a custom still retained here [Yarmouth, Isle of Wight] (peculiar to this place only and not common in other parts of the kingdom) of the children's singing on New Year's Day, wassal, or wassail, from the Saxon, "Health to you":
"Wassal, wassal, to our town!
The cup is white, and the ale is brown,
The cup is made of the ashen tree.
And so is the ale of good barley:
Little maid, little maid, turn the pin,
Open the door and let me come in;
God be here, and God be there!
I wish you all a happy New Year."
—The foregoing is quoted from Lake Allen's History of the Isle of Wight, p.251.
The Yorkshire Name for Wakes.—In the West Hiding, particularly about Halifax and Huddersfield, the annual carnival which we call "Wakes" in Lancashire goes by the name of "Thump," and it appears to be so called because all who on entering an ale-house refuse to pay for liquor for the jollification of the company are soundly thumped. Last Halifax Thump, a teetotaller, having business in the Ovenden Cross Inn, refused and resisted the levy of black mail upon him for drinking purposes, and he was punished, according to custom, by the company laying him face downwards and beating him on the back of the body with a heated fire-shovel. The ringleader of the frolic being summoned by the indignant teetotaller was sentenced by the magistrates to a month's imprisonment, but on appeal the sentence was commuted to a fine of five pounds, with the costs of the appeal. —Oldham Chronicle.
A Dead Hare's Scut, co. Donegal.—I observed that every hare I shot, the boy that might be with me immediately pulled the "scut"
