British Popular Customs, Present and Past. T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

begin dancing at seven o’clock, and finish at twelve, when they sit down to lobscouse and ponsondie; the former is made of beef, potatoes, and onions, fried together; and in ponsondie we recognise the wassail or waes-hael of ale, boiled with sugar and nutmeg, into which are put roasted apples; the anciently admired lambs’-wool. The feast is paid for by subscription; two women are chosen, who with two wooden bowls placed one within the other, so as to leave an opening and a space between them, go round to the female part of the society in succession, and what one puts into the uppermost bowl the attendant collectress slips into the bowl beneath it. All are expected to contribute something, but not more than a shilling, and they are best esteemed who give most. The men choose two from themselves and follow the same custom, except that as the gentlemen are not supposed to be so fair in their dealings as the ladies, one of the collectors is furnished with pen, ink, and paper, to set down the subscription as soon as received.—Time’s Telescope, 1825, p. 13.

      In many of the small towns they partake of scalded field-peas, and a hare or some other kind of game. The peas are brought to table with the hare, and are scalded in water with the husks on, after which a lump of butter is put in the middle, and they are picked out as they are eaten. The supper concludes with a tharve-cake, a large, flat, oaten cake, baked on a girdle, sometimes with plums in it. Dancing and drinking then occupy the remainder of the evening. Tar barrels are common at all their festivals, and scarcely a town is without them.—Ibid. 1829, p. 11.

Derbyshire.

       Table of Contents

      The morris-dancers who go about from village to village about Twelfth Day, have their fool, their Maid Marian (generally a man dressed in woman’s clothes, and called “the fool’s wife,”) and sometimes the hobby-horse; they are dressed up in ribbons and tinsel, but the bells are usually discarded.—Jour. of Arch. Assoc. 1852, vol. vii. p. 201.

Dorsetshire.

       Table of Contents

      The rector of Piddle Hinton gives away on Old Christmas Day a pound of bread, a pint of ale, and a mince pie, to every poor person in the parish. This distribution is regularly made by the rector to upwards of three hundred persons.—Edwards, Old English Customs and Charities, 1842, p. 6.

Lincolnshire.

       Table of Contents

Anciently the Mowbrays had great possessions in and about the Isle of Axholme, and a seat, at which they principally resided, and were considered the greatest folks in that part of the country. It so happened that on Old Christmas Day, while a young lady (the daughter of the then Mowbray) was riding over the Meeres to the church by an old road (at that time the principal one across the village) a gale of wind blew off her hood. Twelve farming men who were working in the fields saw the occurrence, and ran to gather up the hood, and in such earnest were they that the lady took so much amusement at the scene she forbade her own attendants joining in the pursuit. The hood being captured, and replaced on the lady’s head, she expressed her obligation to the men, giving them each some money, and promised a piece of land (to be vested in certain persons in trust) to throw up a hood annually on Old Christmas Day.[7] She also ordered that the twelve men engaged to contest the race for the hood should be clothed (pro temp.) in scarlet jerkins and velvet caps: the hood to be thrown in the same place as the one where she lost hers. The custom is yet followed; and though the Meeres on which she was riding has long ago been brought into a state of cultivation, and the road through been diverted, yet an old mill stands in the field where the road passed through, and is pointed out as the place where the original scene took place, and the hood is usually thrown up from this mill. There is generally a great concourse of people from the neighbouring villages who also take part in the proceedings; and when the hood is thrown up by the chief of the boggons, or by the officials, it becomes the object of the villagers to get the hood to their own village, by throwing or kicking it, similar to the foot-ball. The other eleven men, called boggons, being stationed at the comers and sides of the field to prevent, if possible, its being thrown out of the field; and should it chance to fall into any of their hands it is “boggoned,” and forthwith returned to the chief, who again throws it up from the mill as before. Whoever is fortunate enough to get it out of the field, tries to get it to his village, and usually takes it to the public house he is accustomed to frequent, and the landlord regales him with hot ale and rum.

[7] The quantity of land given by Lady Mowbray was forty acres, known by the name of the Hoodlands.

      The game usually continues until dusk, and is frequently attended by broken shins and bruised heads. The next day is occupied by the boggons going round the villages, singing as waits, who are regaled with hot furmenty; from some they get coppers given them, and from others a small measure of wheat, according to the means of the donor. The day after that they assume the character of plough bullocks, and at a certain part of West Woodside they “smoke the fool;” that is, straw is collected by those who like, and piled on a heap, a rope being tied or slung over the branches of the tree next the pile of straw; the other end of the rope is fastened round the waist of the “fool,” and he is drawn up, and fire is put to the straw, the “fool” being swung to and fro through the smoke, until he is well nigh choked; after which he goes round with his cap, and collects whatever the spectator thinks proper to give. The performance is then at an end until the following year. See N. & Q. 2nd S. vol. v. p. 94. Peek’s History of Axholme, 1815, vol. i. p. 277.

      In the History of Lincolnshire (vol. ii. p. 214) is the following account of this custom, differing but little from the notice already given. At Haxey, Old Twelfth Day is devoted to throwing the hood, an amusement, which according to tradition, was instituted by one of the Mowbrays. A roll of canvas, tightly corded together, from four to six pounds in weight, is taken to an open field, and contended for by the rustics. An individual appointed casts it from him, and the first person who can convey it into the cellars of any public house receives the reward of one shilling, paid by the plough-bullocks or boggins. A new hood being furnished when the others are carried off, the contest usually continues till dark. The next day the plough-bullocks or boggins go round the town collecting alms, and crying “Largess.” They are dressed like morris-dancers, and are yoked to and drag a small plough. They have their farmer, and a fool called Billy Buck, dressed like a harlequin, with whom the boys make sport. The day is concluded by the bullocks running with the plough round the cross on the green; and the man that can throw the other down, and convey the plough into the cellar of a public house, receives one shilling for his agility.—See N. & Q. 4th S. vol. ix. p. 158.

Middlesex.

       Table of Contents

      In London on Twelfth Night, in former days, boys assembled round the inviting shops of the pastrycooks, and dexterously nailed the coat-tails of spectators who ventured near enough to the bottoms of the window frames, or pinned them strongly together by their clothes. Sometimes eight or ten persons found themselves thus connected. The dexterity and force of the nail-driving was so quick and sure that a single blow seldom failed of doing the business effectually.—Withdrawal of the nail without a proper instrument was out of the question, and consequently, the person nailed was forced either to leave part of his coat as a cognisance of his attachment, or quit the spot with a hole in it. At every nailing and pinning shouts of laughter arose from the perpetrators, yet it often happened to one who turned and smiled at the duress of another, that he also found himself nailed. Efforts at extrication increased mirth; nor