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

her hair she frees;

       Unclasp’d her warmed jewels one by one;

       Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees

       Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:

       Half hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,

       Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,

       In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,

       But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.”

SCOTLAND.

       Table of Contents

      Formerly on the eve of St. Agnes’ Day the following custom was, and perchance still is observed in the northern parts of Scotland by the mountain peasantry. A number of young lads and lasses meeting together on the eve of St. Agnes, at the hour of twelve, went one by one to a certain cornfield, and threw in some grain, after which they pronounced the following rhyme:

      “Agnes sweet and Agnes fair,

       Hither, hither, now repair;

       Bonny Agnes, let me see

       The lad who is to marry me.”

      The prayer was granted by their favourite saint, and the shadow of the destined bride or bridegroom was seen in a mirror on this very night.—Time’s Telescope, 1832, p. 15.

Jan. 21.] ST. AGNES’ DAY.

       Table of Contents

      Jan. 21.]

      ST. AGNES’ DAY.

      Since the Reformation, St. Agnes has by degrees lost her consequence in this country as superstition has subsided; though our rural virgins in the north are yet said to practise some singular rites, in keeping “what they call St. Agnes’ Fast, for the purpose of discovering their future husbands.”—Clavis Calendaria, Brady, 1815, vol. i. p. 170. See Mother Bunch’s Closet Newly Broke Open, 1825 (?). Anatomy of Melancholy, Burton, 1660, p. 538.

Jan. 24.] ST. PAUL’S EVE.

       Table of Contents

      Jan. 24.]

      ST. PAUL’S EVE.

Cornwall.

       Table of Contents

      The first red-letter day in the Tinner’s Calendar is St. Paul’s Pitcher-day, or the Eve of Paul’s Tide. It is marked by a very curious and inexplicable custom, not only among tin-streamers, but also in the mixed mining and agricultural town and neighbourhood of Bodmin, and among the seafaring population of Padstow. The tinner’s mode of observing it is as follows:—On the day before the Feast of St. Paul, a water-pitcher is set up at a convenient distance, and pelted with stones until entirely demolished. The men then leave their work, and adjourn to a neighbouring ale-house, where a new pitcher bought to replace the old one is successively filled and emptied, and the evening is given up to merriment and misrule.

      On inquiry whether some dim notion of the origin and meaning of this custom remained among those who still keep it up, it was found to be generally held as an ancient festival intended to celebrate the day when tin was first turned into metal—in fact, the discovery of smelting. It is the occasion of a revel, in which, as an old streamer observes, there is an open rebellion against the water-drinking system which is enforced upon them whilst at work.

      The custom of observing Paul’s Pitcher Night is probably half-forgotten even in Cornwall at the present time, where many of the ancient provincial usages have been suffered to die out. It was, however, in full vigour so recently as 1859. The boys of Bodmin parade the town with broken pitchers, and other earthenware vessels, and into every house, where the door can be opened, or has been inadvertently left so, they hurl a “Paul’s pitcher,” exclaiming,

      “Paul’s Eve,

       And here’s a heave.”

      According to custom, the first “heave” cannot be objected to; but upon its repetition the offender, if caught, may be punished.—Brand’s Pop. Antiq. 1870, vol. i. p. 23; N. & Q. 1st S. vol. iii. p. 239; 2nd S. vol. viii. p. 312.

Jan. 25.] ST. PAUL’S DAY.

       Table of Contents

      Jan. 25.]

      ST. PAUL’S DAY.

      Strype, in his Ecclesiastical Memorials (1822, vol. iii. part i. p. 331), says: On the 25th of January (1554), being St. Paul’s Day, was a general procession of St. Paul by every parish, both priests and clerks, in copes, to the number of an hundred and sixty, singing Salve festa dies, with ninety crosses borne. The procession was through Cheap unto Leadenhall. And before went two schools; that is, first, all the children of the Gray Friars, and then those of St. Paul’s school. There were eight bishops, and the Bishop of London, mitred, bearing the Sacrament, with many torches burning, and a canopy borne over. And so about the churchyard, and in at the West door, with the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and all the Companies in their best liveries. And within a while after, the King came, and the Lord Cardinal, and the Prince of Piemont, and divers lords and knights. At the foot of the steps to the choir, as the King went up, kneeled the gentlemen lately pardoned, offering him their service. After mass, they returned to the court to dinner. And at night bonfires, and great ringing of bells in every church. And all this joy was for the conversion of the realm.

      It was on this day that the husbandmen of old used to make prognostics of the weather, and of other matters for the whole year, a custom which Bourne (Antiquitates Vulgares, chap. xviii. p. 159) has tried to unravel.—New Curiosities of Literature, Soane, 1847, p. 42.

St. Paul’s Cathedral.

       Table of Contents

      —One of the strangest of the old ceremonies in which the clergy of St. Paul’s Cathedral used to figure was that which was performed twice a year, namely, on the day of the Conversion, and on that of the Commemoration of St. Paul. On the former of these festivals a fat buck, and on the latter a fat doe, was presented to the church by the family of Baud, in consideration of some lands which they held of the Dean and Chapter at West Lee in Essex. The original agreement made with Sir William Le Baud, in 1274, was that he himself should attend in person with the animals; but some years afterwards it was arranged that the presentation should be made by a servant, accompanied by a deputation of part of the family. The priests, however, continued to perform their part in the show. On the aforesaid days, the buck and doe were brought by one or more servants at the hour of the procession, and through the midst thereof, and offered at the high altar of St. Paul’s Cathedral; after which the persons that brought the buck received of the Dean and Chapter, by the hands of their chamberlain, twelvepence for their entertainment; but nothing when they brought the doe. The buck being brought to the steps