Shropshire Folk-Lore, a Sheaf of Gleanings (Volume 3) - Taschenbuch

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XXIX. CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING DAYS AND SEASONS. VII. CHRISTMAS-TIDE. "Gloomy night embraced the place Where the noble Infant lay, The Babe looked up and showed His face, In spite of darkness it was day. It was Thy day, sweet, and did rise Not from the east, but from Thine eyes." Ckashaw. '' God rest you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay, Remember Christ our Saviour Was born on Christmas Day, And 'tis tidings of comfort and joy ! " Old Carol (still occasionally sung in Shropshire). HERE is one very pleasing feature in the old-fashioned customs of Shropshire (and, I doubt not, in those of other counties also), namely, the fixed and settled habit of sharing the fruits of the earth with the poor. Each season as it came round had its own form of almsgiving. After harvest, came gleaning; after apple-gathering, souling. At Whitsuntide the poor women in some of the villages on Severn-side, below Bridgnorth, used to go begging milk to make puddings?May (' Trimilci') being of course the month in which milk is most plentiful.1 After sheep- shearing, in the Stretton valley, they came ' woolling, ' and in the 1 This was unfortunately omitted among Whitsuntide customs. See a description of it atWootton Wawen in 1760, in Folklore Journal, Vol. I. p. 353. Bishop's Castle neighbourhood, too, old John Thomas spoke of going about begging for ' whate an' 'ool.' The period of the wheat dole is at the approach of the feastlnext after the November thrashing, namely, the crowning festival of the year, ' Merry Christmas.' On St. Thomas's Dat, the 21st of December, every farmer set out in some convenient place a ' bag' (i. e. ?ack) of wheat for the portion of the poor: and all the cottagers' wives went from house to house for miles ...