There is an old saying, that when it rains on St. Swithin's Day, it is the Saint christening the apples. In the Churchwardens' Accounts of the parish of Horley, in the county of Surrey, under the years 1505-6, is the following entry, which implies a gathering on this saint's day, or account: "Itm. Saintt Swithine farthyngs the said 2 3eres, 3s. 8d." In Lysons's Environs of London, i. 230, is a list of church duties and payments relating to the church of Kingston-uponThames, in which the following items appear: "23 Hen. VII. Imprimis, at Easter for any howseholder kepying a brode gate, shall pay to the paroche prests wages 3d. Item, to the paschalld. To St. Swithin d. Also any howse-holder kepyng one tenement shall pay to the paroche prests wages 2d. Item, to the Paschal d. And to St. Swithin d." [The following local proverbs may find a place here: "If St. Swithin greets [weeps], the proverb says, A shower of rain in July, when the corn begins to fill, Is worth a plough of oxen, and all that belongs theretill. Some rain, some rest; Fine weather isn't always best. Frosty nights, and hot sunny days, Set the corn-fields all in a blaze, (i.e. they have a tendency to forward the ripening of the 'white' crops."] ST. KENELM'S DAY. JULY 17. [A VERY curious custom was formerly practised at Clent, in the parish of Hales-Owen, co. Salop. "A fair was wont to be held in the field in which St. Kenelm's Chapel is situate; it is of very ancient date, and probably arose from the congregating together of numbers of persons to visit the shrine of St. Kenelm on the feast of the Saint, 17th of July. By the 33d Henry VIII., the fair, or rather, we presume, the tolls of the fair, were granted to Roger de Somery, the Lord of Clent. The article of cheese was the principal commodity brought for sale till, about a quarter of a century ago, the fair was numbered amongst the bygones. Clent was royal demesne, and still enjoys peculiar privileges: the inhabitants are free from serving on juries at assizes and sessions, and also of tolls throughout the kingdom, and at St. Kenelm's fair, and also at the fair of Holy Cross, in the parish of Clent, and the inhabitants sold ale and other refreshments without license or the intervention of the gauger, by an old charter which was granted by Edward the Confessor, and confirmed by Elizabeth. St. Kenelm's wake is held, or rather used to be held, for 'tis now but little noticed, on the Sunday after the fair; on which day, within the recollection of numbers of persons now living, it was the annual practice to crab the parson. The last clergyman but one who was subjected to this process was a somewhat eccentric gentleman, named Lee. He had been chaplain to a man-of-war, and was a jovial old fellow in his way, who could enter into the spirit of the thing. My informant well recollects the worthy divine, after partaking of dinner at the solitary house near the church, quietly quitting the table when the time for performing the service drew nigh, and reconnoitring the angles of the building, and each 'buttress and coign of vantage' behind which it was reasonable to suppose the enemy would be posted, and watching for a favourable opportunity, he would start forth at his best walking pace (he scorned to run) to reach the church. Around him, thick and fast, fell from ready hands a shower of crabs, not a few telling with fearful emphasis on his burly person, amid the intense merriment of the rustic assailants; but the distance is small; he reaches the old Saxon porch, and the storm is over. Another informant, a man of Clent, states that he has seen the late incumbent, the Rev. John Todd, frequently run the gauntlet, and that on one occasion there were two sacks of crabs, each containing at least three bushels, emptied in the church field, besides large store of other missiles provided by other parties; and it also appears that some of the more wanton not unfrequently threw sticks, stakes, &c., which probably led to the suppression of the practice. The custom of crabbing the parson is said to have arisen on this wise. 'Long, long ago,' an incumbent of Frankley, to which St. Kenelm's is attached, was accustomed, through horrid, deeprutted, miry roads, occasionally to wend his way to the sequestered depository of the remains of the murdered Saint King, to perform divine service. It was his wont to carry creature comforts with him, which he discussed at a lone farm-house near the scene of his pastoral duties. On one occasion, whether the pastor's wallet was badly furnished, or his stomach more than usually keen, tradition sayeth not; but having eat up his own provision, he was tempted (after he had donned his sacerdotal habit, and in the absence of the good dame) to pry into the secrets of a huge pot in which was simmering the savoury dinner the lady had provided for her household; among the rest, dumplings formed no inconsiderable portion of the contents. The story runs that our parson poached sundry of them, hissing hot, from the caldron, and hearing the footsteps of his hostess, he, with great dexterity deposited them in the ample sleeves of his surplice; she, however, was conscious of her loss, and closely following the parson to the church, by her presence prevented him from disposing of them, and to avoid her accusation, he forthwith entered the reading-desk and began to read the service, the clerk beneath making the responses. Ere long a dumpling slips out of the parson's sleeve, and falls on sleek John's head; he looked up with astonishment, but took the matter in good part, and proceeded with the service; by and bye, however, John's pate receives a second visitation, to which he, with upturned eyes and ready tongue, responded, "Two can play at that, master!' and suiting the action to the word, he forthwith began pelting the parson with crabs, a store of which he had gathered, intending to take them home in his pocket to foment the sprained leg of his jade of a horse; and so well did the clerk play his part, that the parson soon decamped amid the jeers of the old dame, and the laughter of the few persons who were in attendance; and in commemoration of this event (so saith the legend), crabbing the parson' has been practised on the Wake Sunday from that time till a very recent period." 991 This very singular custom is alluded to in the Gentleman's Magazine for Sept. 1797, p. 738: "At the wake held there, called Kenelm's Wake, alias Crab Wake, the inhabitants have a singular custom of pelting each other with crabs; and even the clergyman seldom escapes, as he goes to, or comes from the chapel." It would seem from this, that the clergyman was not the only object of attack.] 1 From a paper by Mr. J. Noake, of Worcester. ST. MARGARET'S DAY. JULY 20. GRANGER, in his Biographical History of England, iii. 54, quotes the following passage from Sir John Birkenhead's Assembly Man: "As many Sisters flock to him as at Paris on St. Margaret's Day, when all come to church that are or hope to be with child that year.” "From the East," says Butler, "the veneration of this Saint was exceedingly propagated in England, France, and Germany, in the eleventh century, during the holy wars." ST. BRIDGET. JULY 23 "JULY 23. The departure out of this life of St. Bridget, widdow, who, after many peregrinations made to holy places, full of the Holy Ghost, finally reposed at Rome: whose body was after translated into Suevia. Her principal festivity is celebrated upon the seaventh of October.' See the Roman Martyrologe according to the Reformed Calendar, translated into English by G. K. of the Society of Jesus, 1627. In the Diarium Historicum, 4to. Francof. 1590, p. 111, we read, under 23o Julii, "Emortualis Dies S. Brigittæ Reg. Sueciæ, 1372." Col. Vallancey, in his Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language, 1772, p. 21, speaking of Ceres, tells us: "Mr. Rollin thinks this deity was the same queen of heaven to whom the Jewish women burnt incense, poured out drink offerings, and made cakes for her with their own hands." Jerem. ch. xvii. v. 18; and adds: "This Pagan custom is still preserved in Ireland on the eve of St. Bridget; and which was probably transposed to St. Bridget's Eve, from the festival of a famed poetess of the same name in the time of Paganism. In an ancient Glossary now before me, she is described: Bridget, a poetess, the daughter of Dagha; a goddess of Ireland.' On St. Bridget's Eve every farmer's wife in Ireland makes a cake, called Bairinbreac; the neighbours are invited, the madder of ale and the pipe go round, and the evening concludes with mirth and festivity." Yet, according to the Flowers of the Lives of the most Renowned Saints of the three Kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, by Hierome Porter, 1632, p. 118, Bridgitt's Day (Virgin of Kildare, in Ireland) was February the 1st. ST. JAMES'S DAY. JULY 25. THE following is the blessing of new apples upon this day, preserved in the Manuale ad Usum Sarum, 1555, f. 64. "Benedictio Pomorum in Die Sancti Jacobi. Te deprecamur, omnipotens Deus, ut benedicas hunc fructum novorum pomorum ut qui esu arboris letalis et pomo in primo parente justa funeris sententia mulctati sumus; per illustrationem unici filii tui Redemptoris Dei ac Domini nostri Jesu Christi et Spiritus Sancti benedictionem sanctificata sint omnia atque benedicta depulsisque primi facinoris intentatoris insidiis, salubriter ex hujus, diei anniversaria solennitate diversis terris edenda germina sumamus per eundem Dominum in unitate ejusdem. Deinde sacerdos aspergat ea aqua benedicta." Hasted, in his History of Kent, i. 537, parish of Cliff, in Shamel hundred, tells us that "the rector, by old custom, distributes at his parsonage house on St. James's Day, annually, a mutton pye and a loaf, to as many persons as chuse to demand it, the expense of which amounts to about 157. per annum." On St. James's Day, old style, oysters come in, in London: and there is a popular superstition still in force, like that relating to goose on Michaelmas Day, that whoever eats oysters on that day will never want money for the rest of the year.1 Buttes, in his Dyet's Dry Dinner, 1599, says: " It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all monthes that have not an R in their name to eat an oister, because it is then venerious." |