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[The following account of this custom was communicated by a correspondent to the Athenæum, October 31st, 1846:— Having been reared in a remote village in Worcestershire, your papers on Folk-Lore have recalled a custom to my memory, which was called going a Cattaring,' from St. Catharine, in honour of whom, and of St. Clement, it originated. About this season of the year the children of the cottagers used to go round to the neighbouring farm-houses, to beg apples and beer, for a festival on the above saints' days. The apples were roasted on a string before the fire, stuck thickly over with cloves, and allowed to fall into a vessel beneath. There were set verses for the occasion, which were sung, in a not unmusical chant, in the manner of carol singing. I can only recollect the first few lines:

Catt'n and Clement comes year by year.

Some of your apples and some of your beer;
Some for Peter, some for Paul,

Some for Him who made us all.

Peter was a good old man,

For his sake give us some:

Some of the best, and none of the worst,

And God will send your souls to roost.

I well remember it always concluded with—

'Up the ladder and down with the can,
Give me red apples and I'll begone.'

The ladder alluding to the store of apples, generally kept in a loft, or somewhere at the top of the house; and the can, doubtless, to the same going down into the cellar for the beer."

Some years ago (1844) Mr. George Stephens, now resident at Stockholm, communicated to me another version of the above lines, which contained some trifling variations. The last lines

were,

"Not of the worst, but some of the best,
And God will send your soul to rest."

Until within a very recent period, it was the custom of the dean and chapter of Worcester, yearly, on St. Catharine's Day, being the last day of their annual audit, to distribute amongst the inhabitants of the college precincts a rich compound of

wine, spices, &c., which was specially prepared for the occasion, and called the Cattern or Catharine bowl. In another paper, in the Athenæum, 1847, Mr. Allies informs us, that the following lines were sung by the children on the occasion of Catherning:

Mr. Allies adds, "I recollect that, in my juvenile days, I once saw, at the season in question, apples roasting on strings before the kitchen fire, at a farm-house, in Leigh parish, in this county, in the manner above alluded to. They were studded thickly with oats instead of cloves, and some of the apples so studded were not roasted, but each affixed on a wooden skewer, and dredged all over with flour, resembling, in a manner, a dandelion in full seed."

The following lines were taken down verbatim from the lips of one of the merry pack, who sing them from door to door on the eve of All Souls' Day, in Cheshire, and are similar to those quoted above:

"Soul Day, Soul Day, Saul!

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for Him who made us all.

An apple or a pear, a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing that will make us all merry.

Put your hand in your pocket and pull out your keys,
Go down in the cellar, bring up what you please.

A glass of your wine, or a cup of your beer,

And we'll never come Souling till this time next year.

We are a pack of merry boys all in a mind,
We have come a souling for what we can find.
Soul! soul! sole of my shoe,

If you have no apples, money will do.

"Up with your kettle and down with your pan,
Give us an answer and let us be gone."]

STIR-UP SUNDAY.

[The twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity is called by schoolboys Stir-up Sunday, from the collect used on that day; and they repeat the following lines, without considering its irreverent application:

"Stir up, we beseech thee,

The pudding in the pot:

And when we get home,
We'll eat it all hot."]

ST. ANDREW'S DAY.

NOVEMBER 30.

LUTHER, in his Colloquia, i. 233, says, that on the evening of the feast of St. Andrew the young maidens in his country strip themselves naked: and, in order to learn what sort of husbands they shall have, they recite the following prayer:

Deus, Deus meus, O Sancte Andrea, effice ut bonum pium acquiram virum; hodie mihi ostende qualis sit cui me in uxorem ducere debet." Googe, in the translation of Naogeorgus, f. 55, probably alludes to some such observances :

"To Andrew all the lovers and the lustie woers come, Beleeving, through his ayde, and certaine ceremonies done,

(While as to him they presentes bring, and conjure all the night,) To have good lucke, and to obtaine their chiefe and sweete delight.”

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xviii. 359, Dudingsston parish, distant from Edinburgh a little more than a mile,

we read that many of the opulent citizens resort thither in the summer months to solace themselves over one of the ancient homely dishes of Scotland, for which the place has been long celebrated. The use of singed sheep's heads, boiled or baked, so frequent in this village, is supposed to have arisen from the practice of slaughtering the sheep fed on the neighbouring hill for the market, removing the carcases to town, and leaving the heads, &c., to be consumed in the place. Singed sheep's heads are borne in the procession before the Scots in London, on St. Andrew's day.

Hasted, in his History of Kent, ii. 757, speaking of the parish of Easling, says, that "On St. Andrew's Day, November 30, there is yearly a diversion called squirrel-hunting in this and the neighbouring parishes, when the labourers and lower kind of people, assembling together, form a lawless rabble, and being accoutred with guns, poles, clubs, and other such weapons, spend the greatest part of the day in parading through the woods and grounds, with loud shoutings, and under pretence of demolishing the squirrels, some few of which they kill, they destroy numbers of hares, pheasants, partridges, and, in short, whatever comes in their way, breaking down the hedges, and doing much other mischief, and in the evening betaking themselves to the alehouses, finish their career there, as is usual with such sort of gentry."

[A correspondent of the Athenæum, 993, says that this custom was kept up in Sussex till within the last thirty or forty years, many people now living having often joined in it; but now, in consequence of the inclosure of the coppices, and the more strict preservation of the game, it has wholly dropped.] In Scotland this day is called Andrys Day, Androiss Mess, and Andermess.

ST. NICHOLAS'S DAY.

DECEMBER 6

ST. NICHOLAS was born at Patara, a city of Lycia, and, for his piety, from a layman was made bishop of Myra. He died on the 8th of the ides of December, 343.

Some have thought that it was on account of his very early abstinence' that he was chosen patron of schoolboys; but a much better reason is afforded to us by a writer in the Gent.'s Magazine for April, 1777, p. 158, who mentions having in his possession an Italian Life of St. Nicholas, 1645, from which he translates the following story, which fully explains the occasion of boys addressing themselves to St. Nicholas's patronage : "The fame of St. Nicholas's virtues was so great, that an Asiatic gentleman, on sending his two sons to Athens for education, ordered them to call on the bishop for his benediction, but they, getting to Myra late in the day, thought proper to defer their visit till the morrow, and took up their lodgings at an inn, where the landlord, to secure their baggage and effects to himself, murdered them in their sleep, and then cut them into pieces, salting them, and putting them into a pickling tub, with some pork which was there already, meaning to sell the whole as such. The bishop, however, having had a vision of this impious transaction, immediately resorted to the inn, and, calling the host to him, reproached him for his horrid villany. The man, perceiving that he was discovered, confessed his crime, and entreated the bishop to intercede on his behalf to the Almighty for his pardon; who, being moved with compassion at his contrite behaviour, confession, and thorough repentance, besought Almighty God not only to pardon the murderer, but also, for the glory of his name, to restore life to the poor innocents who had been so

This reason is indeed assigned in the English festival, f. 55. "It is sayed of his fader, hyght Epiphanius, and his moder Joanna, &c., and when he was born, &c. they made him Christin, and called hym Nycholas, that was a mannes name; but he kepeth the name of the child, for he chose to kepe vertues, meknes, and simplenes; he fasted Wednesday and Friday; these dayes he would souke but ones of the day, and therwyth held him plesed. Thus he lyved all his lyf in vertues with his childes name, and therefore children doe him worship before all other saints, &c."-Liber Festivalis in die S. Nicholai. A curious old MS. legendary metrical account of Saints, of the age of Henry VI., speaking of St. Nicholas, has the following couplet :

"Ye furst day that was y-bore, he gan to be good and clene,

For he ne wolde Wednesday ne Friday never more souke but ene."

So the Golden Legend: "He wolde not take the breast ne the pappe, but ones on the Wednesday and ones on the Fridaye."