Part 20
But Michael Drayton says of Cheshire men that “they of all England most to antient customs cleave”; and an attempt will be made in this chapter to give a general and compressed account of the customs which still exist and of folk-lore which has been, and still is, of great interest. The legends connected with the river Dee, and the many fine old customs connected with Chester itself are omitted, as they can easily be read in every history of the city. For other omissions the want of space must plead excuse.
SOULING
The most curious Cheshire custom still existent, and one which has not attracted the attention it deserves, is called “souling.” The day after All Saints’ Day (now November 1st) is All Souls’ Day. This was established as a festival of the Church about the tenth century, and in the Middle Ages it was customary for persons dressed in black to traverse the streets, ringing a bell at every corner and calling on all to join in prayer for the souls in Purgatory, and to contribute towards the paying of masses for them. After the Reformation the demand for money was transformed into demands for liquid and solid refreshment by the “soulers.”
But at Salerno, we are told that a custom prevailed previous to the fifteenth century of providing in every home on the eve of All Souls’ Day, a sumptuous entertainment for souls in Purgatory, who are supposed to revisit temporarily the scene of their earthly labours. Every one left their house and remained in church all night, while the feast was consumed by thieves who made a harvest out of this pious custom. Such is the origin of our “souling,” and it seems probable, therefore, that “soul-cakes” were not, at first, meant for consumption by the “soulers” themselves. The custom is still observed, and on the eve of All Souls’ (_i.e._ on the night of All Saints’ Day) bodies of children still parade Chester and Cheshire villages singing a portion of the old souling song, but tacked on to debased and incorrect versions of the old words, and in many cases amounting to mere doggerel.[52]
Now, the melody sung is most interesting, for it is undoubtedly pre-Reformation and is cast in the style of the Church music of the period, for there was no sharp dividing line between secular and sacred music when “souling” first began.[53] The “punctum” or drop of a fifth is very characteristic, and will be found in Merbecke and Church writers of the period.
[52] _e.g._ Instead of “Soul, soul, for an apple or two,” I have heard them sing, “Sole, sole, sole of my shoe”!
[53] I heard a comic song sung by a rustic in Sussex a few years ago to the plain-song which is used for the hymn “O come! O come! Emmanuel,” in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_.
The following is the tune as taken down by me many times in the past thirty years, though it is now getting greatly corrupted and altered, and will probably soon die out. No accompaniment is used:--
[Music:
Souling night has come at last, And we are souling here; And all that we are souling for, Is apples and good cheer.
Soul, soul for an apple or two, If you’ve no apples, pears will do; If you’ve no pears, a good jug of beer Will last us all till this time next year.
God bless the master of this house, God bless the mistress too; And all the little children that Around the table go. ]
Other verses are:--
Likewise you men and maidens, Your cattle and your store, And all that dwells within your gates, We wish you ten times more.
The lanes are very dirty, My shoes are very thin; I have a little pocket, To put a penny in.
It will be noticed that the “refrain”[54] practically consists of only two notes, so that it could easily be lengthened at the will of the singer and new lines inserted. Here are some of the oldest rimes to which it is sung:--
Soul! Soul! for a soul-cake, Pray, good missis! a soul-cake, An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry, Or any good thing to make us merry-- One for Peter, two for Paul, And three for Him who made us all.
Up with the kettle and down with the pan Give us { an answer } and we’ll be gone.[55] { our souling }
[54] Mr. Fuller-Maitland gives this as the tune in _English County Songs_, p. 30. This is a mistake: he only has the “refrain.”
[55] There is always an “up” and “down” in all the versions met with, but, as pointed out in _Shropshire Folk-Lore_, the original no doubt was:--
“Up with the ladder and down with the can,”
_i.e._ the ladder is to be raised to the apple-loft and the can taken down in the cellar for ale or cider.
The following Staffordshire version is valuable for the statement that they “have all been praying for the soul departed.”
“Soul day, soul day, We be come a-souling; Pray, good people, remember the poor, And give us all a soul-cake. Soul day, soul day, soul, One for Peter, two for Paul, Three for Him who made us all. An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, Or any good thing to make us merry. Soul day, soul day, We have all been praying For the soul departed: So pray, good people, give us a cake, For we are all poor people, Well known to you before; So give us a cake, for charity’s sake, And our blessing we’ll leave at your door. Soul! soul! for an apple or two, If you have no apples, pears will do; If pears are scarce, then cakes from your pan, Give us our souling, and we’ll be gone.”[56]
[56] _The Customs, Superstitions and Legends of the County of Stafford_, by C. H. Poole, p. 34.
The following is a Lancashire reference:--
“There is a singular custom still kept up at Great Marton in the Fylde district on this day. In some places it is called ‘soul-caking,’ but there it is named ‘psalm-caking’--from their reciting psalms for which they receive cakes. The custom is changing its character also--for in place of collecting cakes from house to house, as in the old time, they now beg for money. The term ‘psalm’ is evidently a corruption of the old word ‘Sal,’ for soul; the mass or requiem for the dead was called ‘Sal-mass,’ as late as the reign of Henry VI.”[57]
[57] _Lancashire Folk-Lore_, p. 251, by Harland and Wilkinson.
As time went on this tune was probably considered dull and old-fashioned, and the following has, to a limited extent, supplanted it. It is evidently an adaptation of a “pace-egging” song (see _post_):--
[Music:
We are one, two, three hearty lads, and we’re all of one mind, We have come here a-souling, good nature to find; We have come here a-souling as it doth appear, And it’s all that we are souling for is your ale and strong beer. ]
_There are two other Verses._
At Northwich, Tarporley, and other places the soulers are accompanied by one bearing an imitation head of a horse, which snaps its jaws in an alarming manner. Thus “souling” has got grafted on to the pagan custom of “hodening.” At Over the soulers blacken their faces. This is a survival of the wearing of _black_ already mentioned.
The “Soulers’ Song,” as given by Egerton Leigh, is a poor modern version, evidently adapted from a _Maying_ song:--
“Ye gentlemen of England I could have ye draw near To these few lines which we have wrote, And all ye soon shall hear Sweet melody of music all on this evening clear, For we are gone a-souling for apples and strong beer.”
This is the fourth series of rimes on the subject, and the constant demand for apples and ale was to make a “wassail” bowl of “lambswool,” or hot spiced ale, with toast and roasted apples in it.
Souling seems to have been confined to, or at all events to have only survived, in the counties of Cheshire and Shropshire, though why this should be so it is difficult to say. It is also met with in the adjacent counties of Staffordshire and Lancashire, but only because it seems to have drifted over the borders. One curious reference to it occurs in _Tales and Traditions of Tenby_:[58]--
“What was called ‘souling,’ or ‘sowling,’ was practised by the female portion of the poor, who visited their wealthier neighbours, demanding ‘soul’ (possibly from the French _soûl_, signifying ‘one’s fill,’ or from _saouler_, ‘to satisfy with food.’ See Wright’s _Provincial Dictionary_), which signified, in its provincial acceptation, any condiment eaten with bread, such as meat, fish, etc., but especially _cheese_. As the usage was very generally recognised, souling-day proved, and still proves, one of the most profitable days in the calendar.”
[58] Published by R. Mason, Tenby, 1858, p. 17.
The fanciful derivation of “souling” may be passed by, but it is hard to account for this reference to it in “little England beyond Wales.”
At Oswestry, on the Welsh border, it is customary to begin with:--
“Wissal, wassal, bread and possel, Cwrw da, plas yma,[59] Apple or a pear, plum or a cherry, Any good thing that will make us merry.”
--_Bye-gones_, December 11, 1872.
[59] _i.e._ “good ale (in) this place.”
Aubrey wrote regarding Shropshire thus:--
“In Salop the die õnium Animarum (All Soules-day, Novemb. 2d) there is sett on the Board a high heap of soule-cakes lyeing one upon another like the picture of the Sew-bread in the old Bibles. They are about the bignesse of 2d cakes, and n’ly all the visitors that day takes one; and there is an old Rhythm or saying--
‘A soule-cake, a soule-cake, Have mercy on all Christian soules for a soule-cake.’”
“The late Mrs. Gill, of Hopton, near Hodnet, had _soul-cakes_ made in her house to give away to souling children every year up to her death in 1884. They were flat round, (or sometimes oval) cakes, made of very light dough, spiced and sweetened.”[60]
[60] Burne-Jackson’s _Shropshire Folk-Lore_, p. 382 _et seq._ Mr. Wirt Sykes, in his _British Goblins_, quotes this, and also the information about Tenby, but adds nothing to our knowledge.
We find some of the words of the “Souling Song” in nearly every itinerant begging custom. In Montgomeryshire a New Year’s rhyme is:--
“The road is very dirty, My shoes are very thin; Please give me a penny To put some nails in.”
Several of the verses are found in a “Wessel-cup Hymn”--a carol popular in Shropshire thirty years ago--and in customs in Worcestershire and Yorkshire.
MARLING
The traveller cannot fail to notice the large number of square pits in the green fields of Cheshire, which are very different from the round drinking ponds of the southern shires.
These “pits” are excavations from which marl has been dug to place on the surface of the surrounding land as manure, and some curious old customs and words are connected with “marling.” After breakfast on the pit bank, the “head man,” who was termed the “Lord of the soil,” called out in a loud voice three times:
“‘O! Yez! O! Yez! O! Yez! This is to give notice that Mr. ---- has given to us Marlers part of a thousand pounds, and to whomsoever will do the same we will return thanks and shout.’ The men then joined hands, and, putting their heads together, shouted ‘Largesse! Largesse!’”
Should any one pass through the field, the “Lord” walked up, having a marl clod on his shoulder. This was so well understood that sixpence or a shilling was usually given. If the former, it was proclaimed as “part of one hundred pounds”; if the latter, “part of one thousand pounds.” At the close of the season they assembled in front of the village inn, and repeated the oration.
“Ladling and slutching” is the clearing out the water and mud from a pit. “Fea” is the soil covering the marl. “Setting” is spreading the marl over the land; “Mid-feather,” the space between the pits.
The Cheshire rhyme says:
“He that marls sand may buy the land, He that marls moss shall have no loss, He that marls clay flings all away.”
RUSH-BEARING
The strewing of the floors with rushes is an old custom, and has died hard. The farmhouses in Cheshire were strewn on the first of May with green rushes, over which lavender and rosemary were scattered. Rushes are no longer used, but a pattern is frequently worked on the flagged floor by the juice of dock leaves.[61]
Formerly all churches were strewn with rushes, and these were generally renewed on great festivals:
“1551 Rysshes at Wytsontyd vi^d ” ” ” Mydsomer viij^d ” ” against All Hallowtyde x^d
1584 To Edward Griffith for boughs, rishes, and other things what time the Earl of Leicester came hither xviij^s ij^d”[62]
“1630 Paid to Robert Raborne for getting out the old rushes of the church viij^d”[63]
The custom of carrying rushes to church gradually developed into a festival, and the rushes were then decorated and carried in procession. In some parishes, where the time of year was suitable, this was done on the “Wake” day of the village. Flowers and garlands were added, which “were hung up in the church; we saw these garlands remaining in several places.”[64] Finally, the graves were strewn with them. This custom is still observed at Farndon with much ceremony on July 16th or the first Sunday afterwards.
[61] Utkinton Hall, 1908.
[62] Chester Cathedral Treasurer’s Accounts.
[63] Frodsham Accounts.
[64] Lyson’s _Cheshire_.
Many rush-bearings, or “rush-buryings,” as they are sometimes called, became riotous festivities, and the _Chester Courant_ for August 6, 1810, says:
“Christleton Rush-Bearing.--We were sorry to learn that the festivities of this annual _fête_ should have been disgraced by that almost universally reprobated amusement, a Bull-bait. After this savage practice has fallen into disrepute and disgrace amongst the most uncultivated parts of the island, it is mortifying for us to record a transaction so disgraceful in the immediate vicinity of the polished city of Chester.”
In Cheshire also rushes are used as a charm for warts. The charmer has a long straight rush, ties three knots in it, makes it into a circle, draws it over the wart downwards nine times, at the same time muttering a spell which he refuses to disclose on the ground that if he did so the charm would not work. In three months the wart will disappear.
The old rush-lights of Cheshire were sold at twenty for sixpence. “They were as thick as the present ‘twelve’ candles (twelve to the pound), but half as long again, and gave a steady but dim light. There were some curious bits of folk-lore connected with them. For instance, if a rush-light in ‘sweating’ curled over, it denoted death; if a bright star appeared in the flame, it portended a letter.”[65]
[65] Burton, _Rush-Bearing_.
PACE-EGGING
This is still practised in the Wirral peninsula, and the rime sung by the children was as follows:--
“Please, Mr. Whiteleg, Please give us an Easter egg; If you do not give us one, Your hen shall lay an addled one, Your cock shall lay a stone.”
Sometimes with the addition from “Souling” of:
“One for Peter, two for Paul, And three for the One who made us all.”
“In Birkenhead, for some years after the Park was laid out, there were several grassy mounds inside the railings ... which went by the name of ‘The Bouks’ (Banks).... Every Easter Monday the children would bring baskets of coloured eggs. Then a game was played. First, wickets were fixed at intervals at the foot of the ‘Bouks,’ the children took their eggs to the top of the hills and rolled them down, aiming to pass them unbroken through the wickets.”[66]
[66] Gamlin’s _Memories of Birkenhead_.
By degrees “Pace-Egging” became grafted on to the old mumming play which is found in nearly every county of England, and the following was sung at Thurstaston some thirty years ago. Two verses are omitted:--
I.
Here come four or five hearty lads all of one mind; We have come a’paste-egging if you will prove kind; If you will prove kind, and never will fail, We’ll treat our young lasses to the best of X ale. Fol di-diddle dol-di-day.
II.
The next that steps in is Lord Nelson, you see With a bunch of blue ribands tied on to his knee, With a star on his breast like silver do shew, And he comes a’paste-egging with his jolly crew. Fol di-diddle dol-di-day.
IV.
The next that steps in is a lady so gay, Who from her own country has run far away, With the red cap and feathers that look very fine, And all her delight is in drinking red wine. Fol di-diddle dol-di-day.
VI.
The Master and Mistress that sit by the fire, Put your hand in your pocket, that’s all we desire; Put your hand in your pocket, and pull out your purse, And give us a trifle--you’ll ne’er be any worse. Fol di-diddle dol-di-day.
VII.
Some eggs and strong bacon we’ll never deny, For the eggs we can suck while the bacon doth fry. Now all ye young lasses, just mind what ye are about, If you give nought, we’ll take nought, so we’ll bid you good night. Fol di-diddle dol-di-day.
MAYING
The “Mayers” went about singing and soliciting alms for some weeks before the first of May. The following is a portion of one of their songs, and a variant may be found in Halliwell’s _Palatine Anthology_, which was given to him by Ormerod, the Cheshire historian. The tune taken down by Egerton Leigh, and given in his book of poems, is terribly mutilated, but I have reconstructed it by the aid of a very similar Lancashire tune. It is undoubtedly old, and the commencement on the supertonic is very quaint. The words are distinctly above the average of old ballads:
[Music: CHESHIRE MAYING SONG]
CHESHIRE MAY SONG
I
All on this pleasant evening together come are we, For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay, To tell you of a blossom that buds on every tree, Drawing near to the merry month of May.
II
Rise up, the master of this house, all in your chain of gold, For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay; We hope you’re not offended, this night we make so bold, Drawing near the pleasant month of May.
III
Oh! rise, the mistress of this house, with gold upon your breast, For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay; And if your body be asleep, we hope your soul’s at rest, Drawing near to the merry month of May.
&c. &c.
In the Halliwell-Phillipps’ version each verse ends with
“Oh this is pleasant singing, Sweet May flower is springing, And summer comes so fresh, green, and gay.”
In Chester and surrounding villages the children still carry round May garlands, and generally a small child bedecked with ribbons, but the old May songs are no longer used.
At Knutsford a May Queen is annually chosen and crowned in public. This village has many curious and pretty customs. On the occasion of a marriage there, brown sand was strewn in the streets, and on this, fanciful figures of white sand and sometimes the flowers of the season were added.
LIFTING
Hone says that the custom of _Lifting_ was prevalent in Chester, but that instead of being tossed in the air, the victims were swung about in a chair.
However, a correspondent in Adams’ _Weekly Courant_ (printed in Chester, 26th March 1771) complains strongly of the custom of “_Lifting_, or rather the assembling in a riotous manner of a considerable number (I am sorry to say) of females at all the gates and other thoroughfares of this city to extort money from every man whose business may oblige him to pass that way. This is justly complained of by travellers, who, unacquainted with such customs (it not being suffered in any city but this) have given a considerable sum for leave to pursue their journey, and have scarce rode to the other end of the city but must again purchase the liberty of passing on.” It was practised at Chester up to about the year 1860.
The custom is supposed to have reference to the Ascension of our Lord.
HARVEST HOME
When the last field of corn was cut, then the farmer had what was called a “shutting.” The reapers would stand in a ring on some high ground, and one, acting as spokesman, gave out the “nominy”:--
“Oh, yes! oh, yes! oh, yes! this is to give notice That Mester ’Olland has gen th’ seck a turn And sent th’ owd hare into Mester Sincop’s standin’ curn.”
Then, taking hands, they all bent down and uttered an unearthly “Wow! wow-w! wow-w!” Other “nominies” followed, and then a liberal allowance of beer went round. This was supplemented by another ceremony. The last stalks of grain were plaited and formed into a threefold strand, at which the reapers threw their sickles. The one whose aim cut it down was the winner. This was called “cutting the Neck.”
CORNAGE
Cheshire has the great distinction of possessing two Forest Charter Horns held by cornage tenure, and these are still in existence.
_The Wirral Horn._--The Hundred of Wirral was mainly divided between the Church and the Palatinate barons. The latter not being resident, the natives were lawless and turbulent; added to which the district was specially liable to incursions from sea-rovers. To reduce the natives to obedience, and as a matter of precaution, Ranulph de Meschines, the third Earl of Chester, about 1121, destroyed such boundaries of property as existed and planted the whole as a forest, so that “From Blacon Point to Hilbre a squirrel might jump from tree to tree”; as the old Cheshire rhyme has it.
The office of chief forester he bestowed upon Alan Sylvester, together with the manors of Storeton and Puddington, to be held by the tenure of blowing a horn, or causing it to be blown, at the “Gloverstone,” Chester, on the morning of every fair-day, to indicate that the tolls payable on all goods bought or sold in the city, or within sound of that horn, during the fair, belonged to the Earl and his tenants there.
After 250 years the citizens of Chester found the forest and its freebooters such a nuisance (for, so far from checking marauders, the forest, as a hiding-place, encouraged them), that they complained to the Black Prince, and begged that he would get his father to abolish it.
In 1376-7, the last year of Edward III.’s reign, the district was disafforested. The horn and its rights had passed, by marriages of female heirs, to the Bamvilles, and then to the Stanleys of Hooton Hall. They continued as titular foresters as late as of 7 Henry VI.
The horn is thus described:--16¾ in. convex, 13¾ in. concave, 9½ in. wide at the mouth, 7 in. in the middle, tapering to 2½ in. at the mouthpiece. The colour is yellow to light brown, with blue or black spots or flakes. It was in the possession of Sir John Stanley-Errington until his death in 1896.
_The Delamere Horn._--What we now call the Forest of Delamere was originally the two forests of Mara and Mondrem, extending, roughly speaking, over all the lands between the rivers Weaver and Gowy. Mara was on the Mersey side, and Mondrem on the Nantwich side.