Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/102

76 Mrs. Bray, in her Borders of the Tamar and Tavy, thus describes it in 1832:—

"One evening, about the end of harvest, I was riding out on my pony, attended by a servant who was born and bred a Devonian. We were passing near a field on the borders of Dartmoor, where the reapers were assembled. In a moment the pony started nearly from one side of the way to the other, so sudden came a shout from the field which gave him this alarm. On my stopping to ask my servant what all that noise was about, he seemed surprised by the question, and said, 'it was only the people making their games, as they always did, to the spirit of the harvest." Such a reply was quite sufficient to induce me to stop immediately, as I felt certain here was to be observed some curious vestige of a most ancient superstition; and I soon gained all the information I could wish to obtain upon the subject. The offering to the 'spirit of the harvest' is thus made:— "When the reaping is finished, towards evening the labourers select some of the best ears of corn from the sheaves; these they tie together, and it is called the nack. Sometimes, as it was when I witnessed the custom, the nack is decorated with flowers, twisted in with the seed, which gives it a gay and fantastic appearance. The reapers then proceed to a high place (such, in fact, was the field, on the side of a steep hill, where I saw them), and there they go, to use their own words, to 'holla the nack.' The man who bears the offering stands in the midst and elevates it, whilst all the other labourers form themselves into a circle about him; each holds aloft his hook, and in a moment they all shout as loud as they can these words, which I spell as I heard them pronounced, and I presume they are not to be found in any written record: 'Arnack, arnack, arnack, wehaven, wehaven, wehaven.' This is repeated