Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/410

 386 Reviews.

who had taken part in it. It consisted of hghting twelve small

fires and a large one (" to burn the old witch," says one authority)

in a field of springing wheat, and assembling there to drink healths

in cider. Later in the evening the party visited the cowhouse

and toasted the oxen in ale. A plum-cake with a hole in it was

then put on one horn of the first ox, who was made to toss it off,

and omens were drawn from the way it fell (p. 93). Distinct

from this, it would seem, is the custom general in the county up

to forty years ago, and still surviving in parts, of lighting a bonfire

in the first-sown wheatfield in the small hours of New Year's

morning, in which the " bush " of hawthorn which has hung in

the farmhouse kitchen during the year is consumed. A new one

is cut, and is scorched in the flames. Cider is poured over it,

and it is carried to the farmhouse to replace its predecessor.

Blazing straw is carried over the ridges — " to drive away the old

'un," "to destroy evil spirits," "to preserve the wheat from

smut," are the reasons alleged. Finally, the men stand round the

fire and "holloa old cider ■,'" i.e., shout the words slowly in unison

three times, bowing at every syllable, (making nine bows in all),

after which they drink (p. 92). This custom, so far as we know,

is altogether peculiar to the county. It is remarkable that two

such similar rites should have been practised at dates so near

together.

Other items remind us of Miss ^^'herry's and Miss Eyre's

Monmouthshire legends, ^^'hen will some one do for Monmouth

and Brecon what Mrs. Leather has done so charmingly for

Hereford?

Charlotte S. Burne.

Journal of the Folk-Song Society. No. 16 (Vol. IV., Part iii., December 191 1). A Collection of one hundred and five Songs of Occupation from the Western Isles of Scotland. Compiled by Miss Frances Tolmie. i9Berners Street, W., 191 1. 4to, xiv, 143-278 4- ix.

This group of our native wild flowers is by no means a botanist's collection of dried and pressed specimens. The blossoms are as