Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/323

 Sonihtg; Clement insy, aud Catternini^. 293

somewhat resemblins^ the Devon and Dorset wassailing formula: —

" Blow well, bear well ! God send 'ee fare well 1 Every sprig and every spray, A bushel of apples to give away,

On New-Year's Day in the morning ! "

This is quite another matter. The object in view is the welfare of next year's apple crop, not the singers' enjoy- ment of the present festival.

From Warzvickshire the only modern evidence is of Clevicntitig at Aston and Sutton on the outskirts of Bir- mingham, but judging from the simile Shakespeare {Tivo Gent., I. ii.) applies to a disconsolate lover, " He goes puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas," Soiiling must once have pre- vailed there.

Two points now suggest themselves. Why was the dole transferred from the earlier to the later date in this particu- lar area .' and why were these three festivals observed in this particular way at all .'

The festival of St. Clement, the reputed successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome, must have been known in England from the time of the mission of St. Augustine, but it probably did not come into any prominence until the rise of the craft-guilds in the Middle Ages. The legend of St. Clement relates that he was martyred by being tied to an anchor and drowned in the sea, which afterwards retreated for seven days every year, far enough to disclose the body of the saint, still fastened to his anchor, lying in a marble tomb. Owing apparently to the incident of the anchor, he was adopted by the blacksniiths as their patron. His day is still celebrated by the blacksmiths of the south- eastern counties by dinners, songs, and convivial rites, in honour of "Old Clem," as they call him; and in East Sussex, the earliest seat of the iron trade in England, we