Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/176

 1 68 Miscellanea.

Here evidently largess is meant for thanks. It can scarcely mean a request for a further gift ?

Shakespeare uses the term in the sense of a gift in the Taining of the Shrew : —

" Over and beside Signor Baptista's liberality, I'll mend it with a largess."

Tusser, the quaint old Suffolk poet-farmer, in his Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, written about 1550, says : —

" Give gloves to thy reapers, a largess to cry."

In this instance largess is evidently returning thanks.

A number of other examples of this custom might be cited, but it is fairly clear that " largess" might either be a gift, or thanks for a gift, when cried, shouted, or intoned. I should have mentioned that Colgrave defines largesse as bounty— handfuls of money cast among the people.

At what date largesse took the form we now see it cannot be determined, though we may assume that it became connected with the season of harvest, at the time it was associated with agriculture, that being the chief event of the year. When the increase of the earth was gathered in and garnered, it would seem natural that feasting and rewards should be given to the reapers. And the rude and clumsy form of returning thanks for the latter is on a par with "returning thanks" song sung by the men at the Har\-est Home (nov.- falling into desuetude). But at what date, or by whom originated, though it may be impossible to determine, there can be little doubt the originators, or adopters rather, were no bad judges of the effects of contrast in action and sound. It is impossible to express thvs by a mere verbal description ; it requires to be witnessed to be fully appreciated. The following account may, however, give some idea of the scene : —

One evening, when the corn was nearly all cut, the men assembled in front of the house, and, after collecting the donations, joined hands and formed a ring, two only out of the number (there were about a dozen in all) standing about ten or twelve yards from the ring. All the others then bowed their heads very low towards the centre of the circle, and, keeping in that position, their heads bowed down, gave utterance to a low deep mutter, like the muttered hollow sound of an incantation, the words of which (if words they can be called) sounded like Hoo — Hoo — Hoo (said by some to be Whoop — Whoop — Whoop, but sounding much more like the former), after which they swiftly raised their heads and threw them back, ejaculating a loud shrill shriek of 'A-a-a-h', ^ A-a-a-h\ and this was repeated several times, I