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66 There children used to visit houses early in the morning and sing:

Apparently the second line referred to a custom whereby the girls of the party dressed up a boy as a girl. "Two or three of the girls," says this account, "select one of the youngest amongst them (generally a boy), whom they deck out more gaily than the rest, and place at their head." The third line is perhaps readily explicable. The boy's hair is to be curled like a girl's, as a taunt to the bachelors of the family visited, and a hint that they should face the responsibilities of matrimony, If this theory is correct, it supplies further evidence that St. Valentine's day resembled Leap-year.

But in other parts of England the rhymes sung have no explicable meaning. Thus in Northamptonshire and Rutlandshire children used to go 'valentining' from house to house, singing:

And in Berkshire the rhyme runs: