Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/615

10 s. XII. 25, 1909.]

Can any correspondent throw light upon the above?

—In Haltwhistle Churchyard, Northumberland, is a tombstone with the following curious inscription:—

The register of burial under date gives:—

—On Samuel Turner, blacksmith:—

—

Lawrenny Churchyard, Pembrokeshire.—

Elizabeth, however, married again, so the blanks remain, to serve as an illustration of the uncertainty of human events.

Each of these epitaphs was copied by

—On a tombstone in the chancel of the parish church at Bradford-on-Avon is "Nec Metuas Dies, nec Times,"

—Mrs. Thrale's account, in the recent book, 'Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale,' of the Welsh manner of celebrating Christmas morning will be read with interest at this time:—

—As regularly as the great holiday time came round, those living in the Mid-Derbyshire villages were visited by

asking: "Will you have the Christmas in?"

First came the little girls, the eldest not more than six or seven the head of a party of half a dozen or so, each dressed in her "Sunday best," one of them carrying in her arms a sort of box: sometimes a wicker or rush-made tray, in or on which lay a doll dressed to represent the child-like idea of Christ in the Manger. They went the round of the houses in the villages, knocked, and as the door was opened asked: "Will you have the Christmas in?" for this was the name for the representation of the Nativity which they carried. Once inside, the band of little ones stood under the "Christmas bush," which hung from the houseplace beam, and there sang a carol or Christmas hymn. At the head, at the back of the "Christmas," was a larger figure intended for the Christ mother.

There was another "Christmas in" for the lads, who went about as "guisers." Not so gentle was their knock, and they shouted loudly "Wull yo hev th' Christmas in?" For the answer the party did not wait, but the leader bounded in, and, marching about the house-place, began to recite the following or some other lines, with which the "mummer" St. George led off:—

This leader was dressed in a nondescript fashion: he had a white and a black leg; a jacket inside out; paper trimmings at his shoulders and round his neck; his face