Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/583

 10 s. vm. DEC. 21, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1907.

CONTENTS. No. 208.

IS' OTES : Christmas Odds and Ends, 481 "The Oxford English Dictionary,' 482 The Mystery of Hannah Light foot, 483 Bibliography of Christmas, 484 Waits "Minstrel and Labourer" Alphabetical Skit "The Political House that Jack Built '" Globetrotter," 485 Moorish Love Charms Liphook Folk-lore A Shakespeare Will Coleorton, 486 Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee Eatanswill Election in the Eighteenth Century Heraldic Pewter, 487.

QUERIES : Mrs. Catherine Hall's Curious Epitaph, 487 Provencal Folk-Songs George Fleetwood's Portrait- Charterhouse Poetry Collection Authors of Quotations Wanted Anns on Punchbowl, 488 "Ecrivez les injures" General Robert Bell Paul Braddon Giffords of King Somborne William Constable alias Fetherston, 489 Tracts: 'Agnes Beaumont's Story' Sir Edmund Peirce 'The Progress of Madness' Eglia in Lincolnshire: William Langstroher Major-General John Smith Sabbath changed at the Exodus, 490.

KEPLIES : Casanova in England, 491 The Carnwath Pedigree Mary, Queen of Scots, in Edinburgh Castle, 492 Rump of a Goose and Drinking Bouts" Pot-gallery " "Jag" Camelian, 493 Juvisy : its Etymology Pie : Tart ' Old Tarlton's Song,' 494' Childe Harold,' 495 Sir George Monoux, 496 Provand's Lordship, Glasgow- Samplers in France Assassination the Metier of Kings, 497.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Suppressed Plates ' ' Shakespeare's Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint ' ' Who's Who ' Trench on the Parables Collins's Poems.

Booksellers' Catalogues.

OBITUARY : F. T. Elworthy.

^Notices to Correspondents.

CHRISTMAS ODDS AND ENDS. 'THE SEVEN JOYS OF MARY.'

THERE is very little left which has not been gathered about Christmas in the past ; but as the season returns, odds and ends <jome to remind of the doings of fifty and more years ago, when the keeping of Christmas in country places was to a great extent unspoilt. The keeping of Christmas Day and the odd days before and after was vastly different from what it now is, even in the villages which are as yet untouched by railways, and we slid all the way from school, pelted one another with snowballs, and at night, when the candles were lit and the fire built \ip, the carol singers pelted us with more or less unfinished works old carols or snatches of them in a fashion which their authors would have deemed Improbable. I heard on many occasions years ago jotted" down the words from the leader of the singers. The children sang it to a quaint tune, which I regret
 * The Seven Joys.' and once many

that I am unable to remember beyond a few notes or bars. The children came then in fours or fives, and usually had a dressed doll lying in swaddling clothes in a cratch or cradle, and were rewarded for their singing with apples or bits of ribbon to help to make up the " kissing bunch," for the "Joys" came round generally one or two days before Christmas Day.

Other children came round and sang portions of Christmas hymns and carols, knocking at the door before they began their little round of Christmas " bits," and mostly finishing with more rappings, and the recital of

Good master and mistress,

As you sit by the fire, Put your hand in your pocket

And giA~e us some hire : If you : 11 gee 's nowt, we '11 tak' nowt,

And so bid you good-neet.

Generally they were told to come inside and warm themselves with a sup of posset, a pot being usually kept hot on the hob for callers. After more singing, and before saying good-night, the leader would ask a riddle :

Flour of England, Fruit of Spain, Met together In a shower of rain.

Answer Plum-pudding.

After " good- night," the children lingered outside and sang something else as likely as not,

I saw three ships come sailing by,

Sailing by, sailing by-a-iy ; I saw three ships come sailing by On Christmas Day in the morning.

An' what do you think that they 'd got in, That they 'd got in, that they 'd got in,

On Christmas Day in the morning ? They said that they 'd got the Saviour in,

The Saviour in, the Saviour in, On Christmas Day in the morning.

How they managed to get six lines into the same music as four lines I cannot remember, but it was managed by a sort of repetition, and squeezed in as only children can manage such things, and a few hours later the same or other children came round to shout us a Christmas greeting as we sat at breakfast, like Jack Horner,

Eating his Christmas pie. " ON CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE MORNING."

I remember how, for some three or four years in succession, the folks of the place in which I was born used to trudge up the hill on Christmas Day in the morning to the church, quite half an hour before service time, seemingly for the purpose of wishing