Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/109

Rh banners of their respective trades were still to be seen; there was a band of music, and boys carried pieces of burning rope instead of torches. As the Prior of old, so the Dean of later days, accompanied the procession to the door of the Cathedral, but, whereas the Prior there dismissed them with his blessing, the Dean presented each warden with a pair of gloves.

But our most characteristic festive rejoicings accompany the harvest—the mell-supper and the kern-baby, usages which are by no means extinct among us. In the northern part of Northumberland the festival takes place at the end of the reaping, not of the ingathering; and an essay written about the year 1750, by the unhappy Eugene Aram, states that such was also the case in Yorkshire. When the sickle is laid down, and the last sheaf of golden corn set on end, it is said that they have “got the kern.” The reapers announce the fact by loud shouting, and an image is at once hoisted on a pole, and given into the charge of the tallest and strongest man of the party. The image is crowned with wheat-ears and dressed up in gay finery, a white frock and coloured ribbons being its conventional attire. The whole group circle round this harvest-queen, or kern-baby, curtseying to her, and dancing and singing; and thus they proceed to the farmer’s barn, where they set the image up on high, as the presiding goddess of their revels, and proceed to do justice to the harvest-supper.

Nor is this all. Each cottage must at harvest-time have its own household divinity, and, oaten cakes having formerly been the staple food of the North, these figures are commonly formed of oats. Such have I repeatedly seen in cottages on the Tweed side, elaborately decorated and enshrined at the top of the bink or dresser, with the family stock of big dishes ranged on either side. These, too, are kern-babies. There has been some controversy as to the derivation of the word “kern.” To me it clearly seems to mean corn. I may mention, in support of this opinion, that in Cornwall an ill-saved harvest is said to be “ill kerned,” and that throughout Devonshire the forming of the grain in the ear is called the “kerning” or “corning.” I must add that throughout Northumberland, when the last cart of corn