We have notices from both Perthshire and Ireland of | Burns, besides the above, are for the girls to pull

guage.

e 1st of November being partly regarded as the pro- stalks from a corn-stalk, and ascertain, from the prer time for returning thanks for the realised fruits of sence or absence of the top pickle, an interesting point e earth. The Irish, in this regard, called it La Mas in their moral history-for a solitary female to go to hal, that is, the day of the apple fruit, and celebrated a kiln, and throwing a blue clue into the pot to wind with a drink or mess composed of bruised roasted it, expecting that ere finished it will be held back, when, ples amongst ale or milk. This drink in time ac- by inquiring who holds, a response will be obtained ared the strange appellation of lamb's wool, a corrup-disclosing the name of the future husband-to eat an on, apparently, of the name of the day in the Celtic apple at a looking-glass, expecting to see a vision of the future husband peeping over the shoulder-to sow Ringing of bells was one of the modes of celebrating hemp-seed in the yard, saying, "Hemp-seed, I saw thee, allowmass in England in the days of our ancestors. hemp-seed, I saw thee, and her that is to be my true was a Roman Catholic practice, being designed in love come after me and draw thee," expecting that, on me way to favour the souls of departed Christians. looking over the shoulder, a vision will be obtained of or this reason Queen Elizabeth prohibited it. the future spouse in the act of pulling grown hempIt was also a custom of our Catholic forefathers to to win three wechts o' naething in the barn, expecting ve a cake baken on this eve for every member of the to see a like vision-to fathom a barley-stack thrice, mily, as a soul mass cake or soul cake. It was com- expecting at the last to embrace your mistress-to dip sed of oatmeal, and seeded; and pasties and furmety a shirt sleeve in a rivulet at the meeting point of the re incidental to the same evening. In families of lands of three proprietors, and then hang it by the fire od condition, a quantity were baken and set up on a to dry, trusting to see such a visionary person come ard, like the shew-bread in old pictures in the Bible, in and turn the other side-to pull stalks of deceased be given to visiters, or distributed amongst the poor. cabbages, blindfolded, without choice, and augur, from ere was a rhyme for the occasion-" A soul cake! their straightness or crookedness, the figure of the soul cake! Have mercy on all Christian souls for a future spouse, from the earth which clings to the root al cake!" People went from parish to parish a-soul- the fortune she will bring, and from the taste of the 7, as they called it, that is, begging in a kind of chant heart her temper-finally, to set three dishes on the soul-cakes, or any thing to make them merry on floor, one empty, one with clean, and one with foul is eve. It is very curious to find that a century and water, and cause the company to approach them blindnalf ago the inhabitants of St Kilda, so far removed folded and dip in a hand; when he who dips in the om all other parts of Britain, had a custom of baking empty one is expected to remain unmarried, he who large triangular cake, furrowed on the edges, on All dips in the foul one to marry to a widow, and he who ints' Night. dips in the clean one to marry a female not hitherto married. The whole of these rites are as familiar to the Welsh, Irish, and Northumbrian, as to the Ayrshire peasantry. Many of them are also practised in England on St John's Eve, the 23d of June.

Essentially connected with all these customs are those
tter known ones which Burns has so well and so faith-
ily described in his poem of Halloween. All over the
ritish islands, the festive and fortune-telling practices
this evening are very nearly the same. As some
oof of this, passages from an English, Irish, and
ottish poet may be presented side by side:-

Two hazel-nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name :
This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
That in a flame of brightest colour blazed;
As blazed the nut, so may thy passion grow,
For 'twas thy nut that did so brightly glow!
-The Spell, by Gay.

These glowing nuts are emblems true
Of what in human life we view;
The ill-matched couple fret and fume,
And thus in strife themselves consume;
Or from each other wildly start,
And with a noise for ever part.
But see the happy happy pair,
Of genuine love and truth sincere;

With mutual fondness, while they burn,
Still to each other kindly turn;
And as the vital sparks decay,

Together gently sink away:

Till life's fierce ordeal being past,

Their mingled ashes rest at last.

-Nuts Burning, All Halloweve, by Charles Graydon.

Jean slips in twa wi' tentie ee,

Wha 'twas she wadna tell;

But this is Jock and this is me,

She says in to hersel':

He bleezed owre her, and she owre him,
As they wad ne'er mair part,

Till fuff! he started up the lum,

And Jean had e'en a sair heart
To see't that night.

-Halloween, by Burns. Nats, besides being thus used for divination, are cracked nd eaten; and hence, in the north of England, All Hailow Eve is often called Nut-crack Night. Apples are also extensively eaten, this consumpt of fruit having probably some reference to the heathen character of the day, as that of thanksgiving for the produce of the season. The fortune-telling customs described by

Hallowe'en is still observed, but the more daring rites are generally given up. Meetings of young persons take place, and a plentiful store of nuts and apples being provided, a few simple amusements are practised. The experiment of the burning nuts, to test the durability of love or friendship, is still a favourite. Ducking for apples is another. A tub being provided, nearly full of water, and the fruit thrown in, the young people endeavour to seize an apple with their teeth-a task of much more difficulty than might be supposed, and which generally puts the dress and tresses of fair experimentalists into considerable disorder. The baffled efforts of the various parties raise, of course, shouts of laughter. Or a cross stick is suspended by a string from the ceiling, with a short burning candle on one end and an apple on the other. While it swings rapidly round, lads and lasses, with their hands tied, endeavour to catch the apple with their teeth, but generally suffer a good deal from the candle before they succeed in their object. Here, also, failure is a source of infinite amusement. It is rather remarkable that Burns has not introduced into his poem any notice of these sports, which, like the others, are prevalent over the whole of her Majesty's home dominions. It may not be out of place here to remark, that the jest of the apple and candle is nearly the same as that of the quintain, a favourite sport of our ancestors, commonly practised in summer. The quintain was a heroic figure of wood, on a vertical pivot, used as a butt for the practice of tilting. In this case it had a cross board, one end of which was broad, while the other was furnished with a heavy bag of sand. The trick was, to come tilt against the broad end, and escape receiving a knock-down blow from the sand-bag.

2. All Souls' Day, or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed.-A very solemn festival of the Romish Church, which has masses and ceremonies appropriate to the occasion, designed in favour of the souls of all the dead. Odillon, Abbot of Cluny, in the ninth century, first enjoined the ceremony of praying for the dead on this day in his own monastery; and the like practice was partially adopted by other religious houses

66

and there was an enigmatical proverb thener a
that "blood without groats was nothing," E-
that birth without fortune was of little value.
to near the end of the last century there KRS 2
family above the poorest condition in the rural de
of Scotland which had not a mart, or a share a
and salted meat was the only food of the kind: -
winter; now, there is no such practice known, «
as a matter of tradition.

until the year 998, when it was established as a general | in England, were composed of blood, suet, and festival throughout the western churches. To mark the pre-eminent importance of this festival, if it happened on a Sunday, it was not postponed to the Monday, as was the case with other such solemnities, but kept on the Saturday, in order that the church might the sooner aid the suffering souls; and that the dead might have every benefit from the pious exertions of the living, the remembrance of this ordinance was kept up by persons dressed in black, who went round the different towns, ringing a loud and dismal-toned bell at the corner of each street, every Sunday evening during the month, and calling upon the inhabitants to remember the deceased suffering the expiatory flames of Purgatory, and to join in prayers for the repose of their souls."*

5. The anniversary of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, and of the landing of King William III. in 1688; observed in the British dominions as a holiday, and celebrated by the Church of England by a form of prayer with thanksgiving. There is also a popular celebration of this day. From an early hour, the boys go about collecting materials for a bonfire, or money wherewith to purchase them. In some, perhaps most places, they carried with them a frightful figure composed of an old suit of clothes stuffed with straw, to represent Guy Fawkes. They called on the passengers and householders to "remember Guy," or shouted some balderdash rhymes. In the evening, the bonfire is lighted, with Guy Fawkes in the middle of it, amidst tumultuous merriment. The firing of guns as a token of rejoicing, we are glad to say, are now discontinued on this day, and we trust the other absurd usages will soon likewise disappear.

Martin, in whose honour this festival was t instituted, is said to have been born in Lower Hu about 316, and to have originally been a soldier. a number of miraculous adventures, he settled i hermit in the hollow of a rock near Tours in the s of France, where he was greatly venerated. He bishop of Tours in 397. When a few fine days cer about this time of the year, they were called St M.

summer.

23. St Clement's Day, in the Church of E calendar. Clement is spoken of by St Paul as his fellow-labourers. Monkish imagination has • plied him with a history and a martyrdom. He s to have been thrown into the sea with an anchor: about his neck. An anchor is therefore assajar. him as an emblem: of this the metropolis prese conspicuous memorial in the anchor which form vane of the church of St Clement Danes, in the S St Clement is held as the patron saint of the smiths. It was formerly customary for boys, a lower class of people generally, to go about on the begging for liquor, wherewith they made a regu night. Hence, in a certain class of old almanas. day was signified by the figure of a pot.

29. This is one of the days on which Advent v commence. Advent [literally, the Coming) is a år applied from an early period of ecclesiastical hist.the four weeks preceding Christmas, which were served with penance and devotion, in reference r approaching birth of Christ. There are four St in Advent, the first of which is always the pes" Sunday to St Andrew's Day (November 30).

11. St Martin's Day, or Martinmas, in the Church of England calendar. Popularly, this is one of the most remarkable days of the year, especially in Scotland, where Whitsunday and Martinmas are the two great terms for leases and engagement of servants, the latter being that at which the occupation of farms usually commences. Formerly, it was a quarterly term day in England: a payment of corn at Martinmas occurs in the Doomsday Survey. On the continent, 30. St Andrew's Day.-The festival day of this s from an early age, the day has been distinguished con- is retained in the Church of England calendar. vivially; and this apparently for two reasons, namely, Andrew was one of the apostles."His history, as that now the people first tasted the wines of the season, lated by the Catholic writers, represents him as and killed the animals required to be salted for their tyred in the year 66 at Patræ in Greece, upon a winter provisions. The entrails of these animals, pre- of the form of the letter X, which accordingly pared as sausages, or blood-puddings, became the sub-recognised as St Andrew's Cross. A supposed res ject of an immediate feast, while the rest of the meat was salted and set aside. In some countries, also, the goose, which is elsewhere enjoyed at Michaelmas, was now presented. The killing of beeves at Martinmas for winter provision was formerly universal in northern Europe, in consequence of there being no means of keeping them alive in winter; since the improvement of husbandry in some countries, the custom has been given up, and fresh meat used all the year round. The feasting upon the entrails was equally universal. So much was all this associated with Martinmas, that in Scotland a beeve killed at that time was called a mart, or mairt. In the old book of laws attributed (erroneously) to David I. of Scotland, it is provided that "the fleshours sall serve the burgessis all the time of the slauchter of Mairts." In Northumberland, also, a Martinmas bullock is called a mart. Tusser, in his curious metrical treatise on husbandry, written in the time of Henry VIII., says

When Easter comes, who knows not than
That veal and bacon is the man?

And Martinmas beef doth bear good tack,
When country folks do dainties lack.

this cross, carried to Brussels in the middle ages, cas
its figure to be adopted as a badge for the kughu
the Golden Fleece. Some relics of the apostle him.
are said to have been carried by a Greek devotee na
St Regulus, to Scotland, where they were placed
church built at a place which subsequently became
tinguished by the name of St Andrews. St Andryer,
became the seat of the Scottish primacy; and from 1 -
cause probably it was that St Andrew was in time ~ ~
sidered as the patron saint of Scotland. In that
try, however, there is scarcely any observance of:
day in any manner; it is only when Scotsmen.
abroad, and have occasion to select a day for an anr:
convivial meeting, that St Andrew's Day comes
notice. There used to be a procession of Scotston &
this day in London, with singed sheeps' heads bar
before them. It is remarkable that St Andrew
a tutelar saint of the Russians, probably in conseque
of the Greek locality of his martyrdom. There a
ancient and widely prevalent custom connected
St Andrew's Day, to which Luther has adver
Maidens, on the eve of this day, stripped themse
and sought to learn what sort of husbands they wat

Bishop Hall, in his Satires, written in the time of have by praying in these terms-" Oh, St Andrew, James I., mentions

-Dried flitches of some smoked beeve,

Hang'd on a writhen wythe since Martin's eve.

that I obtain a good pious husband; to-night show the figure of the man who will take me to wife." Natural History. In this month the busine› vegetation experiences its death. The trees are

pears that the contents of the puddings, as made thoroughly stripped of their foliage. It is repe

"Brady's Clavis Calendaria.'

a gloomy month; but the temperature is socastan

reeable in the earlier part of it, and its average for whole term is 43 degrees. A considerable number plants remain in flower throughout November. The om of the month is said to have a depressing effect the spirits of the English nation; let those who are ble to such influences lay to heart the following rerks of Johnson in the "Idler:"-" The distinction seasons is produced only by imagination acting upon ury. To temperance every day is bright, and every ur is propitious to diligence. He that resolutely exes his faculties, or exerts his virtues, will soon make self superior to the seasons, and may set at defiance morning mist and the evening damp, the blasts of e east and the clouds of the south. Instead of look-church calendar, probably from an anthem sung on for spring with anxious and caring mind, enjoy the esent day; there are pleasures even in November."

brought forth its young at the winter solstice. To account for the preservation of the nest and young amidst the severity of the season, they imagined that the bird had a power of lulling the raging of the waves during the period of incubation; and this power was believed to reside in its song.

DECEMBER.

So called as being originally the tenth of the Roman ar. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called December inta monat, that is, winter month; but, after beming acquainted with Christianity, this name was anged into heligh monat, or holy month, with rerence to the celebration of the nativity on its twentyth day.

6. St Nicholas's Day.-Retained in the Church of gland calendar. St Nicholas was Archbishop of yra, in Greece, A. D. 342. He is regarded as the tron saint of children and of mariners, probably in msequence of his benevolent zeal in the protection orphans and stranded seamen. Churches built near e sea are in many instances dedicated to St Nicholas. e is also said to have shown much kind interest in e fate of young women, sometimes secretly throwing rses into the chamber-windows of those who lacked wries. Hence has arisen a custom prevalent over large part of the Christian world. On his eve, preats are hid in the shoes of those to whom any one shes to give a pleasing surprise; and these, being ind in the morning, are jocularly said to be gifts m St Nicholas.

13. St Lucia's Day-Retained in the Church of England calendar. St Lucia was a young lady of Syracuse, who obtained a high character for a devout and charitable life, and died in the year 304. The last of the four series of Ember Days commences on the Wednes day following this festival.

16. O Sapientia.-This day is so marked in the

this day in the Romish Church, beginning, " O sapientia quæ ex ore altissimi prodidisti," &c.

21. St Thomas the Apostle, a festival of the English Church. It was customary in England for women to go a-gooding on St Thomas's Day; that is, they went about begging money, and presenting in return sprigs of palm and bunches of primroses, probably with a view to the decoration of their houses against Christmas.

25. Christmas Day, observed from an early period as the nativity of our Lord, and celebrated not only by the religious ceremonies from which the name of the day is partly taken, but by popular festivities of the most joyful kind. In England, Christmas is held by the church as a solemn festival, and distinguished by the complete cessation of business-an honour paid to no other day besides Good Friday. But within the last hundred years, the festivities once appropriate to the day have much fallen off. These at one time lasted with more or less brilliancy till Candlemas, and with great spirit till Twelfth Day; but now a meeting in the evening, little different from a common dinner party, though sure to be marked by a roast and plum-pudding, and pretty generally followed by a game at cards, is all that distinguishes Christmas in most families.

In former times, the celebration of Christmas began in the latter part of the previous day-Christmas Eve. The house was first decked with holly, ivy, and other evergreens. Candles of an uncommon size were St Nicholas is also considered as the tutelar saint of then lighted, under the name of Christmas Candles; an olars, or clerks, and of robbers. The fraternity of enormous log, called the Yule Clog, or Christmas Block, rish-clerks have thought themselves entitled by their was laid upon the fire: the people sat round, regaling me to adopt him as their patron. How robbers should themselves with beer. In the course of the night, ve come to be called St Nicholas's clerks, or St Ni- small parties of songsters went about from house to olas's knights, it is not easy to see, unless it were house, or through the streets, singing what were called m the coincidence of his name with one of the slang Christmas Carols-simple popular ditties full of joyful pellations of the devil. allusions to the great gift from God to man in the Throughout the middle ages, there was a universal Redeemer. A mass was commenced in the churches stom of electing a kind of mock bishop on St Nicho- at midnight, a custom still kept up in the Catholic 's Day. A boy, possibly taken from amongst the Church. At one period, the people had a custom of oristers, was chosen by his associates as bishop, ar-wassailing the fruit trees on this evening; that is, they yed in suitable vestments, and indued with appro- took a wassail bowl, threw a toast from it to the tree, ate powers, which he enjoyed for some days. The and sung a song, expecting thus to secure a good crop ant prelate was led along in a gay procession, bless- of fruit the next season. It was thought that, during the grinning multitude as he went, and he was even the night, all water was for a short time changed into owed to sing mass and to mount the pulpit and wine, and that bread baked on this eve would never ach. Edward I., in his way to Scotland in 1299, become mouldy. These notions are essentially foolish, ird vespers by a boy bishop at the chapel of Heton, but as they are all well-meant adorations of the simple ir Newcastle. The boy bishop at Salisbury is said spirit of the people, they should not be hastily conhave had the power of disposing of any prebends demned. t fell vacant during his term of office; and one who d at that time had a monument in the cathedral, resenting him in his episcopal robes. Mr Warton af opinion that we see some faint traces of the rise dramatic entertainments in the strange mummeries mected with the election of the Boy Bishop.

The Conception of the Blessed Virgin in the Romish
English calendars.

11. The fourteen days from this to Christmas Eve
re called the Halcyon Days, and supposed to be, in
air calm and tranquil character, an exception from
3 season. The term, which is now a regular adjec-
e in our language, is derived from the bird, king-
her or halcyon, which, from the days of Aristotle at
st, has been the subject of a curious superstition. The
cients supposed that it built its nest on the ocean, and

The carols were more generally sung in the morning of Christmas Day. A contributor to the "Gentleman's Magazine" in 1811, describing the manner in which Christmas is celebrated in the North Riding of Yorkshire, says: "About six o'clock on Christmas Day I was awakened by a sweet singing under my window; surprised at a visit so early and unexpected, I arose, and looking out of the window, I beheld six young women and four men welcoming with sweet music the blessed morn." It may scarcely be imagined how delightfully at such a moment would fall upon the halfslumbering ear such strains as the following:God rest you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay, For Jesus Christ our Saviour Was born upon this day,

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