CHAPTER XXVII. CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING DAYS AND SEASONS. V. HARVEST. “Ah, what a time it is, that finishing day of the harvest! ERHAPS nothing in all the range of country life has undergone a more complete and more recent change than has the ingathering of the harvest since the introduction. of reaping-machines some twenty years ago. Even before that time, dissatisfaction with the old slow methods of reaping and 'badging,' or 'swiving,' was widely felt; and the sickle was already giving place to the 'broad hook,' and that to the scythe, when all alike made way for the machine.'1 And the agricultural labourers of the present generation often do not even know the correct names, much less the uses, of the time-honoured tools with which their fathers toiled so patiently day after day from dawn to dark.2 1 When first introduced, this was commonly called the 'engine' at Edgmond: while a steam-engine was known as a 'steamer,' or 'stemmer.' 2 For descriptions of the various ancient methods of harvesting, see Shropshire Word-Book, s. v. Badge, Bag, Shear, Swine, Saw-Sickle, Taskers, Flygang, etc. BK. II. BB Nothing so surely makes the white-haired grandsire sitting silent in his chimney-corner, rouse into life and become an old man eloquent,' as asking him about the harvests of old days. It is like the cry of the hounds to the old hunter, or the sound of the trumpet to the worn-out charger. The pleasure of companionship in labour, the emulation of man against man, of farm against farm, the triumph of the successful strife with Nature, the material enjoyment of good meat and drink at the master's expense, the feast which wound up the whole, seem to have made harvest the brightest time of the year to the toilers in the fields. Nor was it much less so to the village tradesmen, who could all reap as well as the labourers, and who made it their annual holiday. The blacksmith, the wheelwright, the cobbler, and the tailor, all turned out and worked for their customers in turn, getting the best of every thing every day,' said William Holmes enthusiastically, but receiving no wages. These days spent in the harvest were 'gift days,' and were repaid by the farmer in kind, when he sent his waggons and horses to 'lug coal' for his friendly helpers next winter.1 Then there was the excitement of the 'Rep.' Reaping, in Salopian parlance, is 'lat work,' i. e. it is tedious, and a small farmer, who 'had not much strength about him,' that is to say, had but a small staff of labourers, would sometimes find the season of harvest passing away, and his crops yet out-standing. So it was not unusual for the farmers around to unite and send all their men on a certain day into their neighbour's field, and then in the words of old John Thomas,2 speaking of his youth at Bishop's Castle, they would 'have a big rep, twenty or thirty in a field, and get it all down in one swath.' The farmer, whose friends thus came to his aid, of course found provender for the reapers, and returned their help in kind as they needed it. This kindly old custom declined at Pulverbatch about the year 1820. A' pail When the reaping was finished, the reapers had a race. o' waiter' was brought into the field and a posy tied to the handle : this was the goal, and whoever could get there the first' had the Compare Shropshire Word-Book, s. v. Love carriage. 2 John Thomas died 1885, aged 77: buried at Berrington, February 21st. posy to wear in his 'boasom,' and, it may be shrewdly suspected, a good drenching from the contents of the pail when he disengaged the trophy.1 So said John Thomas, but as William Holmes observed, different places han different customs,' and this usage, even if not confined to the Bishop's Castle neighbourhood, was certainly by no means so wide-spread as the ceremony of Cutting the Gander's neck off,' which also was practised at the end of the reaping. The neck, or 'Gonder's neck' was a group of perhaps twenty ears of corn, left standing and knotted together in the middle of the field when all the rest was 'down.' The men, standing at from ten to twenty paces distance, threw their sickles at it in turn, the leading reaper first, and the rest in order due. Whoever succeeded in cutting off the neck was reckoned the 'best mon,' and carried it home in triumph to the master's wife, expecting an extra 'mug o' drink' as his reward. The Missis,' who received this offering, was supposed to keep it in the house for good luck' until the next harvest-time came round.3 Mr. Robert Dayus (Longnor) dates the decline of this custom about 1856. 2 The Devonshire reapers tie up the last few ears with ribbons and flowers, and hang the bunch in the barn. They too call it a 'neck.' The reapers in Northumberland and Durham when their task is done make a 'kern-baby' or 'mell-doll,' and preserve it from harvest to harvest, but they give it a rude likeness to a human figure, and carry it home in triumph, dancing and singing. The harvest rite here has reached the stage of culture at which 'a few scratches and 1 In Cornwall, the man who gets the 'neck' runs with it to the house, where a girl stands in the doorway with a bucket of water to throw over him. If he can get into the house without being drenched he is privileged to give her a kiss. (HUNT, Popular Romances of the West of England, 3rd ed., p. 386.) At various places in the counties of Northants, Bucks, and Beds, the neighbours, especially the young women, follow the last load, throwing bowls of water upon the labourers. (STERNBERG, Dialect and Folklore of Northants, p. 177. BRAND, Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 16.) Compare Easter Heaving Customs, ante, p. 336. 2 Thomas Wilkinson of Much Wenlock (born 1796) spoke of one ear only. 3 Cutting the Neck is the last handful of standing corn, which when it is cut down, the Reapers give a Shout, and fall to Eating and Drinking; it being the end of that Man's Harvest for that year.' RANDLE HOLME, Academy of Armory, Book III. ch. iii. p. 73 (penes G. F. J.). HENDERSON, Folklore of the Northern Counties, pp. 87-89. BB 2 daubs of paint suffice to convert the 'fetish' into an 'idol:'1 while the neck of Shropshire and the southern counties appears to occupy a position midway between the idol-like kern-baby and such vegetable-talismans as the New Year's mistletoe. There is a savour of primitive magic about the Shropshire method of severing it by a sort of chance blow. In some parts of Germany it is customary to leave the last few ears of corn uncut for Woden's share,'' fodder for Woden's horse,' and so on (as the Scotch used to leave the 'goodman's croft' untilled for the use of the local dæmon): in other places the frugal nature of the people seems to have affected the old custom, and after the harvesters have tied up the bunch of corn with ribbons, leaped over it, and sung and danced around it, the principal reaper cuts it with his scythe and throws it to the other sheaves. Elsewhere, again, they make the last sheaf into a sort of puppet, and carry it home in triumph, calling it the old man.2 Certainly the ceremonies attendant on the joy of harvest' and the rustic worship of the gods of agriculture can have changed. but little in character since first the tribes of the Teutons overspread the north of Europe, and fared thence to the Islands of the West! Miss Jackson's MSS. (borne out by the testimony of farmers and their labourers all over the county) clearly distinguish between Cutting the Neck at the end of the reaping, and Crying the Mare at the end of the harvest, which previous writers seem to have confounded together.3 1 TYLOR, Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 168. 2 THORPE, Northern Mythology, Vol. 1. p. 274, and Vol. III. p. 142. 3 Viz. HARTSHORNE, Salopia Antiqua, p. 498. BLOUNT, Glossographia, p. 395 (ed. 1674), penes G. F. J. The confusion is the less surprising as in some places the two customs seem really to have been blended together, the neck being left standing till the field was cleared. Mrs. Bray tells how in a country expedition she saw a party of reapers standing in a circle on a rising ground, holding their sickles aloft. One in the middle held up some ears of corn tied together with flowers, and the party shouted three times (what she writes as) Arnack, arnack, arnack, we haven, we haven, we haven.' They went home accompanied by women and children carrying boughs of flowers, shouting and singing. The manservant who attended Mrs. Bray, said, 'it was only the people making their games as they always did, to the spirit of harvest!' Crying, calling, or shouting the mare, is a ceremony performed by the men of that farm which is the first in any parish or district to finish the harvest. The object of it is to make known their own prowess, and to taunt the laggards by a pretended offer of the 'owd mar' to help out their' chem.'1 All the men assemble (the wooden harvest-bottle being of course one of the company) in the stackyard, or-better-on the highest ground on the farm, and there shout the following dialogue, preceding it by a grand 'Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!' 'I 'ave 'er, I 'ave 'er, I 'ave 'er!' 'Whad 'ast thee, whad 'ast thee, whad 'ast thee?' 'A mar' a mar'! a mar'!' 'Whose is 'er, whose is 'er, whose is 'er?' 'Maister A.'s, Maister A.'s, Maister A.'s!' (naming the farmer whose harvest is finished). 'W'eer sha't the' send 'er? w'eer sha't the' send 'er? w'eer sha't the' send 'er?' 'To Maister B.'s, to Maister B.'s, to Maister B.'s' (naming one whose harvest is not finished). "Uth a hip, hip, hip, hurrah!' (in chorus).1 At Longnor, near Leebotwood, not content with 'crying' or offering the services of an imaginary mare, it was usual up to about 1850 to send the mare' to the neighbouring farms. The head man of the farmer who had finished harvest first,' writes Mr. Robert Dayus, speaking from his boyish recollections of his father's farm, 'was mounted on the best horse in the team, the leader,--both horse and man being adorned with ribbons, streamers, etc. arrayed, a boy on foot led the pair in triumph to the neighbouring farmhouses. Sometimes the man who took the "mare" received, as well as plenty of harvest ale, some rather rough, though goodhumoured, treatment, coming back minus his decorations, and so on.' Thus -Traditions of Devon, Vol. I. p. 330. Arnack, we haven!' is obviously, in the Devon dialect, 'A neck (or nack)! we have un!' 1 Chem team. Mr. Hartshorne says that the last farmer, who cannot send the mare to any one else, is said to keep her all the winter.' |