all four girls have entered the square, then their arms encircle each other's waists, and they dance round. Halliwell' describes a different action from any of these. A string of children, hand in hand, stand in a row. A child stands in front of them as leader; two other children form an arch, holding both of the hands of the other. The string of children pass under the arch, the last of whom is taken captive by the two holding hands. The verses are repeated until all are taken. A Belfast version of the song, collected by Mr. W. H. Patterson, is as follows: "Sift the lady's oaten meal, sift it into flour, Put it in a chest of drawers and let it lie an hour. One of my rush, Two of my rush, Please, young lady, come under my bush. It would be tedious to enumerate the many variants of the song, but the following is a plausible restoration compounded out of fifteen versions by Mrs. Gomme in her Traditional Games: "Draw a pail of water For a lady's daughter; Her father's a king, her mother's a queen, Stamping grass and parsley, Marigold leaves and daisies: Sift the lady's oatmeal, sift it into flour, Put it in a chestnut tree, let it lie an hour: 1 Nursery Rhymes, p. 63. 2 A. B. Gomme, Tradit. Games, i., p. 103. Give a silver pin and a gold ring. A see-sawing movement in the game probably represents the raising of water from a well. The incidents may be grouped as follows: (1) Drawing water from a well. (2) For a devotee at the well. (3) Collecting flowers for dressing the well. (4) Making a cake for presentation. (5) Gifts to the well (according to some versions, a silver pin, gold ring, and probably a garter). (6) Command of silence. (7) The presence of the devotee at the sacred bush. It can be by no mere chance that all of these are incidents of primitive well-worship. The "dressing" or adorning of wells by means of garlands occurred at Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, where on St. Boniface's Day the well was decorated with chaplets of flowers. It is, however, rare in England, except in the western counties, North Lancashire and Westmoreland, and especially on the borders.' Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and Shropshire comprise the main region of garland-dressing, and the practice has frequently been described. Mr. Gomme points out that in Worcestershire and Staffordshire the custom is simple; in Derbyshire and Shropshire other practices occur in connection with the well-dressing. Garland-dressing, though found in the eastern part of the latter county, is almost entirely absent from the western, 1 Tompkins, History of the Isle of Wight, ii., p. 121. Henderson, Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, p. 2. where wishing and healing wells are found.' On the hillside at Rorrington Green, in the parish of Chirbury, is a Halliwell, or Holy Well, at which a wake was celebrated on Ascension Day. The well was adorned with a bower of green boughs, rushes, and flowers, and a Maypole was set up. The people" used to walk round the hill with fife and drum and fiddle, dancing and frolicking as they went.' They threw pins into the well to bring good luck and to preserve them from being bewitched, and they also drank some of the water. Cakes were also eaten; they were round, flat buns, from three to four inches across, sweetened, spiced, and marked with a cross, and they were supposed to bring good luck if kept. The wake is said to have been discontinued about the year 1832 or 1834.❜ At the village of Girton, near Cambridge, a game which is evidently the same is called “ A Lump of Sugar." "Grind your mother's flour, Three sacks an hour, One in a rush, Two in a crush, Pray, old lady, creep under the bush." Mrs. Lawrence describes the game as follows: The girls form into sets of four, those facing one another join hands and sway backwards and forwards while singing. At" Pray, old lady," etc., the right and left arms of one couple are raised over the head of one of the opposite couple and dropped behind her back, thus enclosing her in a ring. This is repeated till all are, so to speak, inside the ring. They then jump round shouting, "A lump of sugar," till they are tired. The association of sugar with this game puzzled me very 1 Miss C. S. Burne, Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 414. 2 Loc. cit., p. 434. much till I came across the following four examples of drinking sugar-water at holy wells. The use of oatmeal in the first custom coincides with the versions, "Sift the lady's oaten meal, sift it into flour" (Belfast), and "Sieve my lady's oatmeal, grind my lady's flour" (Halliwell, No. cclxxxviii.). Country folk still resort to " Our Lady's Well," at Belper, in Derbyshire, bringing not only vessels from which to drink the water, but "noggins" in which to carry back a supply for home drinking. Afflicted persons have been seen bathing their limbs in the cold running water, and heard to say they were benefited by repeated applications. Belper children used to carry-at any time when they thought fit, and could get permission from their mothers-a mug or porringer, and a paper containing oatmeal and sugar, to the Lady Well, and there drink the mixture of meal, sugar, and water. This was the chief item of the afternoon's outing.' Sugar-cupping is another custom which survives here. On Easter Day young people and children go to the Dropping Well, near Tideswell [also in Derbyshire], with a cup in one pocket and a quarter of a pound of sugar [? honey] in the other, and having caught in their cups as much water as they wished from the droppings of the Tor-spring, they dissolved the sugar in it."" The Eas Well at Baschurch, in Shropshire, was frequented till a quarter of a century ago by young people, who went there on Palm Sunday to drink sugar and water and eat cakes. A clergyman who was present in 1830 speaks of seeing little boys scrambling for the lumps of sugar which escaped from the glasses and floated down the brook which flows from the spring into the river.' 1 R. C. Hope, The Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England, 1893, p. 53. Glover, History of Derbyshire, i., p. 307, quoted from Hope, loc. cit., p. 60. 3 Miss C. S. Burne, Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 432. It is customary for the younger folk to assemble on Sunday evenings and drink the water of St. Helen's Well (at Eshton, in Yorkshire) mixed with sugar. The ceremony appears now to have died out. It was in vogue late in the last century.' Great concourses of people from all parts used to assemble at Our Lady's Wells," or the "Holy Wells," near Long Witton, in Northumberland, on Midsummer Sunday and the Sunday following, and amuse themselves with leaping, eating gingerbread (brought for sale to the spot), and drinking the waters of the well. These wells had a high reputation for their very virtuous qualities; that farthest to the east is called the " Eye Well."'' It is possible that drinking sugar-water is a degradation from drinking a mixture of oatmeal, sugar, and water, and this again may be an abbreviated form of making a cake. Sugar was not a primitive comestible, its place was taken by honey; now honey mixed with meal, if flavoured, makes a kind of gingerbread, a confection that we find in the last example. Gingerbread is certainly a popular cake with the folk, and it is probably a very ancient one. Honey cakes were a favourite food with the ancients. Aristophanes, for example, in his Birds, pokes fun at Herakles for being so fond of them. There are any number of wells in the British Islands at which offerings are made; the following will serve as examples. At Sefton, in Lancashire, it was customary for passers-by to drop into St. Helen's Well a new pin "for good luck," or to secure the favourable issue of an expressed wish.' Pin-wells, as they are often popularly termed, are found in several places in Northumberland, Yorkshire, etc. 1 R. C. Hope, Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England, p. 204. Ibid., loc. cit., p. 108. 3 Baines, Lancashire and Cheshire, Past and Present, iii., 497; Notes and Queries, 5th series, x., p. 158. |