ous lines. Some scholars
regard them as Christianizations of the pagan god Woden; but they might
also be taken as akin to the "first-foots" whom we shall meet on January
1--visitors who bring good luck--or as maskers connected with animal
sacrifices (Pelzmaerte suggests this), or again as related to the Boy
Bishop, the Lord of Misrule and the Twelfth Night King. May I suggest
that some at least of their aspects could be explained on the supposition
that they represent administrants of primitive vegetation sacraments, and
that these administrants, once ordinary human beings, have taken on the
name and attributes of the saint who under the Christian dispensation
presides over the festival? In any case it is a strange irony of history
that around the festival of Martin of Tours, the zealous soldier of
Christ and deadly foe of heathenism, should have gathered so much that is
unmistakably pagan.

|209| |210| |211|

CHAPTER VIII

ST. CLEMENT TO ST. THOMAS

St. Clement's Day Quests and Processions--St. Catherine's Day as
Spinsters' Festival--St. Andrew's Eve Auguries--The
_Kloepfelnaechte_--St. Nicholas's Day, the Saint as Gift-bringer, and
his Attendants--Election of the Boy Bishop--St. Nicholas's Day at
Bari--St. Lucia's Day in Sweden, Sicily, and Central Europe--St.
Thomas's Day as School Festival--Its Uncanny Eve--"Going
a-Thomassin'."

ST. CLEMENT'S DAY.

The next folk-feast after Martinmas is St. Clement's Day, November 23,
once reckoned the first day of winter in England.{1} It marks apparently
one of the stages in the progress of the winter feast towards its present
solstitial date. In England some interesting popular customs existed on
this day. In Staffordshire children used to go round to the village
houses begging for gifts, with rhymes resembling in many ways the
"souling" verses I have already quoted. Here is one of the Staffordshire
"clemencing" songs:--

"Clemany! Clemany! Clemany mine!
A good red apple and a pint of wine,
Some of your mutton and some of your veal,
If it is good, pray give me a deal;
If it is not, pray give me some salt.
Butler, butler, fill your bowl;
If thou fill'st it of the best,
The Lord'll send your soul to rest;
If thou fill'st it of the small,
Down goes butler, bowl and all. |212|

Pray, good mistress, send to me
One for Peter, one for Paul,
One for Him who made us all;
Apple, p