HARVEST SPORTS. HARVEST HOME. PLATE XXIV. THIS sport had also a Grecian origin. At the commencement of Autumn, the Grecian youths, crowned with ivy and vine leaves, danced with measured steps to the sound of pipes and tabours, to celebrate the blessings of plenty; and in their songs and dances, nothing was expressed but liberty, pleasure and joy. 66 as HENTZNER, a foreigner, who visited England at the close of the sixteenth century, says, we were returning to our inn (in or near Windsor), we happened to meet some country people celebrating their harvest-home. Their last load of corn they crown with flowers; having, besides, an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they signify Ceres: this they keep moving about, while the men and women, and men and maidservants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn." Moresin, another foreign writer, also tells us that he saw" in England, the country people bring home a figure made with corn, round which the men and the women were promiscuously singing, and preceded by a piper or a drum." In the north, says Mr. Brand, "not half a century ago, they used every where to dress up a figure at the end of harvest, which they called a kern-baby, plainly a corruption of corn-baby, as the kern or churn supper is of corn supper. "He that is lord of the Harvest Home," says Tusser Redivivus, "is generally some staid sober working man who understands all sorts of harvest work. If he be of able body, he commonly leads the swarth in reaping and mowing." Macrobius tells us "that among the ancients the masters of families, when they had got their harvest in, were wont to feast with their servants who had laboured for them in tilling the ground. In exact conformity with this, it is common among Christians, when the fruits of the earth are gathered in and laid in their proper repositories to provide a plentiful supper for the harvest men and servants of the family." The harvest-supper in some places is called a mell-supper, and a churn-supper. Mell is plainly derived from the French word mesler, to mingle together, the master and servant promiscuously at the same table. At the mell-supper, Bourne tells us, "the servant and his master are alike, and every thing is done with equal freedom: they sit at the same table; converse freely together; and spend the remaining part of the night in dancing and singing, without any difference or distinction. On this night, it is usual with the farmers to invite their neighbours, friends and relations, to the Harvest home. It was formerly the custom in the parish of Longforgan, in the county of Perth, to give what was called a Maiden Feast. Upon the finishing of the harvest, the last handful of corn reaped in the field, was called the Maiden. This was generally contrived to fall into the hands of one of the finest girls in the field, who was dressed up with ribbons and brought home in triumph with the music of fiddles and bagpipes. A good dinner was given to the whole band, and the evening spent in joviality and dancing, while the fortunate lass who took the Maiden was the queen of the feast; after which, this handful of corn was dressed out generally in the form of a cross, and hung up with the date of the year in some conspicuous part of the house. CLIMBING THE POLE. PLATE XXV. THIS is a common sport at harvest time, fairs, &c. A smooth pole of considerable height, and rendered slippery, is fastened upright in the ground. At the top and a little below it, certain more valuable prizes are fastened; and, about a foot lower, other prizes of less value. These generally consist of articles of dress or of food, which are to be the reward of the successful aspirant who shall first gain possession of it by climbing up. This climbing up, however, is evidently no easy matter: it is a difficult task at all times even with the vigorous application of hands and knees to ascend a tall, thin, straight and smooth pole; and, to perform this operation when the pole is by means of wax and soap rendered as slippery as a glacier, would appear too much for mortal skill. |