The Sun.
London, England, 1825-01-01 00:00:00

OLD CUSTOMS on NEW YEAR'S DAY.

This festive day appears to have been observ-
ed at all periods, and in nearly every nation, as a season of
more than ordinary jollity, as the vulgar, says Bowme, are al-
ways very careful to end the old year well, so are they no less
solicitous of making a good beginning of the new one. The
old one is ended with a hearty composition ; the new one is
opened with the custom of sending presents, which are termed
New Year's Gifts, to friends and acquaintances. He resolves
both customs into superstition, as being observed that the suc-
ceeding year ought to be prosperous and successful.
The record Of rural festivity and amusement, must, as far as
it is unaccompanied by any detail of riot or intemperance, he a
subject of pleasing contemplation to every good and cheerful
mind. Labour, the destined portion of by far the greater part
of human beings, requires frequent intervals of relaxation;
and the encouragement of innocent diversion at stated periods,
may be considered, both in a moral and political point of view,
as essentially useful. Unfortunately the license on these oc-
casions is too often abused.
The ushering in of the New Year, or New Year's tide, with
rejoicings, presents, and good wishes, was a custom observed
during the sixteenth century, with great parade and regularity,
and is still kept up in various parts of the country. In old
times, the young women in the country, on the New Year's Eve,
went about with the wassail bowl, which was the same that is
called the gossip's bowl in Shakspeare's lifidsummer Night's
Dream. The composition was ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and
roasted crabs Or apples. It was also called Lamb's wool.
" A massey bowl, to deck the jovial day,
Flash'd from its ample round a sunlike ray
Full many a century it shone forth to grace
The festive spirit of the Andarton race.
As to the sons of sacred union dear,
It welcomed with Lamb': Wool the rising year".

This custom of wassailing, Dr. Milner informs us, (" Ar-
chavalogia" v. xi.) was not all abOlished by the introduction.of
Christianity among us, though one certainly of Heathen ori-
gin. On the contrary, it began to assume a sort of religious
aspect; and the wassail bowl itself, which in great monasteries
was placed on the Abbot's table, at the upper end of the re-
fectory or eating-hall, to be circulated among the community
at his discretion, received the honourable appellation of Pocu-
tans Chatitatis. This in our Universities is now called the
Grace Cup. It was practised, as we learn from the collection
of Ordinances for the Royal Household, published by the An-
tiquarian Society, at the Court of Henry VII., at which time
it appears that the ancient custom of pledging each other out of
the same bowl or cup, had given place to the more elegant
practice of each person having his own cup, and that " when
the steward came in at the door with the wassel, he was to crie
three times, r✓uss;l, wassel, wassclt and then the chaplain was

to answer with a song."
Another custom still observed in Cumberland on New Year's-
eve, is Mentioned in Ilutchinson's History of that county—
" On the eve of the new year," says he, " the children go from
house to house, singing a ditty which craves the bounty ' they
were wont to have in Old King Edward's days.' rhere is no
tradition whence this custom arose ; the donation is two-pence,
or a pve at every, house. We have to lament that so negligent
are the people of the morals of youth, that great part of the
salutation is obscene and offensive to chaste ears. It certainly
has been derived, the author observes, from the vile orgies of
heathens."

" Druidian customs of going out to cut the misletoe," Sel-
den says, " some have grounded a custom on, to this day
used in France ; where the younger country-fellows about
New Year-tide, in every village give the wish of good fortune
at the inhabitants' doors, with this acclamation, " Au quy l'An
Neuf," i. c. to the misletoe this New Year; which, as I re-
member, in Rabelais, is read all in one word, for the same
purpose."
In Scotland it is still observed as a custom, and particularly
at Glasgow, to distribute sweet cakes, and a certain kind of
sugared bread, called short bread, for several days before and
after the new year, and on the last night of the old year (pecu-
liarly called Ilagnianai), the visiters and company make " a
point of not separating until after the clock has struck twelve,
when they rise, and mutually kissing each other, wish each
other a happy new year. Of the lower orders many parade the
streets, carrying a jug or kettle full of whisky toddy, of which
they invite such acquaintance as they meet to partake, seldom,
parting, if each are of the opposite sex, without a salute. In
other parts of Scotland it is customary, upon the last night of
the old year, for the children to go about from door to door,
asking for bread and cheese, which they call nog-money, in
these words :
" Get up, gudewife, and buino sweir (be not lazy),
And deal your cakes and cheese, while you are here ;
For the time will come when ye'll be dead,
And neither need your cheese nor bread."

Dr. Plot, in his History of Staffordshire, mentions that,
within memory, at Abbot's or I'aget's Bromley, they had a
sort of sport, which they celebrated on New Year's Day, cal-
led the hobby-horse dance, from a person who carried the figure
of a horse between his legs, made of thin boards, and in
his hands a bow and arrow. The latter passing through a hole
in the bow, 'and stopping on a shoulder, made a snapping
noise when drawn to and fro, keeping time with the music.—
With this man danced six others, carrying on their shoulders
as many rein-deer heads, with the arms of the chief families to.
whom the revenues of the town belonged. Thep danced the
heys and other country dances. To the above hobby-horse
dance there belonged a pot ; all people who had any kindness
for the good intent of the institution of the sport giving pence
a-piece for themselves and families. Foreigners also that came
to see it contributed ; and the money, after defraying the ex-
pence of the cakes and ale, went to repair the church and sup-
port the poor : which charges, adds the Doctor, are not now,
perhaps, so cheerfully borne.
Prynne in his " Histrio-Illastrix," speaks with his usual
malignity of both Christmas and New-year's sports, but
affords us at the same time an insight as to the manner in
which it was then customary to celebrate those festivals :
Our Bacchanalian Christmasses and New-years' tides
with these Saturnalia and Feasts of Janus, we shall find
between them both such neat affinitiye in regard to time
(they being both in the end of December and first of
January), and in their manner of solemnizing (both of
them being spent in revelling, epicurisme, wantonnesse,
idlenesse, dancing, drinking, stage-plaies, masques, and
carnall pomp and jollity), that we must needes conclude the
one to be but the very ape or issue of the other. Hence Po-
lydore Virgil affirms in expresse tearmes that our Christmas
Lords of Misrule (which custom, saith he, is chiefly observed
in England), together with dancing, masques, mummeries,
stage-player, and such other Christmas disorders now in use
with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalia and
ilacchanalian Festivals; which (concludes he) should cause all
.pious eternally to abominate them."
At Bamff, in Scotland, we are told by Sir John Sinclair, "on
the first night in January, they observe, with anxious attention,.
the disposition of the atmosphere. As it is calm or boisterous ;
as the wind blows from the South or the North ; from the East
or the West ; they prognosticate the nature of the weather till
the conclusion of the year. The first night of the New Year,
when the wind blows from the West, they call dar-na-coille,
the night of the fecundation of the trees ; and from this circum-
stance has been derived the name of that night in the Gaelic
language. Their faith in the above signs is couched in verse
(thus translated.)
" The wind of the South will be productive of heat and fer-
tility ; the wind of the west, of milk and fish ; the wind from
the North, of cold and storm ;- the wind from the East, of fruit
on the trees."
* l'olwhele's Old English Gentleman, p. 117-