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custom was to be noticed in our boyhood, in several parts of this county, on the 

 eve of Twelfth Day, I mean "Burning the Bush." A writer in Notes and Queries, 

 in May, 1852, testifies to having noticed the custom in the previous spring, in 

 Herefordshire, probably then with the springing of the later sown wheat. "When 

 the wheat," he says, "is just springing out of the ground, the farmers' servants 

 rise before daybreak, and cut a thorn branch of a particular kind. They then 

 make a large fire in the field, in which they burn a portion ; the remainder is 

 afterwards hung up in the house. This they do to prevent the smut or mildew 

 affecting the wheat {Notes and Queries, vol. v., 1st ser., p. 437). The writer doubt- 

 less had made his observations perfunctorily, or else at the later ceremony of 

 burning the bush, details were not of so much concern as on Twelfth Day Eve. 

 At that time the custom was for all the servants of every farmer to assemble in 

 one of the fields that had been sown with wheat. At the end of twelve lands they 

 made twelve fires in a row, with straw, around one of which, larger than the rest, 

 they drank a cheerful glass of cider to their master's health, and then returned 

 home to feast on cake made with carraways and soaked in cider. Duncumb, who 

 perhaps confuses this custom with " wassailing," or "health wishing" proper, 

 because that is a feature in it, noted thirteen fires on the growing wheat, traces 

 the custom to the Roman festival of Ceres, and adds the peculiar custom of the 

 visit of the farmer and his household to the wainhouse on return from the field, 

 when a toast was proposed, a cake stuck on the horn of a favourite ox, which 

 cake, according as the ox, when tickled, threw it fore or aft, became the property 

 of the bailifif, or the lowest servant. The fires are said to represent the Saviour 

 and His Twelve Apostles. We have missed, in its order, an ancient custom which 

 in some parts of Herefordshire (Duncumb specially mentions Dinedor) was asso- 

 ciated with "Holy Wells." The subject of wells, and the honour and adoration 

 paid to them by the heathen, for their supposed healing virtues, is large enough 

 for a volume in itself, and is ably and compendiously put in Mr. D. R. Thomas (a 

 brother archaeologist's) valuable History of the Diocese of St. Asaph. Here we are 

 only at present concerned with what Duncumb says was a custom as regarded the 

 well in Dinedor parish, in his day. " Each New Year's Day there was a contest 

 there for the first pailful of water, which was termed the "cream of the well," 

 and presented to some neighbour as a mark of respect and pledge of good fortune." 

 The custom, in truth, is more homely and unromantic than many we wot of else- 

 where, especially in Wales, anent wells and their legends. It does not realize 

 the finer fancy of the old dramatist, as to 



The spring that with its thousand crystal bubbles 

 Bursts from the bosom of some desert rock 

 In secret solitude, which may well be deemed 

 The haunt of something purer, more refined, 

 And mightier than ourselves. 



Mr. Mucklestone informs me that on Mr. Oatridge's farm, there is a very 

 remarkable spring, to which people from a distance used to resort, for the cure of 

 sore eyes and other ailments. He believes that the rivalry for the " cream of the 

 well " was an institution of "long, long ago " in Dinedor, but not in the memory 

 of any one now living. On the other hand, it does not descend, as some customs 



