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do, to a meaningless roughness and rowdyism. We read apropos of St. Kenelm a 

 Wake at Klent Church, in Salop, on that Saxon Saint's Day, the 17th of July, 

 "there was a singular custom of pelting each other with crabs (whence it was 

 nicknamed ' crabs' wake '), and that even the clergyman seldom escaped, going to 

 or from the chapel." It is hard to see what this usage could have had to do with 

 the youthful martyr, St. "Kenelm ; but perhaps I need not tell you that this 

 " pelting with crabs " is still, as it ever has been, a customary ceremony of certain 

 Herefordshire wakes. Traces of it are still to be found in the " Golden Valley, 

 atUrishay, Dorstone, and Fowmind feasts; and I am informed by an eye-vatness 

 of intelligent and accurate observation, that pelting with crabs is, to this day, a 

 popular accessory of a parish wake not more than two miles from my own doors. 

 We forbear to quote from Brand the vulgar explanation of the institution of crab- 

 bine^ the parson," which ascribes it to the clerk's retaliation in crabs for a casual 

 dumpling or two, which the parson had secreted in his sleeves, and which fell, 

 peradventure, on the head of sleek John, after which he commenced proceedings, 

 with the notice—" Two can play at that, master." 



I pass over various other customs for one which is especially Herefordian, 

 and which I trust will long continue so-I mean the practice, after primitive 

 custom, of regarding the fourth Sunday in Lent (Mid-Lent Sunday) as Mothering 

 Sunday-" The Sunday of Refreshment" in the midst of our solemn fast of 40 

 days, whereon children visit their parents, young apprentices and girls who have 

 left the parish school for domestic purposes, come back to get a brief, but whole- 

 some, and often blessed taste of home and the parish church; and all seems fit and 

 meet for the Sunday of reflection, in that the Gospel for the day exhibits the 

 Saviour miraculously feeding five thousand, and the first lesson in the morning 

 contains the story of Joseph entertaining his brethren. The Epistle, ^o, has its 

 ancient fitness in the words, " But Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the 

 mother of us all,"-a text on which I may be pardoned for saying that it was once 

 my lot to preach in the Cathedral Church of this city, on Mid-Lent Sunday, and 

 to find a query in Notes and Queries, shortly afterwards, from a casual visitor at 

 the Cathedral upon the Sunday night in question, asking for more particulars of 

 the custom. In the ancient notices of the custom, one reads of a tribute of cakes 

 to the old folk at home, which is a natural requital of their cares of nurture. An 

 easy transition made this, in Christian ages, an offering at the high altar. The 

 Simnel cake, still not wholly out of date at Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Gloucester, or, 

 I dare say, in some parts of Herefordshire, is a remnant of the old custom-a very 

 rich cake (to my experience), of which a little goes a long way, and of which the 

 crust can never have been meant to be eaten, inasmuch as it is of the constitution 

 of mortar, spiced with more or less saflEron. and, it might be surmised, also with 

 mustard. 



I need not dilate on the advantage of cherishing a custom like this, so 

 adapted for the purpose of keeping fresh and lively the blessed memories of home, 

 and of raising the hearts of the young, who have just entered the battle and tur- 

 moil of life, to the mother of us all, through the most pure of all earthly affections. 



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