Northumbrian Gmsards 203 



appropriate dancing and mummery ; the Scottish 

 hind lets his children seek their hogmanaye, but he 

 has forgotten the petitionary songs of the daft days 

 as completely as his English brethren their old dance 

 round the maypole, and their skill with the quintain. 

 It is not only so, but the farm labourer of to-day, in- 

 stead of taking pleasure simply as his ancestors did, 

 makes a droll and monkey-like imitation of fashion- 

 able diversions. His grandmothers, when they were 

 young, met on winter nights for a quilting party, or 

 other purpose of helping the poor or newly married, 

 and made their needles fly like lightning in order to 

 get scon done, that when their lads came to take them 

 home they might still have a spare hour or two during 

 which they would merrily dance in the candle-lighted 

 barn to the fiddling of the village musician. Instead 

 of this our swains, three or four times per annum, pro- 

 duce a subscription ball that if they were wits would 

 be accepted as the caricature of a fashionable 

 assembly. 



Among the children alone is there to be found 

 any considerable trace of the merry-makings where- 

 with the long dark hours of winter used to be sped in 

 the country. In one or two out-of-the-way places 

 you still may find a mangled version of the Christmas 

 mummer's play that once was prevalent over all the 

 country. As soon as November comes they begin to 

 hollow out the turnip lanterns they take to light them 

 in the dark nights through the long dark woods, over 



