BOURKE. ] CEREMONIAL CAKES. D47 
ceremonies, which are believed by the editor of Bohn’s Strabo to sur- 
vive in the Rogation Day processions of the Roman Catholic Church, 
recall the notes already taken upon the subject of the Arval bread of 
the Scotch.! The sacrifices themselves were designated ‘* Ambarva” 
and ‘* Ambarvalia.” 
In Scotland and England it was customary for bands of singers to go 
from door to door on New Year’s Eve, singing and receiving reward. 
In the latter country ‘“‘ cheese and oaten cakes, which are called farls, 
are distributed on this occasion among the eryers.” In the former 
country “there was a custom of distributing sweet cakes and a particu- 
lar kind of sugared bread.”? : 
A fine kind of wheat bread called * wassail-bread” formed an impor- 
tant feature of the entertainment on New Year’s Day in old England.’ 
Among love divinations may be reckoned the dumb cake, so called 
because it was to be made without speaking, and afterwards the parties 
were to go backward up the stairs to bed and put the cake under 
their pillows, when they were to dream of their lovers. * 
References to the beal-tine ceremonies of Ireland and Scotland, in 
which oatmeal gruel figured as a dish, or cakes made of oatmeal and 
carraway seeds, may be found in Brand, Pop. Antiq., vol. 1, p. 226; in 
Blount, Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors, London, 1874, p. 131; 
and in Pennant’s Tour in Scotland, in Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. 3, 
p-49. In “A Charm for Bewitched Land” we find the mode of making 
a cake or loaf with holy water. 
The mince pie and plum pudding of Christmas are evidently ancient 
preparations, and it is not unlikely that the shape of the former, which, 
prior to the Reformation, was that of a child’s cradle, had a reminiscence 
of the sacrifice of babies at the time of the winter solstice. Grimm has 
taught that where human sacrifice had been abolished the figure of a 
coffin or a cradle was still used as a symbol. 
There is a wide field of information to be gleaned in the investigation 
of the subject of bean foods at certain periods or festivals of the year, 
and upon this point I have some notes and memoranda, but, as my 
present remarks are limited to prehistoric farinaceous foods, I do not 
wish to add to the bulk of the present chapter.° 
“ Kostia—boiled rice and plums—is the only thing partaken of on 
Christmas Eve.” ° 
; 1 Strabo, Geography, Bohn's edition, London, 1854, vol. 1, pp. 341, 342, footnote. 
2 Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 460. 
3 Tbid., p. 7. 
‘Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, pp. 3, 180. On the same page: ‘‘Dumb cake, a species of dreaming 
bread prepared by unmarried females with ingredients traditionally suggested in witching doggerel. 
When baked, it is cut into three divisions; a part of each to be eaten and the remainder put under 
the pillow. When the clock strikes twelve, each votary must go to bed backwards and keep a pro- 
found silence, whatever may appear.” 
5 A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for July, 1783, inquires: ‘‘ May not the minced pye, a com- 
pound of the choicest productions of the East, have in view the offerings made by the wise men who 
came from afar to worship, bringing spices, ete.’ Quoted in Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 1, p. 526. The mince 
pie was before the Reformation made in the form of a crib, to represent the manger in which the holy 
child lay in the stable. Ibid., p. 178. 
® Heath, A Hoosier in Russia, p. 109. 
