By F. A. Carrington, Esq. 



201 



eighty and ninety years old. As she never heard of the Herd's ale 

 at Newnton, I will give her statement in her own words : — 



" Before the enclosure here, in 1795, all the people who kept cows at Ogbourne 

 St. George, used to send them to Roundhill-bottom, which is a place a little 

 further from the village than the two [twin] barrows on Swinghill. Hum- 

 phreys, a cripple, used to keep the cows, and he had a herds' ale every year. 

 He used to have a barrel of beer and victuals, and people used to drink and 

 give him what they chose. I don't know on what day it was, but I know it 

 was when flowers were about, because they made a garland which was put on 

 some one's head, and they danced round it, and they went to gentlemens' 

 houses who used to give them beer. This was when I was about ten years old, 

 and long before the enclosure. There was a large cow common then." 



It is worthy of remark, that the garland was a part of the 



ceremony at the Herd's ales both at Newnton and Ogbonrne 



St. George, and therefore could have had no reference either to 



King Athelstan's grant or to any liberality of the Abbots of 



Malmesbury. 



6. The Bidale, or Helpale. 



Mr. Brande, in his Popular Antiquities, 1 says : — 



" There was an ancient custom called Bidale, or Bidder ale, from the Saxon 

 word ' biddan,' to pray or supplicate when any man decayed in his estate was 

 set up again by the liberal benevolence and contributions of friends, at a feast, 

 to which those friends were bid or invited. It was most used in the West of 

 England, and in some counties called a Helpale." 



7. The Give Ale. 



"We are told by the Rev. S. Denne, in his paper before cited, that 

 Give ales were the legacies of individuals and from that circum- 

 stance entirely gratuitous, though some of them might be in addi- 

 tion to a common Give ale before established in the parish. 



Scot ales as already stated were generally kept in houses of 

 public resort, but the ale at Give ales was first dispensed, if not in 

 the church (which, however, sometimes happened) yet in the 

 churchyard. 



Give ales on obsequies as well as on the anniversaries of the 

 dedication of churches, were in other respects merrymakes, at 

 which there was a free, perhaps a licentious indulgence in the games 

 and sports of the times, though playing with the ball, singing 



iVol. ii. p. 15, (n.) 



