M A 11 T I M A S . — 1 1 A G M E N A . 
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.pies. Large droves of geese were anciently led from Picardy to Ualy, 
waddling over the Alps, and oonstantly stooping, according to their 
;|iW»udent custom, under the lofty triumphal arches which they happened 
to pass in their way. Yet geese are not so stupid as they are gene- 
rally supposed to be. The famous chemist, Lemery, asserts, that he 
saw a goose turning the spit on which a turkey was roasting : uncon- 
scious, we hope, that some friend would soon accept the office for 
her. “ Alas ! we are all turnspits in this world,” adds the gastro- 
grapher who relates the fact ; *Vand, when we roast a friend, let us 
beware that many stand ready to return the compliments” 
Martinmas. 
Formerly a custom prevailed every where amongst us, though 
generally confined at present to country villages, of killing cows, oxen, 
sw'ine, &c., at this season, which were cured for the winter, when 
fresh provisions were seldom or never to he had. Two or more of tlie 
paorer sort of rustic families still join to purchase a cow, &c. for 
slaughter at this time, called always in Northumberland, a Mart ; thie 
.ejatrails of which, after having been filled with a kind of pudding-meat, 
consisting of blood, suet, groats, &c. are formed iiito little sausage- 
links, boiled, and sent about a.s presents : they are called black-pud- 
dings from their colour. The author of the Convivial Antiquities tells 
us, that in Germany there was in his time a kind of entertainment 
called the Feast of Sausages, or Gut-puddings,” w hich was wont to 
be celebrated with great joy and festivity. . The learned Moresin 
fefers the great doings on this occasion, which he says were common 
tQ almost all Europe in his time, to an ancient Athenian festival, 
observed in honour of Bacchus, upon the eleventh, twelfth, and thir- 
teenth days of, the month Anthesterion, corresponding with dur 
November. J. Boemus Aubanus seems to confirm this conjecture, 
though there is no mention of the slaughter of any animal, in the 
description of the rites of the Grecian festival. The eleventh month 
had a name from the ceremony of tapping their barrels on it ; when 
it was customary to make merry. Dr. Stukeley, in his Itinerary, 
speaking of Martinsal-hill, observes : ‘I take the name of this hill to 
come from the merriments among the northern people, called Marti- 
nali^, or drinking healths to the memory of St. Martin, practised by 
pur Saxon and Danish ancestors. I doubt not but upon St. Martin’s 
day, or Martinmas, all the young people in the neighbourhood assem- 
bled here, as they do now upon the adjacent St. Anne’s-hill, upon St. 
Anne’s day.’ A note adds, *St. Martin’s day, in the Norway calendar, 
ia inarked vvith a goose ; for on that day they always feasted with a 
. roa^fed goose : they say, St. Martin, being elected to a bishopric, 
hid himself, (noluit episcopari,) but was discovered by that animal. 
We have transferred the ceremony to Michaelmas.’ 
■Hagmena. ■ 
J. Boemus Aubanus tells us that in Franconia, on the three 
Thursdajy nights preceding the Nativity of our Dol'd, it is customary 
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