MODERN APPLE LORE. 
59 
In Wales and one or two of the border counties, they make a far more elaborate structure 
(1878). A piece of board, ten or twelve inches long, by two or three inches wide, is drilled with six 
holes, two at each end and two in the middle ; four of the holes are provided with little wooden 
spikes, and a handsome apple, more or less gilt, is stuck on each. In the remaining two holes 
sprays of box are fixed, with nuts suspended from the leaves, and the whole is completed by bunches 
of ivy berries whitened with flour, strings of holly berries, & c. 
In Nottinghamshire much the same customs were formerly observed. ( Journal of Archceo- 
logical Association, 1853.) At Hastings, apples, nuts, oranges, as well as money, are thrown from 
the windows on New Year’s Day to be scrambled for by the fisher boys and men. 
(Dyer. “Brit. Pop. Customs”,p. 11) 
The eve of Twelfth Night is still celebrated in Herefordshire with the singular ceremony of 
the thirteen fires. This year (1879) the proceedings at Focle Farm, Upton Bishop, were carried 
out as follows :—At the close of the day the farmer, his labourers, friends, and visitors, assembled at 
the highest part of a corn-field near at hand, and twelve bonfires were made, a few yards apart from 
each other, in the shape of a horse-shoe. In the centre a high pole was erected and covered with 
straw, by twisting it round from the bottom to the top, and called “ the old woman.” When all was 
ready, the straw was lighted on the top of the pole, by the aid of a light on a second pole, so as to 
make it burn downwards ; meantime the twelve heaps around were also lighted, and they all blazed 
up together, amidst much shouting, noise, and merriment. Cider circulated freely, and healths were 
drunk in honour of the farmer, with wishes for good crops, and much cheering. As soon as the fires 
had burnt out, an adjournment was made to the farm-house, where an excellent supper of roast beef 
and plum-pudding had been provided. The men were all waited on by the master, mistress, and 
friends ; and this formed the most silent part of the evening’s entertainment. After supper, the cider 
bowl passed round, pipes were lighted, songs were sung, and the festivities kept up to an early hour in 
the morning. The same ceremonies were carried out at Hill of Eaton Farm, Brampton Abbots, on 
the same night, Up to the year 1876, this custom was observed at many of the principal farms in the 
neighbourhood of Ross; but in that year the ill-feeling produced by the Labourers’ Union put an 
end to most of the festivities, and though this ill-feeling is now happily passing away, the thirteen 
fires are scarcely likely to become general again. 
These thirteen fires are called, “ The Old Woman and her Twelve Children,” or sometimes, 
“ The Virgin Mary and the Twelve Apostles.” It is believed by some antiquaries that this very 
curious observance is a vestige of the old heathen ceremony of the worship of the goddess Ceres— 
the twelve fires around the centre pole representing the twelve months of the year—and they 
believe that “ this custom may be as successfully traced to the rule and influence of the Romans, as 
maybe the undoubted vestiges of their arts and buildings.” (Note to “Civil War in Hereford¬ 
shire,” by the Rev. Jno. Webb.) “Thirteen” is evidently a mystical number, and a very strange and 
unusual one it is. It seems possible, that it may have reference to the thirteen lunar months in the 
solar system ; a solution of the mystery that would be more satisfactory to those sceptics, who are 
inclined to call in question the fact, that the goddess Ceres ever was worshipped in Britain. These 
ceremonies were described in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” so far back as 1791, when “the 
shouts and hallooing,” it is said, “ were answered from all the adjacent villages and fields, and 
some fifty or sixty fires could be seen all at once.” 
