179 
Apple-blossom. 
Roasted apples formed an important item in the delicious 
compound which, under the title of wassail-bowl, was such a 
famed beverage with our ancestors. The ludicrous practice of 
“ bobbing ” for apples on Allhallow-e’en, on All Saints Day, 
and at other specified times, is nearly obsolete. Formerly, the 
first day of November was dedicated to the titular saint of 
fruit and seeds, and was called La Mas Ubhal , or the “ day of 
the apple.” This name being pronounced lamasool, got cor¬ 
rupted, says Vallance, into Lamb’s Wool, the name given in 
some parts to a bowl of spiced ale containing roasted apples, 
and which is drunk on the last night in October. An ancient 
charm, practised by village maidens, was, on a certain par¬ 
ticularized night, to take a candle and go alone into a room, 
look into a looking-glass, and eat an apple in front of it, when 
she would behold in the glass the reflection of her husband to 
be, peeping over her shoulder. 
It was once usual for apples to be blessed by priests on the 
25th of July; and in the manual of the church of Sarum is 
preserved an especial form for this purpose. 
The Romans highly valued this tree for its ornamental 
effect, deeming, and with justice, that the earliness and beauty 
of its blossoms, as also the brilliant hues of its fruit, rendered 
it a desirable addition to the splendour of their gardens. The 
author of the “Poetry of Gardening” pleads hard for their 
re-admission into the flower-garden, remarking truthfully that 
those who have seen the hanging orchards of Lanark,— 
“Clydesdale’s apple-bowers,” 
in the end of the merry month of May, or the tamer beauties 
of the cider counties of England, may well regret the edict of 
modern taste, that banishes such beautiful nosegays from the 
spring, because of their almost equal beauties in autumn. Surely 
we might, with the best effect, recall from the slovenly orchard, 
and the four unpoetical walls of the kitchen-garden some of 
those fruit-trees which graced the gardens of antiquity. 
L. E. L. did not overlook the beauty of the apple-blossom, 
as these lines testify: 
“ Of all the months that fill the year, 
Give April’s month to me, 
For earth and sky are then so filled 
With sweet variety! 
12—2 
