assembled. In a moment the pony started nearly from one side of the way to the other, so sudden came a shout from the field which gave him this alarm. On my stopping to ask my servant what all that noise was about, he seemed surprised by the question, and said 'It was only the people making their games, as they always did to the Spirit of the harvest.' Such a reply was quite sufficient to induce me to stop, as I felt certain here was to be observed some curious vestige of a most ancient superstition; and I soon gathered all the information I could wish to obtain upon the subject. The offering to the 'Spirit of the harvest' is thus made.
"When the reaping is finished, toward evening the labourers select some of the best ears of corn from the sheaves; these they tie together, and it is called the nack. Sometimes, as it was when I witnessed the custom, this nack is decorated with flowers, twisted in with the reed, which gives it a gay and fantastic appearance. The reapers then proceed to a high place (such, in fact, was the field on the side of a steep hill where I saw them) and there they go, to use their own words, to 'holla the nack.' The man who bears this offering stands in the midst, elevates it, whilst all the other labourers form themselves into a circle about him; each holds aloft his hook, and in a moment they all shout, as loud as they possibly can, these words, which I spell as I heard them pronounced, 'Arnack, arnack, arnack, wehaven, wehaven, wehaven.' This is repeated three several times; and the firkin is handed round between each shout, by way, I conclude, of libation.[1] When the weather is fine, different parties of reapers, each stationed on some height, may be heard for miles round, shouting, as it were, in answer to each other."
I shall fill up this chapter with some stories of Old Madam both in this life and out of it.
Margaret Belfield was married to William Drake Gould in 1740.
William Drake Gould was aged sixteen when he lost his father; he was but eight years old when his mother died. Unlike his father, Henry Gould, who also came into the property as a boy,
- ↑ In Bavaria the same procedure is followed, but the last sheaf is raised on high with the shout "An Oswald!" Oswald or Aswald was an old name for Odin.
