The harvest swains and wenches bound
For joy, to see the hock-cart crowned."

HERRICK'S _Hesperides_.

Lammas Day--St. Roch's Day--Harvest-home--"Ten-pounding"--
Sheep-shearing--"Wakes"--Fairs.


The harvest fields have begun to ripen, and the corn will soon be
ready for the sickle; of this fact our forefathers were reminded by
the Lammas Festival, which was celebrated on the first of this
month. _Lammas_ is a shortened form of the word Loaf-mass, or feast
of the loaf. A loaf of bread was made of the first-ripe corn, and
used in Holy Communion on this day; so this feast was a preliminary
harvest thanksgiving festival--a feast of "first-fruits," such as
the Jews were commanded in the old Mosaic law to observe.

When the harvest was gathered in there were great festivities, and
it has been thought that August 16th, St. Roch's Day, was generally
observed as the harvest-home. St. Roch, or Roque, was a Frenchman,
who lived in the early part of the fourteenth century, and was
supposed to have performed miraculous cures, but August 16th seems
to have been rather early in the year for a harvest-home. However,
when the feast of ingathering did take place, there were great
rejoicings in our English villages, and the mode of its celebration
helped to knit together the masters and labourers, and to promote
good feeling between them.

When the fields were almost cleared of the golden grain, the last