"--
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
few sheaves were decorated with flowers and ribbons, and brought
home in a waggon, called the "Hock-cart," while the labourers, their
wives and children, carrying green boughs, sheaves of wheat and rude
flags, formed a glad procession. All the pipes and tabors in the
village sounded, and shouts of laughter and of song were raised as
the glad procession marched along. They sang--

"Harvest-home, harvest-home,
We have ploughed, we have sowed,
We have reaped, we have mowed,
We have brought home every load.
Hip, hip, hip, harvest-home!"

or, as they say in Berkshire--

"Whoop, whoop, whoop, harvest whoam!"

Sometimes the most comely maiden in the village was chosen as
Harvest Queen, and placed upon her throne at the top of the sheaves
in the hock-cart as it was drawn homewards to the farm.

[Illustration: HARVEST-HOME.]

The rustics receive a hearty welcome at their master's house, where
they find the fuelled chimney blazing wide, and the strong table
groaning beneath the smoking sirloin--

"Mutton, veal,
And bacon, which makes full the meal,
With several dishes standing by,
As here a custard, there a pie,
A