A yard-lander at Chalgrave, in Oxfordshire, reaped at the two precations in autumn with all his household but his wife and shepherd; if he brought three labourers, he walked with his rod, or rode, in front of the reapers; if he brought no labourers, he worked in person; for two repasts, at nones, a wheaten loaf, pottage, meat, and salt; at supper, bread and cheese and beer, and enough of it, with a candle while the guests were inclined to sit. The last day was always the grand day, when, at Piddington, the tenants and their wives came with napkins, dishes, platters, cups, and other necessary things.
In the reign of Henry III., the ploughmen and other officers, at East Monkton, near Warminster and Shaftesbury, were allowed a ram for a feast on the Eve of St. John the Baptist, when they used to _carry fire round the lord's corn_. This form of the Beltane superstition was observed in the north of England, and in Scotland, about fifty years ago. The Beltane flourishes at the uttermost ends of Europe, in the Scilly Islands, and in Russia; and even the main of Madagascar, who holds his head to other stars, is accustomed to kindle bonfires on the day which we have dedicated to St. John. We learn from the _Popular Antiquities_ that in our time, in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, on the eve of Twelfth Day, fires used to be lit at the ends of the lands, in fields just sown with wheat.
Tenants in old times were required to cut and clear the lord's hay-field. A tenant at Bradbury, for one day's mowing, received a meal of bread and cheese twice in the course of the day; and for carrying the same meadow, a bundle of hay, for his pains. The mowers also received among them twelvepence or a sheep, which they were to choose out of the lord's fold by sight, not by touch. In other places the mower was allowed as much grass as he could raise up on his scythe, without breaking its handle; and a haymaker received as much hay as he could grasp with both arms. At Sturminster, a tenant, after mowing and carrying, received a knitch of hay,--that is, as much hay as the hayward could raise with one finger to the height of his knees.
In the year 1308, it was the rule at Borley that the mowers and haymakers should have two bushels of wheat for bread, a wether worth eighteenpence, a gallon of butter, the second-best cheese out of the lord's dairy, salt and oatmeal for their pottage, and the morning's milk of all the cows; and a mower as much grass as he could lift upon the point of his scythe. In 1222 they had in common a cheese and a good ram. A sheep was commonly the reward of work in the hay-field. Old English husbandmen were very fond of mutton, and the hay-harvest fell about St. John's Day, when mutton was considered in season.