Clementing in Worcestershire

23 November · Worcestershire

No longer kept

A correspondent born in Worcestershire remembered boys going in a band from house to house on the afternoon of St Clement’s Day. At each door they chanted a rhyme begging apples and beer in the names of Catherine and Clement, Peter and Paul. Grown men sometimes went too and were given ale or cider, while the boys got apples or a few halfpence. The boys then roasted their apples together at one of their homes.

Catherine and Clement, be here, be here; Some of your apples, and some of your beer

From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 2, cols. 1576-1578. Read the original

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