Going a-gooding

On St Thomas’s Day, the shortest day, poor women went round the parish begging money or food for Christmas, and gave sprigs of holly, mistletoe, palm or primroses in return. The day was called Doleing Day or Mumping Day in some places, and in Warwickshire the poor went a-corning with a bag to beg corn from the farmers. Around Maidstone the gentry gave wheat, loaves and flannel petticoats to the poor and the widows, and in Staffordshire whole families made the round and the clergyman gave each a shilling. Tankards of spiced ale waited at the farmhouses, sometimes with overpowering effect.