On All Souls’ Day in Lancashire and Herefordshire the well-off used to hand out oaten cakes, called soul-mass cakes, to the poor. Those who received one answered with a short rhyming blessing on the giver’s soul. Hone printed the custom in The Year Book as one kept in former times.
Soul-mass cakes
2 November · Lancashire and Herefordshire
No longer kept
On this day formerly, in Lancashire and Herefordshire, it was usual for the wealthy to dispense oaten cakes, called soul-mass-cakes, to the poor
From Hone's Year Book, col. 1306. Read the original
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