All-souls' Day
: CUSTOM RHYMES: Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales
"November 2nd is All Souls, a day instituted by the Church of Rome in
commemoration of all the faithful departed this life, that by the
prayers and suffrages of the living they may be discharged of their
purging pain, and at last obtain life everlasting. To this purpose the
day is kept holy till noon. Hence proceeds the custom of Soul-mass
cakes, which are a kind of oat-cakes that some of the richer sort of
persons in Lancashire and Herefordshire (among the Papists there) use
still to give the poor on this day; and they, in retribution of their
charity, hold themselves obliged to say this old couplet:
"God have your saul,
Beens and all."
--Festa Anglo-Romana, 1678, p. 109.
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