Note 291.2 — Chapter XIII · FUNERAL RITES.

In several of the cases cited the eating of the dead has evidently undergone a natural transformation into eating with the dead. But wherever a special food is used it may be suspected to represent the flesh of the deceased. In the funeral cakes of the Balkan peninsula the identity is manifest. I shall try to show that it is the same nearer home. In various parts of England and Wales a custom of giving small sponge-cakes to the guests is yet in force. In Yorkshire and elsewhere the last part of the funeral entertainment before the procession started for the churchyard was to hand round glasses of wine and small circular crisp sponge-cakes, whereof most of the guests partook. These cakes were called “Avril-bread.” The word Avril is said to be derived from arval, succession-ale, heir-ale, the name of the feasts given by Icelandic heirs on succeeding to property.291.2 Now, although it might be suspected that the avril-bread represented the corpse, we should not be justified in holding that it did without more direct evidence. That evidence can fortunately be supplied, from a funeral which took place near Market Drayton in Shropshire on the 1st July 1893, as described by an eye-witness. “The lady,” writes Miss Gertrude Hope, “who gave me the particulars, arrived rather early, and found the bearers enjoying a good lunch in the only downstairs room. Shortly afterwards the coffin was brought down and placed on two chairs in the centre of the room, and the mourners having gathered round it,” a short service was then and there conducted by the Nonconformist minister, as is frequently done, before setting out for the grave. “Directly the minister ended, the woman in charge of the arrangements poured out four glasses of wine and handed one to each bearer present across the coffin, with a biscuit called a ‘funeral biscuit.’ One of the bearers being absent at the moment, the fourth glass of wine and biscuit were offered to the eldest son of the deceased woman, who, however, refused to take it, and was not obliged to do so. The biscuits were ordinary sponge biscuits, usually called ‘sponge fingers’ or ‘lady’s fingers.’ They are, however, also known in the shops of Market Drayton as ‘funeral biscuits.’ ” These cakes are not exactly of the shape mentioned by Canon Atkinson as used in Yorkshire, but that is of no importance, because their shape varies with the place. What follows is enough to show that the scene described is not a solitary one. “The minister, who had lately come from Pembrokeshire, remarked to my informant that he was sorry to see that pagan custom still observed. He had been able to put an end to it in the Pembrokeshire village where he had formerly been.”292.1