Note 921 — Chapter XII · NEW YEAR CUSTOMS

Dyer, 24; Cortet, 32; Frazer, iii. 143; Deslyons, Traités contre le Paganisme du Roi boit (2nd ed. 1670). The accounts of Edward II record a gift to the rex fabae on January 1, 1316 (Archaeologia, xxvi. 342). Payments to the ‘King of Bene’ and ‘for furnissing his graith’ were made by James IV of Scotland between 1490 and 1503 (L. H. T. Accounts, 1. ccxliii; 11. xxiv, xxxi, &c.). The familiar mode of choosing the king is thus described at Mont St. Michel ‘In vigilia Epyphaniae ad prandium habeant fratres gastellos et ponatur faba in uno; et frater qui inveniet fabam, vocabitur rex et sedebit ad magnam mensam, et scilicet sedebit ad vesperas ad matutinam et ad magnam missam in cathedra parata’ (Gasté, 53). The pre-eminence of the bean, largest of cereals, in the mixed cereal cake (cf. ch. vi) presents no great difficulty; on the religious significance attached to it in South Europe, cf. W. W. Fowler, 94, 110, 130. Lady Jane Grey was scornfully dubbed a Twelfth-day queen by Noailles (Froude, v. 206), just as the Bruce’s wife held her lord a summer king (ch. viii).