"Carol" is supposed to be derived from _cantare_ to sing, and _rola_, an interjection of joy. Amongst our Christmas customs that of carol-singing prevails over a great part of Lancashire. It is the old custom of celebrating with song the birth of the Saviour, even as the angels are said to have sung "Glory to God in the highest," &c., at this great event. Almost every European nation has its carols. Our earliest Christian forefathers had theirs; one or two Anglo-Norman carols have been preserved, and some of every century from the thirteenth to the eighteenth. Numerous books containing carols have been printed (one by Wynkin de Worde), and it would occupy too much space to insert even the most popular of these carols here. A verse of one common to Lancashire and Yorkshire must suffice:-- God rest you all, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay; Remember Christ our Saviour Was born on Christmas-day. The town or the village waitts go about after midnight, waking many a sleeper with their homely music, which sounds all the sweeter for being heard in the stilly night. Various items of payment to the Manchester waitts occur in the Church Leet Books of that manor. A dance tune called "The Warrington Waitts" occurs in a printed Tune-Book of 1732. Hand-bell ringing, a favourite Lancashire diversion, is much practised about Christmas. FOOTNOTES: [143] Hermentrude, in _Notes and Queries_, 3rd ser., vol. ii. p. 484. [144] Prestoniensis, in _Notes and Queries_, 2nd ser., vol. ii. p. 326. [145] Hampson's _Medii Ævi Kalendarium_, vol. i. p. 98. [146] Prestoniensis, in _Notes and Queries_, 2nd series, vol. iii. p. 50. [147] Halliwell's _Archaic and Provincial Dictionary_. [148] Pasquil's _Palinodia_. [149] _Ploughman's Feasting Days_, stanza 3. [150] _Pictorial History of Lancashire._ [151] See Rev. W. Thornber's _History of Blackpool_. [152] See also, under BELLS, the Pancake Bell. [153] _Notes and Queries_, 2nd ser., V. [154] For the Simnel cakes of Shrewsbury, &c., see _Book of Days_, I. 336. [155] Baines's _History of Lancashire_. [156] _History of Manchester_, II. 265. [157] Baines's _History of Lancashire_. [158] H. T. Riley, in _Notes and Queries_, 2nd ser., ii. 320. [159] _Pictorial History of Lancashire._ [160] Hone's _Every-Day Book_, ii. 450; Brand's _Popular Antiquities, &c._ [161] _Pictorial History of Lancashire._ [162] Baines's _History of Lancashire_. [163] _Pictorial History of Lancashire._ [164] _History of Blackpool_, p. 92. [165] _Browis_ or _brewis_ is broth or pottage; _frumenty_, is hulled wheat boiled in milk, and flavoured with cinnamon, sugar, allspice; and _jannocks_, oaten bread in large, coarse loaves; _throdkins_, a cake made of oatmeal and bacon. [166] Rev. W. Thornber's _History of Blackpool_. [167] Hone's _Every-Day Book_, ii. 597.