It may fairly be conjectured that at the winter, as at the summer feast, the fertilization spirit, in the form of bush or idol, was borne about the fields. The fifteenth-century writer, Alsso, records the _calendisationes_ of the god Bel in Bohemia, suppressed by St. Adalbert[878]. In modern England, a ‘holly-bough’ or ‘wesley-bob,’ with or without an image or doll, occasionally goes its rounds[879]. But a definite lustration of the bounds is rare[880], and, for the most part, the winter procession either is merely riotous or else, like too many of the summer processions themselves, has been converted, under the successive influence of the _strenae_ and the cash nexus, into little more than a _quête_. Thus children and the poor go ‘souling’ for apples and ‘soul-cakes’ on All Souls’ day; on November 5 they collect for the ‘guy’; on November 11 in Germany, if not in England, for St. Martin; on St. Clement’s day (November 23) they go ‘clemencing’; on St. Catherine’s (November 25) ‘catherning.’ Wheat is the coveted boon on St. Thomas’s day (December 21) or ‘doling day,’ and the _quête_ is variously known as ‘thomasing,’ ‘mumping,’ ‘corning,’ ‘gooding,’ ‘hodening,’ or ‘hooding[881].’ Christmas brings ‘wassailing’ with its bowl of lamb’s-wool and its bobbing apple, and this is repeated on New Year’s day or eve[882]. The New Year _quête_ is probably the most widespread and popular of all. Ducange records it at Rome[883]. In France it is known as _l’Aguilaneuf_[884], in Scotland and the north of England as Hogmanay, terms in which the philologists meet problems still unsolved[885]. Other forms of the winter _quête_ will crop up presently, and the visits of the guisers with their play or song, the carol singers and the waits may be expected at any time during the Christmas season. As at the summer _quêtes_, some reminiscence of the primitive character of the processions is to be found in the songs sung, with their wish of prosperity to the liberal household and their ill-will to the churl[886].