The Romans had a college of priests called the "Fratres Arvales," nine, or, as some say, twelve in number, to whose care were committed the sacrifices in honor of Ceres at the old limits of the city, to propitiate that goddess and induce her to bestow fertility upon the fields. These ceremonies, which are believed by the editor of Bohn's Strabo to survive in the Rogation Day processions of the Roman Catholic Church, recall the notes already taken upon the subject of the Arval bread of the Scotch.[514] The sacrifices themselves were designated "Ambarva" and "Ambarvalia." In Scotland and England it was customary for bands of singers to go from door to door on New Year's Eve, singing and receiving reward. In the latter country "cheese and oaten cakes, which are called _farls_, are distributed on this occasion among the cryers." In the former country "there was a custom of distributing sweet cakes and a particular kind of sugared bread."[515] A fine kind of wheat bread called "wassail-bread" formed an important feature of the entertainment on New Year's Day in old England.[516] Among love divinations may be reckoned the dumb cake, so called because it was to be made without speaking, and afterwards the parties were to go backward up the stairs to bed and put the cake under their pillows, when they were to dream of their lovers.[517] References to the beal-tine ceremonies of Ireland and Scotland, in which oatmeal gruel figured as a dish, or cakes made of oatmeal and carraway seeds, may be found in Brand, Pop. Antiq., vol. 1, p. 226; in Blount, Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors, London, 1874, p. 131; and in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, in Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. 3, p. 49. In "A Charm for Bewitched Land" we find the mode of making a cake or loaf with holy water. The mince pie and plum pudding of Christmas are evidently ancient preparations, and it is not unlikely that the shape of the former, which, prior to the Reformation, was that of a child's cradle, had a reminiscence of the sacrifice of babies at the time of the winter solstice. Grimm has taught that where human sacrifice had been abolished the figure of a coffin or a cradle was still used as a symbol. There is a wide field of information to be gleaned in the investigation of the subject of bean foods at certain periods or festivals of the year, and upon this point I have some notes and memoranda, but, as my present remarks are limited to prehistoric _farinaceous_ foods, I do not wish to add to the bulk of the present chapter.[518] "Kostia--boiled rice and plums--is the only thing partaken of on Christmas Eve."[519] GALENA.