In most of the villages on the southern Border, and particularly in part of Northumberland, together with Norham and Islandshires, there are what are called annual feasts. In the manner in which they are now kept, they resemble the _Wakes_ or _Revels_ which are held in various parts of England. They were originally religious festivals, and are still commemorated upon the anniversary of the saint to which the church or religious house in the village, or with which it was connected, was in olden times dedicated. They have long ago lost their religious character, and joviality has assumed the place of seriousness. Nevertheless, although, for more than a century, these feasts have been attended with much boisterous merriment, there is still much connected with them that we respect and revere. They came, as it were, whispering the good, the godlike admonition of Scripture--"Let brotherly love continue." For in those days, brethren and the children of a family meet together from afar beneath a father's or a brother's roof--the grandsire and the grandson sit at the table together--and the words of the inspired royal bard, that it is good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity, are exemplified. They are seasons of mutual forgiveness, and of the exchange of family love. They are also seasons for which a many a parent's heart longs eagerly; and although they are what may be termed changeable feasts, they fall on days which they all know without the aid of an almanack; for there is no calendar so true as a father's or mother's heart. They are days to which many a mother looks forward, as to the time when she will press an absent son or daughter to her bosom--when a father shall give them the right hand of welcome, and in the fulness of his joy press his teeth upon his lip to conceal his emotion, while a stranger tear steals out, and seeks a home upon his cheek. They are, in every house, days in which the "fatted calf" is killed; and each village or feast has its own particular dainty, according to the season. At one is the luscious grilse (on that occasion baked instead of boiled); at another, dishes of fruit; and at a third, the roast goose. But each feast has its particular viands, and of them the poorest make an effort to partake. They are not as the Christmas feast was of old, when the rich fed the poor and their dependants at their table, and regaled each with a "smack of the good black jack;" but they are days on which the very poorest strive to make a feast for themselves, and to see _their own_ around their humble board.