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Show DOES BOSTON KNOW THIS? The "Beanfeast" Was To Much lor This Han. Thomas May of New Hartley, Northumberland, Nor-thumberland, little anticipated that his sudden demise would give rise to an Interesting etymological question, says the London Globe. He died because he had swallowed too many "carlins," or dried peas, In accordance with north country custom, on Carlin Sunday, which falls one week before Palm Sunday, Sun-day, and is celebrated by the eating of dried peas, In token of Lenten fare. This custom the correspondent of a contemporary declares to be a survival of the pagan bean feasts whose name has been perpetuated to describe the annual outings given by employers to their journeymen. A more reasonable flerlvation of the term "bean feast" appears, ap-pears, however, to be from the north country term "bean," for the bird known elsewhere as the bean goose (anser segetum) or stubble goose. This derivation is confirmed by the alternative alterna-tive use of the term "wayzgoose," to signify a printers' bean feast, "wayz" meaning stubble, and a "wayzgoose" a stubble goose, fattened after the harvest, har-vest, and furnishing the chief dish at the entertainment which concluded the year's toil. The same bird Is also described de-scribed as a "harvest goose," a survival survi-val of the "arvyst gos" of old English; "A young wife and an arvyst gos, Moche gagil with both," says the proverb. pro-verb. Pursuit of the evasive goose of the beanfeast through his various verbal ver-bal disguises thus takes us farther and farther from the "carlins" or dried peas of Lent. Indeed, between a "bean feast" and the Lenten fare of dried peas the only possible connection would seem to be that either, indulged In to excess, may have serious results. |