Clipping-time Pudding

‘In England on the day they began to shear their sheep a plentiful dinner was provided for the shearers and their friends. A table also, if weather permitted, was spread in the open air for the young people and children. The washing and shearing of sheep is attended with great mirth and festivity.’ (Sir Henry Ellis, Principal Librarian of the British Museum, 1841.)

Tusser in his Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under ‘The Ploughman’s Feast Days,’ has the following lines: —