We have never met with an explanation of the reason why all the principal events in human life should require to be celebrated by different kinds of cakes. We have cakes for christenings, weddings, birthdays, schooldays, and funerals. Almost all the festive seasons have their special cakes - such as Twelfth Day, Easter, Mid-Lent, etc. - and even such solemn seasons as Good Friday and the Jewish Passover have their appropriate cakes; but perhaps the most singular of all these cakes are those sold in Northern Italy on All Souls' Day (November 2), and known as Pane dei morte - that is, 'bread of the dead.' These are made chiefly at Brescia, and resemble in form parts of the human body. Rough pieces of flesh are represented by a reddish compound something like toffee, but highly flavoured with cinnamon and other spices, whilst the bones are simulated by a lighter-coloured compound, or by almonds. Thus you may purchase a jaw, in which the teeth are formed of almonds, etc. The most singular part of this All Souls' custom is that the superstitious appear to fancy some real connection between these cakes and the parts of the dead which they resemble. We do not know the origin of these cakes, but they would seem to be a survival from the days of cannibalism, when, as among some savages even now, it was considered respectful to partake of the dead bodies of relations. At all events, whatever may be their origin, they are very delicious and highly appreciated.

In many parts of England there is an approach to the Italian Pane dei morte in the distribution of funeral cakes, which sometimes are served only at the house of the deceased, but in some counties they are sent round to the neighbours after the funeral. The following lines refer to this custom in Yorkshire: -

'Roundlegs to Wadsley went, Wi' burying cakes he was sent, He knocked at our alehouse door - "Does any dead folk live here?"'

These 'burying cakes' do not appear to have any especial form, but they are generally slightly bitter.

One of the most celebrated of English cakes, and which would seem to have originally had some religious significance, is that known as the 'Simnel.' This is a cake resembling a rich plum-pudding enclosed in a crust, like a raised pie, and its great peculiarity is that it is boiled first and baked afterwards. The season appropriate to it is Mid-Lent Sunday, known as 'Mothering Sunday,' because on that day it was formerly the custom of families to assemble and to join in a little feast. The popular story as to the origin of this cake is that an old couple, named Simon and Nellie, in preparing the Mid-Lent feast for their children, found a remnant of Christmas plum-pudding and a piece of unleavened Lenten dough, which they resolved to convert into a cake, but a violent quarrel ensued as to whether it should be baked or boiled. At last, after much altercation, ending in blows, a compromise was arrived at, by which the cake was first boiled and then baked, and this turned out so very satisfactorily that cakes thus prepared became famous under the name of 'Simnels,' from the first syllables of the names of the old couple. The tradition has been embodied in the following poem: -

'The Cake Of Simonellie.'*

'Where Girlith village looks adown

To birlie Morecambe Bay, Old gammer Nell did blythelie dwell

With Simon Halliday; And the good God keepit them both from bale, As the worthie paire did pray.

'Three sonnes had they, lustie, strong ;

The elder at the sea, The mid one for a prentis bond,

Youngest at mother's knee, "Too young is he to earn his bredde,

And I wonna spare all three,"

Quoth she.

'The Christmasse-tyde goes by apace,

And Lenten time is here ; Bob-crabbes are forbidden taste,

The jollie boule goes drere. "Cheere thee, good gaffer," then sayd Nell;

"It is but once a year:

'"A sennight and sen days are past,

Another sennight in - And now draws on the rorie feste

Yoleped Motherin, When the bairn draws nere to the mother deare,

And when festing is no sin,"

Quoth she.

* Walcott(Bodl.), No. 173.

' "Full long for the Mid-Lent time, I ween,

Hath thy stomach, Simon, cryde. Our good ladye will bless the feste

We shall hold upon this tyde; With our sailor ladde, and our prentis eke,

And the bairnie by my syde.

' "The rorie pastie, and baken pie, The flytche of bacon broil, And the lustie boule with the roasten crabbe

Shall glad the bairnies' oyle; For my laddies' sake a callant callant cake On the weeke's end will I boil,"

Quoth she.

' "Ye be daft, good woman, your boarde to spoil: What faerie doth ye take? Your flytche ye may broil, but your cake not boil -

A clout for a boilen cake ! A brawer good wife am I than ye, In the ovenne let it bake,"

Quoth he.

' "A braw good wife ! now, by Lordie's life - ."

"Now, by Lordie's death," quoth he, "Ye shall bake your cake, or no cake I take,

When the ladde comes home from sea." They wrangled so that the gossips gaped To see what thing might be.

'Then uppe and spake the youngest ladde, That stood by his mother's knee, "Nay, father, were it awell that strife

The good God here shoulde see.

When Motherin Sunday draws anear

Each home at peace shoulde be.

' "The mother dear the cake shall boil, And the father bake it dree ; And not Simon's cake be the baken cleped, Nor the boilen Nellie's be,

But the virtues twain of the boil and bake In the cake of Simonellie,"

Quoth he.

'Then ho, ho, ho, for the rarie showe, When gaffer and gammer agree ; And boil and bake the Motherin cake - The cake of Simonellie.'

It would, however, appear that this is a modern tradition to account for a very ancient name, which is found in French as well as in English, and in mediaeval Latin, and which is supposed to be derived from simila, fine flour; and we find the name given to the finest white bread in mediaeval times.* Herrick the poet, writing early in the seventeenth century, speaks of the custom of young people in Gloucester carrying simnels to their parents on Mid-Lent or Mothering Sunday -