Raise your cups...

Harvests are nearly all done and the merriment begins...

'I've bin to Plymouth and I've bin to Dover

I've bin a-rambling over, boys, all the world over

Over and over and over and over

Drink up yur liquor and turn yur cup over

over and over and over and over

The liquor's drunk'd up and the cup is turned over.'

This was popular song for the harvest festivities in the south of England.

 During the song a cup of beer is placed on the flat crown of a hat. Holding it by 

the brim with both hands, the player has to raise the cup to his mouth and drink 

all the beer before the fourth line of the song. Then he has to flick up the cup and

 catch it in the hat. If he fails or spills any beer he has to try again.

I suspect that there would have been a lot of spilled beer by the end of the evening!

We didn't drink beer at the end of our harvest, we had scrumpy, which is a very 

rough cider, and believe me it was very rough! I remember my dad sat on a bale 

of hay getting very drunk with this stuff, he wasn't a drinker!