It is customary at Oxford to cut the cheese called in the north of England, in allusion to the mother’s complaints at the time of her delivery, “the Groaning Cheese”, in the middle when the child is born, and so by degrees form it into a large kind of ring, through which the child must be passed on the day of the christening. In other places, the first cut of the sick wife’s cheese is to be divided into little pieces and tossed in the midwife’s smock, to cause young women to dream of their lovers.1 Slices of the first cut of the Groaning Cheese are, in the north of England, laid under the pillows of young persons for the above purpose.
In the old play of The Vow-Breaker, or the Fayre Maid of Clifton, 1636, in a scene where is discovered “a bed covered with white, enter Prattle, Magpy, Long Tongue, Barren with a child, Anne in bed”, Boote says, “Neece, bring the groaning cheece, and all requisites; I must supply the father’s place, and bid god-fathers.”
The following allusion to this cheese occurs in Westward for Smelts, 1620 : “At last, hee looked out of the window, asking who knockt at the doore? ‘Tis I, kinde husband’ (answered shee), that have been in a woman’s labour; prethee, sweat heart, open the doore”. All these kind words would not get her admittance, but gained this churlish answere at his hands : ‘Hast thou been in a woman’s labour? Then prethee, sweet heart, returne, and amongst the residue of wives, help thou to devoure the groning cheese, and sucke up the honest mans ale till you are drunke; by that time ’twill be day light, and I will have thy friends at thy returne, who shall give thee thankes for thy charitie’”.
John Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of England (published 1777) Vol.2, pp.71-72