BEAN-FEAST, an annual dinner given by an employer to his workpeople, and thus, colloquially, any jollification. The most probable theory connects the phrase with a feast on Twelfth Night, at which a cake with a bean buried in it was a great fea ture. The bean-king was he who had the good fortune to have the slice of cake in which was the bean. This monarch was master of the revels like his congener, the lord of misrule. The king of the bean may have originally reigned for the twelve days from Christ mas to Twelfth Night, his chief duty being the performance of magical ceremonies for ensuring good weather during the ensuing twelve months. He is probably the lineal descendant of the old king of the Saturnalia.
See WAYZGOOSE ; MISRULE, LORD 0F; also Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (Hazlitt's ed. 19o5), under "Twelfth Night."