Stukeley wrote that the country people “make merry with cakes, figs, sugar, and water fetched from the ‘Swallow head’.” (see ‘Swallowhead Springs.)
It has been suggested that this ceremony had some connexion with the gospel story of the barren fig tree, but it is much more probable that the tradition has a very early origin. As a matter of fact the cakes were mostly made with raisins which are called figs by natives of Wessex.
from Wanderings in Wessex by Edric Holmes (date?)
online at project gutenberg:
gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/4/1/11410/11410-h/11410-h.htm