The Origins of Popular Supersitions and Customs Index

The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs

by T. Sharper Knowlson

[1910]

PREFACE

THE following pages are based on Brand's Popular Antiquities, the edition published in 1841, supplemented by the results of later investigation. My aim has been to deal only with those superstitions and customs which are operative at the present time; and, as far as is possible, to trace these to their original sources. In some cases the task is fairly easy, in others very difficult; whilst in a few instances the "prime origin," to use the words of Brand, is absolutely unattainable. Still, in these days of pageantry, when the British people show some signs of periodically reviewing the picturesque life of bygone times, it will be a source of satisfaction if in this book I succeed in tracing, though it be for a century or two, the thoughts and habits which were born in a remote past.

INTRODUCTION.

THE true origin of superstition is to be found in early man's effort to explain Nature and his own existence; in the desire to propitiate Fate and invite Fortune; in the wish to avoid evils he could not understand and in the unavoidable attempt to pry into the future. From these sources alone must have sprung that system of crude notions and practices still obtaining among savage nations; and although in more advanced nations the crude system gave place to attractive mythology, the moving power was still the same; man's interpretation of the world was equal to his ability to understand its mysteries no more, no less. For this reason the superstitions which, to use a Darwinian word, persist, are of special interest, as showing a psychological habit of some importance. Of this, more anon.

The first note in all superstitions is that of ignorance. Take three representative and widely different cases. The first is a Chinaman living about one thousand years before Christ. He has before him the "Book of Changes," and is about to divine the future by geometrical figures; the second is a Roman lady, bent on the same object, but using the shapes of molten wax dropped into water; the third is a Stock Exchange speculator seated before a modern clairvoyant in Bond Street, earnestly seeking light on the future of his big deal in Brighton A. The operating cause here is a desire to know the future, and, so long as man is man, so long will he either rely on the divinations of the past, or invent new ones more in keeping with mental science. But ignorance exists in several varieties, and one of them has to do not with the future, but with the well-established present; in other words, an accepted doctrine may be based on a misinterpretation of the facts.

As Trenchard remarks in his Natural History of Superstition, "Man's curiosity is in excess of his capacity to interpret Nature and life." Thus early man attributed a living spirit to everything--to his fellows, to the lower animals, to the trees, the mountains, and the rivers. Probably these conclusions were as good as his intelligence would allow, but they became the mental stock-in-trade of all races, and were handed down from one generation to another, constituting a barrier to be broken down before newer and truer ideas of life could prevail. And the same contention applies equally to the superstition of the moment. The woman who will not pay a call unless she wears a particular amulet, or the man who starts up from a table of thirteen, his face blanched and his blood cold, are just as truly, though not in the same degree, the victims of ignorance as the animist who tried to propitiate the anger of the spirit of the stream. Ignorance is the atmosphere in which alone such superstitions can live.

Allied with ignorance is fear, which is the second element calling for notice. Fear, too, has its varieties, some of them both natural and justifiable. If I visit an electrical power-house and know nothing of its machinery and appointments, I am very chary what I touch and prefer to keep my hands to myself lest I make a mistake. Rational fear, however, is the offspring of a reasoned knowledge of danger. It is irrational fear which forms the bogey of superstition.

The misfortune of early man was to have experiences more numerous and subtle than he could understand; to his power of analysis they were altogether unyielding; and yet his unrestrained imagination demanded a working theory of some kind, and he got one, grounded in ignorance and fear. An earthquake is a phenomenon calculated to strike terror into the heart of all but the strongest man; no wonder then that the primitive mind invented all sorts of ideas about spirits of the under world, and ascribed to gloomy caverns the possession of dragons and other fearsome enemies of the race. The thunder, the lightning and the tempest; the blight which spoiled the sources of food; the sudden attack of mysterious sickness, and a hundred other fatalities were to him more than merely natural forces busily employed in working out their natural destiny; they were Powers to be propitiated. That is the third note of the superstitious mind; its effort to propitiate intelligent and semi-intelligent forces by suitable beliefs, rites, ceremonies, and penances. Where ignorance and fear beget a sense of danger, knowledge, even defective knowledge, is always equal to the task of inventing a way of escape.

But if these be the prime origins of superstition, what are the secondary origins? If "the belief in the existence and proximity of a world of spirits, and a fear of such spirits, is the only solution of all the curious religions, customs, ceremonies, and superstitions of pagan life," what are the other causes which modified these primitive guesses at the riddle of existence? The answer is twofold :
(1) The old causes have never ceased to be operative, though the manner of expression has changed; and
(2) The new causes were the advent of world religions, of social transformations, and of political separation.

As an illustration of the old causes in a new application, I will take ignorance once more. Lord Mahon, in his History of England, tells us: "It chanced that six children in one family died in quick succession of a sudden and mysterious illness--their feet having mortified and dropped off. Professor Henslow, who resides at no great distance from Wattisham, has given much attention to the records of this case, and has made it clear in his excellent essay on the Diseases of Wheat, that in all probability their death was owing to the improvident use of deleterious food--the ergot of rye. But he adds that in the neighbourhood the popular belief was firm that these poor children had been the victims of sorcery and witchcraft." This was little over forty years ago in "Christian England." Four hundred years ago, or twice or thrice that number, it was just the same--the domination of ignorance.

But the causes called secondary offer a new field of enquiry. Take the advent of Christianity with its point of view diametrically opposed to the religions of the period. What was the effect on paganism? It was seen in the Christianising of many of the old superstitions and customs, and in the creation of a group of new ones. To the student of origins there is no fact more significant than this, and none to which he can look forward more hopefully for intelligent explanations of prevalent beliefs and practices.

He is on historic ground, and whereas is most of those who have endeavoured to account for the various superstitions of savage races have done so by crediting them with a much more elaborate system of ideas than they in reality possess," he can give chapter and verse for the modifications and developments in the first century of the Christian era. Sir Isaac Newton was not a historian, but he was right when he said (in his book on Prophesies) that "the Heathens were delighted with the Festivals of their Gods, and unwilling to part with those ceremonies; therefore Gregory, Bishop of Neo-Caesarea in Pontus, to facilitate their conversion, instituted annual Festivals to the Saints and Martyrs; hence the keeping of Christmas with ivy, feasting, plays, and sports, came in the room of Bacchanalia and Saturnalia; the celebrating May Day with flowers, in the room of the Floralia; and the Festivals to the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and divers of the Apostles, in the room of the solemnities at the entrance of the Sun into the Signs of the Zodiac in the old Julian Calendar."

But the events of Christianity, the birth, life, and death of Christ, were themselves the basis of new superstitions. For example, the notion that to sit down at a table of a Christian is unlucky, can have no other origin than that of the Last Supper, and all Good Friday superstitions are of course Christian, that is, although discountenanced by the Church they are based upon Christian history.

With the Reformation came a radical force that tended to push all the old superstitions and customs into oblivion. The analogy between the pagan and Christian forms was detected and enlarged upon with the utmost severity of condemnation. Randolph's Poems (1646) tells us something of the spirit of these Puritan criticisms:--

"These teach that dancing is a Jezabel,
And Barley-Break the ready way to Hell;
The Morice Idols, Whitsun Ales can be
But profane reliques of a Jubilee:
There is a zeal t'expresse how much they do
The Organs hate, have silenc'd Bagpipes too;
And harmless May-Poles all are rail'd upon,
As if they were the Tow'rs of Babylon."

Ultimately the custom was attacked before the superstition in the hope that the decay of the one would result in the disappearance of the other. Such hopes were not altogether disappointed, but as is evident from the crowd of superstitions that did not die, or have since been revived, the modifying effect of Puritanism cannot be said to have done more than create a prejudice against the rites and associations of the Catholic Church. But that Church has always been the fountain of superstition, for when Newman declared his belief that all the wood in Continental Churches, alleged to have been part of the Cross (although enough to timber an ironclad), was really what it professed to be--probably miraculously multiplied by Divine force like the loaves and fishes--we can see a little better the Puritan's point of view. The eye of the Papist was ever on the look out for signs and portents of grace in the realm of Nature and material things. A good instance of this is found in the old notion of the shaking aspen. Christ is alleged to have been crucified on aspen wood, and from that time the boughs of aspen trees "have been filled with horror and trembled ceaselessly." Unfortunately for the probability of this story, the shivering of the aspen in the breeze may be traced to other than a supernatural cause. The construction of its foliage is particularly adapted for motion: a broad leaf is placed upon a long footstalk, so flexible as scarcely to be able to support the leaf in an upright posture; the upper part of this stalk, on which the play or action seems mainly to depend, is contrary to the nature of footstalks in general, being perfectly flattened, and as an eminent botanist has acutely observed, is placed at a right angle with the leaf, being thus particularly fitted to receive the impulse of every wind that blows. The stalk is furnished with three strong nerves, placed parallel and acting in unison with each other; but towards the base the stalk becomes round, and then the nerves assume a triangular form, and constitute three distinct supports and counteractions to each other's motions."

This disposition to see a religious message in everything secular is responsible for a good many local superstitions. "All things praise Thee," was taken in its literal sense.

An example, which in these days would be considered ludicrous, of the manner in which our ancestors made external nature bear witness to our Lord, occurs in what is called the Prior's Chamber, in the small Augustinian house of Shubbrede, in the parish of Linchmere in Sussex. On the wall is a fresco of the Nativity; and certain animals are made to give their testimony to that event in words which somewhat resemble, or may be supposed to resemble, their natural sounds. A cock, in the act of crowing, stands at the top, and a label, issuing from his mouth, bears the words, Christus natus est. A duck inquires, Quando, quando? A raven answers, In h‰c nocte. A cow asks, Ubi, ubi? And a lamb bleats out, Bethlehem.

This devout attitude is by no means absent from the Protestant mind, ancient and modern. Quite logically, too; for, if there is an active Providence, that Providence must manifest itself in some outward and visible sign. Hence we find to-day what we find throughout history, that there are superstitions fostered by the religious disposition, and others that may be called social--for want of a better term. They are accepted apart from any ecclesiastical creed. The faithful will agree that relics are good to be adored; the non-religionist has no opinion about relics, but he will carefully avoid walking under a ladder.

Now we come to the most difficult question of all: why is it that some of the superstitions in the past persist in the present? Why do we, in an age of increasing knowledge, still retain some of our fears--the offspring of ignorance? We can understand the perpetuation of a custom, even when its inner significance has gone, but a living superstition is a different thing.

One reason must be sought in the fact that superstition has always been contagious. This is amusingly set forth by Bagehot in his Physics and Politics, although probably India contains more mysteries than he allowed:--

"In Eothen there is a capital description of how every sort of European resident in the East--even the shrewd merchant and the 'post-captain with his bright, wakeful eye of command'--comes soon to believe in witchcraft, and to assure you in confidence that 'there is really something in it;' he has never seen anything convincing himself, but he has seen those who have seen those who have seen those who have seen; in fact he has lived in an atmosphere of infectious belief, and he has inhaled it."

If this is true now, it must have been more profoundly true in past centuries. The presence everywhere of the same superstition, though in different forms, is a testimony to the power of contagious fears. Children brought up in the atmosphere of credulity do not often rise above it. White in his Selborne observes:--"It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious prejudices; they are sucked in as it were with our mother's milk; and, growing up with us at a time when they take the fastest hold and make the most lasting impressions, become so interwoven with our very constitutions, that the strongest sense is required to disengage ourselves from them. No wonder, therefore, that the lower people retain them their whole lives through, since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the occasion." He adds that such a preamble seems to be necessary before he enters on the superstitions of his own district, lest he should be suspected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for an enlightened age.

But--and this is a further reason for the persistence which is the object of our enquiry there is a superstitious mind, quite independent of education and training. One has already referred to Newman, who possessed as subtle an intellect as any man in the nineteenth century; there is Dr Johnson, who believed something bad would happen if he did not touch every post as he passed along the road or street; he had for some reason built that idea into his mind, and nothing could dislodge it. Take another instance, this time from a source where one would not expect it. J. D. Rockefeller, reputed to be the world's wealthiest man, is of Puritan or Nonconformist associations, and yet, according to a London journal which specialises in personal items, he pleads guilty to a pet superstition. For years he has carried an eagle stone in his pocket. This is a kind of hollow stone, containing in its cavity some concretions which rattle on shaking the stone. It is of a brownish tint, and is often carried by the eagle to its nest. Superstition ascribes wonderful virtue to these stones when actually found in the bird's nest. They are a charm against disaster, shipwreck, and other calamities. A ribbon passed through the perforation of the stone is said to possess even more virtues than the stone itself, and when Mr Rockefeller wishes to confer a particular favour upon someone, he gives him a small piece of this ribbon.

But the great reason why superstitions persist is because they are, in part, doctrines about matters concerning which we as yet know little. Mental and occult influences are the staple commodities of most of those practices which modern science condemns as meaningless. Of these influences we are in partial ignorance, and until that ignorance is dissolved we shall always have the crystal gazer and the clairvoyant in our midst, despite the activity of the police. True, some of the remarkable "coincidences" related in solemn tones, amid breathless silence, are receiving their quietus at the hands of the expert in hypnotism and auto-suggestion; from this standpoint we may eventually be able to justify some of the stories about charms and amulets, as well as to develop a useful moral agency. But in regard to occult powers, especially what is known as black magic, we are still in darkness, mainly because those who are competent to investigate laugh the problems out of court as not worthy of attention. This is a pity, because, if there are any superstitions at all which have an origin that can be tested here and now, it is the group belonging to the occult section, dealing with the things in heaven and earth "not dreamed of in our philosophy." In view of such discoveries as have been made by Lombroso and others, not so much in magic as in mental forces, it would appear very desirable to initiate enquiries into the so-called evil side of man's powers, the persistent tradition of which has come down from remote antiquity, and surrounding which are strange superstitions and nightmare stories. It is because men of all classes have some modified belief in these vicious powers that a kind of half probability is accorded to beliefs of a more innocent hue. To read the narratives of modern travellers in the East, men with no axe to grind, and not suffering from "imagination," is to have one's curiosity awakened to the highest degree; for they tell us of powers to which there is no corresponding agency in the West. If early races in the same territory possessed the same powers, it is easy to understand the tenacity with which they held on to the beliefs in the supernatural as they understood it.

Reviewing the whole subject, without prejudice, it seems to the present writer that the right attitude of mind towards the superstitions that are still operative is not one of mere condemnation, or lofty indifference; it should be one of sympathetic inquiry, for the psychological and scientific data available are of the highest interest; and just as astronomy arose out of astrology and chemistry out of alchemy, so from the occult world we may some day attain developments in mental science, equally distinctive and equally useful in the service of the race.

DAYS AND SEASONS

CANDLEMAS DAY.

As the celebration of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, this day hardly needs the tracing of an origin, but the following from Brand is decidedly interesting:--

"How this candle-bearing on Candlemas Day came first up, the author of our English Festival declareth in this manner: "Somtyme," said he, "when the Romaines by great myght and royal power conquered all the world, they were so proude, that they forgat God, and made them divers gods after their own lust. And so among all they had a god that they called Mars, that had been tofore a notable knight in battayle; and so they prayed to hym for help, and for that they would speed the better of this knight, the people prayed and did great worship to his mother, that was called Februa, after which woman much people have opinion that the moneth February is called. Wherefore the second daie of thys moneth is Candlemass Day. The Romaines this night went about the city of Rome with torches and candles brenning in worship of this woman Februa, for hope to have the more helpe and succoure of her sonne Mars.

"Then there was a Pope that was called Sergius, and when he saw Christian people drawn to this false maumetry and untrue belief, he thought to undo this foule use and custom, and turn it into God's worship and our Lady's, and gave commandment that all Christian people should come to church and offer up a candle brennyng, in the worship that they did to this woman Februa, and do worship to our Lady and to her sonne our Lord Jesus Christ. So that now this feast is solemnly hallowed thorowe all Christendome. And every Christian man and woman of covenable age is bound to come to church and offer up their candles, as though they were bodily with our Lady, hopying for this reverence and worship, that they do to our Lady, to have a great rewarde in heaven."

In some parts of the country, Scotland particularly, Candlemas has assumed a secular garb by becoming the first of the quarterly terms; and in Cornwall old customs of a slightly different character are kept up. I select from a London morning paper (1910) a few paragraphs relating to an ancient custom.

CANDLEMAS CUSTOM.

COLLECTING A RENT OF BREAD, BEER, BRAWN,
AND CHEESE AT GODOLPHIN.

This being Candlemas Day, the old Cornish manor house of Godolphin, now a farm-house, was visited, telegraphs our Penzance correspondent, by the reeve of the manor of Lamburne, who came to collect, with time-honoured ceremony, a rent-charge upon the estate.

In the presence of a crowd of curious neighbours and sight-seers, the reeve knocked thrice upon the oaken door.

"I come," he cried, "to demand my lord's just dues--eight groats and a penny, a loaf, a cheese, a collar of brawn, and a jack of the best beer in the house. God save the King and the lord of the manor."

When the doors were opened, the reeve and some forty guests sat down to breakfast together.

VALENTINE'S DAY - February 14th

Although St. Valentine's Day is only observed in a very few places in the United Kingdom, and tends towards a speedy disappearance, it is a custom which, for this reason, is specially worth notice, inasmuch as some of us who are by no means old can remember the days when the sending of "Valentines" by a certain section of society was quite a festival in itself--almost as vigorous as the fashion of 'Xmas cards is at the moment. St. Valentine was a Christian Bishop, who is alleged to have suffered martyrdom in 271 A.D., on February 14th. Roman youths and maidens on this day were accustomed to select partners, and the Church, fulfilling its work of replacing heathen divinities by ecclesiastical saints, allotted the day to St. Valentine. Butler in his Lives of the Saints says:--

"To abolish the heathen, lewd, superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honour of their goddess Februata Juno, on the 15th of February, several zealous Pastors substituted the names of Saints in billets given on that day. St. Frances de Sales severely forbad the custom of Valentines, or giving boys in writing the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them; and to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain Saints, for them to honour and imitate in a particular manner."

Apparently the effort was not altogether successful, for the specimen Valentine verses that have come down to us from old English times, as well as some of the pictures which used to be flaunted in shop-windows in the last century, testify to the intimate connection between the Pagan idea and its attempted Christian reconstruction. St. Valentine, as a good man, can have no reason to thank the Church for its attentions to his name.

Gay has left us a poetical description of some rural ceremonies used on the morning of this day:

"Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind,
Their paramours with mutual chirpings find,
I early rose, just at the break of day,
Before the sun had chas'd the stars away;
A-field I went, amid the morning dew,
To milk my kine (for so should house-wives do).
Thee first I spied, and the first swain we see,
In spite of Fortune, shall our true love be."

Evidently the women-folk used to take Valentine's Day somewhat seriously. Witness the following from an old book--the Connoisseur:--"Last Friday was Valentine Day, and the night before I got five bayleaves, and pinned four-of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle; and then, if I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But to make it more sure I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk and filled it with salt; and when I went to bed ate it, shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lovers' names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into water: and the first that rose up was to be our Valentine. Would you think it, Mr Blossom was my man. I lay a-bed and shut my eyes all the morning till he came to our house; for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world."

The dying of St. Valentine's Day is a testimony to the growth of a sense of restraint and fine feeling. But even this year (1910) in London one can see the old vulgar Valentine shown in shop windows.

SIMNEL SUNDAY.

The fourth Sunday in Lent is in most Lancashire towns called Simnel Sunday, and Simnel cakes--ornamental and rich cakes like those made at 'Xmas time--are eaten. A writer in The Gentleman's Magazine (1867) informs us that "from time beyond memory thousands of persons come from all parts to that town (Bury) to eat Simnels. Formerly, nearly every shop was open, with all the public-houses, quite in defiance of the law respecting the closing during 'service'; but of late years, through the improved state of public opinion, the disorderly scenes to which the custom gave rise have been partially amended. Efforts have been made to put a stop to the practice altogether, but in vain." This was forty years ago, and the trade in Bury "Simnels," owing to quick and cheap transit, has practically put an end to the local celebrations. The origin of the word Simnel is in doubt. In Wright's Vocabularies it appears thus: "Hic arlaecopus=symnelle." This form was in use during the fifteenth century. In the Dictionarius of John de Garlande, completed in Paris in the thirteenth century, it appears thus:--"Simeneus=placentae=simnels." Such cakes were stamped with the figure of Christ or of the Virgin. We can only conclude that as cakes--witness the shewbread of the Hebrews--have always occupied an important place in early forms of worship, there was a successful effort in the north to localise a Christianised form of celebration; for the mixture of joviality and religious austerity which characterised Simnel Sunday in past centuries is in keeping with the same display on other occasions in countries further south.

MAUNDAY THURSDAY OR SHERE THURSDAY

There seems to be much dispute between antiquarians as to the origin of both "Maunday" and "Shere," and of course the spelling has the usual vagaries. For instance The British Apollo (1709) says:--"Maunday is a corruption of the Latin word Mandatum, a command. The day is therefore so called, because as on that day our Saviour washed his disciples' feet, to teach them the great duty of being humble. And therefore he gives them in command to do as he had done, to imitate their Master in all proper instances of condescension and humility."

On the other hand "Maunday Thursday," says a writer in The Gentleman's Magazine (1779), "is the poor people's Thursday, from the Fr. maundier, to beg. The King's liberality to the poor on that Thursday in Lent [is at] a season when they are supposed to have lived very low. Maundiant is at this day in French a beggar." Which are we to believe? The preponderating weight of evidence seems to be in favour of the former.

In reference to "Shere," one authority says it is so called "for that in old Fathers' days the people would that day shere theyr hedes and clippe theyr berdes and pool theyr heedes, and so make them honest agenst Easter Day." But another writer in The Gentleman's Magazine (1779) finds a different origin for the word. "Maundy Thursday, called by Collier, Shier Thursday, Cotgrave calls by a word of the same sound and import, Sheere Thursday. Perhaps, for I can only go upon conjecture, as sheer means purus mundus, it may allude to the washing of the disciples' feet (John xiii. 5, et seq.), and be tantamount to clean. Please to observe too, that on that day they also washed the Altars: so that the term in question may allude to that business."

Here again one feels there is no other course open than to accept the word of the earlier authority. As to the events of the day, I cannot do better than transcribe a section from The Gentleman's Magazine for 1731:--

"Thursday, April 15, beind Maunday Thursday, there was distributed at the Banquetting House, Whitehall, to forty-eight poor men, and forty-eight poorwomen (the king's age forty-eight) boiled beef and shoulders of mutton, and small bowls of ale, which is called dinner; after that, large wooden platters of fish and loaves, viz. undressed, one large old ling, and one large dried cod; twelve red herrings, and twelve white herrings, and four half quarter loaves. Each person had one platter of this provision after which was distributed to them shoes, stockings, linen and woollen cloth, and leathern bags, with one penny, two penny, three penny, and four penny pieces of silver, and shillings; to each about four pounds in value. His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Lord High Almoner, performed the annual ceremony of washing the feet of a certain number of poor in the Royal Chapel, Whitehall, which was formerly done by the kings themselves, in imitation of our Saviour's pattern of humility, etc. James the Second was the last king who performed this in person."

But some Catholic monarchs still persevere in this pious act, even to the washing of beggars' feet. In England, the king's Maundy is given at Westminster Abbey at a specially convened service, and those who receive it are carefully chosen from London parishes.

SHROVE TUESDAY

Shrove Tuesday, or as we know it to-day, "Pancake Tuesday" seems in the olden times to have been a season of merriment, horseplay, and cruelty, as if the participants were determined to have their fling ere Lent set in with its sombre feelings and proscription of joy. Prostitutes were hounded out of their dwellings with a view to segregation during the Lenten term; "cock-throwing" was indulged in, a cock being tied to a stake and pelted by the onlookers; and all kinds of rough games were played, the women and the men joining in the "fun." The frying and eating of pancakes is apparently the only item left to us of this rather choice list of festivities. Taylor in his Jack-a-Lent (1630) gives the following curious account of the custom:--

"Shrove-Tuesday, at whose entrance in the morning all the whole kingdom is inquiet, but by that time the clocke strikes eleven, which (by the help of a knavish sexton) is commonly before nine, then there is a bell rung, cal'd the Pancake-bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful either of manners or humanitie; then there is a thing called wheaten floure, which the cookes do mingle with water, eggs, spice, and other tragical, magical inchantments, and then they put it by little and little into a frying pan of boiling suet, where it makes a confused dismal hissing, (like the Lernean Snakes in the reeds of Acheron, Stix, or Phlegeton) until at last, by the skill of the Cooke, it is transformed into the forme of a Flip-Jack, cal'd a Pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very greedily."

The piety of such people would seem to have gone sadly astray, for Shrove is a word derived from shrive which means, to confess; and there was apparently little of that element in the humour of the day, although possibly in the earlier days of the Church such festivities were not so pronounced. Still, they could never have been entirely absent, for Brand informs us that the luxury and intemperance which prevailed were vestiges of the Roman Carnival. The modern pancake, translated from the history of the past, seems to suggest the old saying, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

TOSSING THE PANCAKE

The custom of tossing the pancake on Shrove Tuesday is still kept up at Westminster School. It is interesting to compare the difference in details between the celebration in 1790 and 1910. Thus a writer in The Gentleman's Magazine 1790 says:--"The under clerk in the College enters the school, and, preceded by the beadle and other officers, throws a large pancake over the bar which divides the upper from the under school.

A gentleman, who was formerly one of the masters of that school, confirmed the ancedote to me, with this alteration, that the cook of the seminary brought it into the school, and threw it over the curtain which separated the forms of the upper from those of the under scholars. I have heard of a similar custom at Eton school."

In Sir Benjamin Stone's Pictures of National Life and History we read:--"The ceremony on Shrove Tuesday, though it has been modified slightly from time to time, has remained substantially unaltered for centuries. In the morning one of the vergers from the Abbey, bearing a silver mace, conducts the cook, who carries the pancake in a frying pan, into the great hall where all the boys are assembled. When the room was divided by a curtain, this was then drawn aside, and the cook threw the pancake over the bar towards the door, whereupon all the boys scrambled for it. Of late years only a few--one representing each form chosen by the scholars themselves--have taken part in the scramble. Going forward, the cook hurls the pancake aloft in the direction of the bar. If it goes clean over, the selected boys make a wild rush for it in an endeavour to catch it whole, and usually failing, then struggle for it on the floor. The one who secures it, or the biggest portion, is entitled to a guinea. The scrimmage is known as the 'greeze.'" To all appearance there is no great difference in the ceremony as contrasted with that of 1790, but the advent of an Abbey functionary is somewhat peculiar. The Eton custom is thus referred to by Sir Henry Ellis:--"The manuscript in the British Museum, 'Status Scholae Etonensis, A.D. 1560,' mentions a custom of that school on Shrove Tuesday, of the boys being allowed to play from eight o'clock for the whole day; and of the cook's coming in and fastening a pancake to a crow, which the young crows are calling upon, near it, at the school door. 'Die Martis Carnis-privii luditur ad horam octavam in totum diem: venit Coquus, affigit laganum Cornici, juxta illud pullis Corvorum invocantibus eum, ad ostium scholae.' The crows generally have hatched their young at this season."

A modern writer claims that pancakes as a food were first made in Catholic days to use up the eggs and lard that were interdicted during Lent; and because pancakes were an excellent stay to the appetite while the faithful had to wait long hours in church to be shrived by the priest in the confessional. Food made from stale eggs and interdicted lard was no doubt of a quality more useful for sport than digestion, but we shall have to look elsewhere for the origin of the throwing. Is it not to be found in the other sports which marked the old-time Pancake Tuesday?--the cock-throwing, the chasing, the general horse play? Here is a picture of the festivities over 170 years ago:--

"Battering with massive weapons a cock tied to a stake, is an annual diversion," says an essayist in The Gentleman's Magazine (1737), "that for time immemorial has prevailed in this island."

A cock has the misfortune to be called in Latin by the same word which signifies a Frenchman.

"In our wars with France, in former ages, our ingenious forefathers," says he, "invented this emblematical way of expressing their derision of, and resentment towards that nation; and poor Monsieur at the stake was pelted by men and boys in a very rough and hostile manner."

He instances the same thought at Blenheim House, where, over the portals, is finely carved in stone the figure of a monstrous lion tearing to pieces a harmless cock, which may be justly called a pun in architecture. "Considering the many ill consequences," the essayist goes on to observe, "that attend this sport, I wonder it has so long subsisted among us. How many warm disputes and bloody quarrels has it occasioned among the surrounding mob! Numbers of arms, legs, and skulls have been broken by the missive weapons designed as destruction to the sufferer in the string. It is dangerous in some places to pass the streets on Shrove Tuesday; 'tis risking life and limbs to appear abroad that day. It was first introduced by way of contempt to the French, and to exasperate the minds of the people against that nation. 'Tis a low, mean expression of our rage, even in time of war."

One part of this extract is singularly corroborated by a passage in the Newcastle Courant for March 15th, 1783. "Leeds, March 11th, 1783: Tuesday se'nnight, being Shrove-tide, as a person was amusing himself, along with several others, with the barbarous custom of throwing a cock, at Howdon Clough, near Birstall, the stick pitched upon the head of Jonathan Speight, a youth about thirteen years of age, and killed him on the spot. The man was committed to York Castle on Friday."

The following from an old London newspaper shows that the sport of cock-throwing was then declining. The London Daily Advertiser, Wednesday, March 7th, 1759, says:

"Yesterday being Shrove Tuesday, the orders of the justices in the City and Liberty of Westminster were so well observed that few cocks were seen to be thrown at, so that it is hoped this barbarous custom will be left off."

Now "throwing" was thus the spirit of the day in the old period; if they had not had enough fun from throwing at cocks, they pelted prostitutes and hounded them round the town. We can only conclude that throwing the pancake was a sort of kitchen expression of the "sport" of the season.

GOOD FRIDAY: Hot Cross Buns

Every Good Friday morning the baker does a brisk business in hot cross buns, probably with little interest in the origin of the custom, his eye being rather upon the number sold and the accruing profits. There are three points to be considered: they are the three words themselves--buns, cross, and hot. The last mentioned seems to be a mark of modern taste and haste, for in past centuries they were "cross buns" pure and simple. To eat them piping hot out of the oven is an innovation of comparatively recent date. The sign of the Cross is easily accounted for, seeing it was part and parcel of the ritual of Roman Catholic worship.

In a curious and rare book, entitled The Canterburian's Self-Conviction (1640), in the Scottish dialect, no place or printer's name to assist identification, is this passage: "They avow that signing with the signe of the Cross at rysing or lying downe, at going out or coming in, at lighting of candles, closing of windowes, or any such action, is not only a pious and profitable ceremonie, but a very apostolick tradition."

Pennant, in his Welsh MS., says: "At the delivery of the bread and wine at the Sacrament, several, before they receive the bread or cup, though held out to them, will flourish a little with their thumb, something like making the figure of the Cross. They do it (the women mostly) when they say their prayers on their first coming to church."

Dalrymple, in his Travels in Spain, says that there "not a woman gets into a coach to go a hundred yards, nor a postilion on his horse, without crossing themselves. Even the tops of tavern bills and the directions of letters are marked with Crosses."

Among the Irish, when a woman milks her cow, she dips her fingers into the milk, with which she crosses the beast, and piously ejaculates a prayer, saying, "Mary and our Lord preserve thee, until I come to thee again."

But the origin of "buns" presents a little more difficulty. Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, following Mr Bryant's Antient Mythology, derives the Good Friday Bun from the sacred Cakes which were offered at the Arkite Temples, styled Boun, and presented every seventh day.

Mr Bryant has also the following passage on this subject:--"The offerings which people in ancient times used to present to the Gods were generally purchased at the entrance of the Temple; especially every species of consecrated bread, which was denominated accordingly. One species of sacred bread which used to be offered to the Gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun. The Greeks, who changed the Nu final into a Sigma, expressed it in the nominative Bous, but in the accusative more truly Boun. Hesychius speaks of the Boun, and describes it a kind of cake with a representation of two horns. Julius Pollux mentions it after the same manner, a sort of cake with horns.

Diogenes Laertius, speaking of the same offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed. 'He offered one of the sacred Liba, called a Bouse, which was made of fine flour and honey.' It is said of Cecrops that he first offered up this sort of sweet bread. Hence we may judge of the antiquity of the custom from the times to which Cecrops is referred. The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering when he is spealing of the Jewish women at Pathros, in Egypt, and of their base idolatry; in all which their husbands had encouraged them. The women, in their expostulation upon his rebuke, tell him: 'Did we make her cakes to worship her?' Jerem. xliv. 18, 19; vii. 18. "Small loaves of bread," Mr Hutchinson observes, "peculiar in their form, being long and sharp at both ends, are called Buns." These he derives as above, and concludes: "We only retain the name and form of the Boun, the sacred uses are no more."

It would appear, therefore, as if we have to thank some Pagan custom for this Good Friday habit of eating hot cross buns, a custom which, like many others, was taken over by the Church and Christianised. In these days the religious significance has been completely lost, and the cross bun is no longer emblematical of a crucified God. It is an ecclesiastical remainder which has become a social habit.

GOOD FRIDAY LOAVES

In some parts of the country it used to be thought, probably is still thought, wise to retain a loaf baked on Good Friday, under the impression that it acts as a charm and a medicinal cure. A writer in The Gentleman's Magazine (1867) says on the subject of Suffolk superstitions:--

"Calling at a cottage one day I saw a small loaf hanging up oddly in a corner of the house. I asked why it was placed there, and was told it was a Good Friday loaf--a loaf baked on Good Friday; that it would never grow mouldy (and on inspecting it I certainly found it very dry) and that it was very serviceable against some diseases, the bloody flux being mentioned as an example. Some weeks afterwards I called again, with a friend, at the same house, and drew his attention to the loaf which was hanging in its accustomed corner.

The owner of the house endeavoured to take the loaf down gently, but failing in the attempt, he gave a violent pull, and the precious loaf to his dismay was shivered to atoms; but in the catastrophe gave us further proofs of its extraordinary dryness. The old man collected the fragments and hung them up in a paper bag with all the more reverence on account of the good which the loaf, as he alleged, had done his son. The young man, having been seized with a slight attack of English cholera in the summer, secretly 'abscinded' and ate a piece of the loaf, and when his family expressed astonishment at his rapid recovery, he explained the mystery by declaring that he had eaten of the Good Friday loaf, and had been cured by it."

This is a curious instance of a religious festival day being regarded as able to impart a peculiar consecration to material substances. That the bread should not become mouldy is easily explained by its position; that it should cure cholera is just as easily understood, for the cure was faith-healing--nothing more, nothing less.

PICKING UP SIXPENCES AT SMITHFIELD.

On Good Fridays at St. Bartholomew's Church, Smithfield, there is a quaint ceremony conducted on a flat tombstone in the churchyard. A churchwarden places twenty-one new sixpences on the tombstone, and twenty-one widows come forward one by one, kneel, and pick up the coins. Afterwards each widow is presented with 2/6. The origin of this ceremony is said to be unknown, although it seems hardly likely that money should be paid out year by year without even a tradition as to its commencement. The surmise that the person who lies buried beneath the tombstone left money to be spent in this way--see Sir Benjamin Stone's remarks in his Pictures of National Life and History--only makes the absence of details all the more strange.

EASTER HOLIDAYS

By the law concerning holidays made in the time of King Alfred the Great, it was appointed that the week after Easter should be kept holy. From this we might safely presume on the true intention of the Church, namely a time of rejoicing in the spiritual sense. But in the long run rejoicing tends to assume one form, i.e. social festivity. Belithus tells us it was customary in some churches for the Bishops and Archbishops themselves to play with the inferior clergy at hand ball, and this, as Durand asserts, even on Easter Day itself. The Roman Church certainly erected a standard on Easter Day in token of Christ's victory, but it would perhaps be indulging fancy too far to suppose that Bishops and governors of churches who used to play at hand ball at this season, did it in a mystical way and with reference to the triumphal joy of this season.

With nations in the state of civilisation in which Europe was found in the early centuries it is not to be wondered at that an ecclesiastical fact, intended to be celebrated festively, should assume the outward expression of an agricultural feast with all the boisterous freedom of a pagan festival. For instance there was the custom of lifting or heaving at Easter, a custom which took a long time to kill, and one where it is possible to trace stages of development from seeming improprieties to respectability. In the Northern counties, as will be seen, there was a roughness which is absent in the same custom in London and the South. A writer in The Gentleman's Magazine (1784) says:--

"Lifting was originally designed to represent our Saviour's resurrection. The men lift the women on Easter Monday, and the women the men on Tuesday. One or more take hold of each leg, and one or more of each arm near the body, and lift the person up, in a horizontal position, three times. It is a rude, indecent, and dangerous diversion, practised chiefly by the lower class of people. Our magistrates constantly prohibit it by the bellman, but it subsists at the end of the town; and the women have of late years converted it into a money job. I believe it is chiefly confined to these Northern counties."

The following extract is from the Public Advertiser for Friday, April 13th, 1787:--

"The custom of rolling down Greenwich-hill at Easter is a relique of old City manners, but peculiar to the metropolis. Old as the custom has been, the counties of Shropshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire boast one of equal antiquity, which they call Heaving, and perform with the following ceremonies, on the Monday and Tuesday in the Easter week. On the first day, a party of men go with a chair into every house to which they get admission, force every female to be seated in their vehicle, and lift them up three times, with loud huzzas. For this they claim the reward of a chaste salute, which those who are too coy to submit to may get exempted from by a fine of one shilling, and receive a written testimony, which secures them from a repetition of the ceremony for that day. On the Tuesday the women claim the same privilege, and pursue their business in the same manner, with this addition--that they guard every avenue to the town, and stop every passenger, pedestrian, equestrian or vehicular."

That it was not entirely confined, however, to the Northern counties, may be gathered from the following letter, which Mr Brand received from a correspondent of great respectability in 1799:--

"Dear Sir--Having been a witness lately to the exercise of what appeared to me a very curious custom at Shrewsbury, I take the liberty of mentioning it to you, in the hope that amongst your researches you may be able to give some account of the ground or origin of it. I was sitting alone last Easter Tuesday at breakfast at the Talbot in Shrewsbury, when I was surprised by the entrance of all the female servants of the house handing in an arm chair, lined with white, and decorated with ribbons and favours of different colours. I asked them what they wanted? Their answer was, they came to heave me. It was the custom of the place on that morning; and they hoped I would take a seat in their chair. It was impossible not to comply with a request very modestly made, and to a set of nymphs in their best apparel, and several of them under twenty. I wished to see all the ceremony, and seated myself accordingly. The group then lifted me from the ground, turned the chair about, and I had the felicity of a salute from each. I told them I supposed there was a fee due upon the occasion, and was answered in the affirmative; and, having satisfied the damsels in this respect, they withdrew to heave others. At this time I had never heard of such a custom; but on inquiry, I found that on Easter Monday, between nine and twelve, the men heave the women in the same manner as on the Tuesday, between the same hours, the women heave the men. I will not offer any conjecture on the ground of the custom, because I have nothing like data to go upon; but if you should happen to have heard anything satisfactory respecting it, I should be highly gratified by your mentioning it. I have the honour to be, with much respect, Sir,

Your obedient and faithful servant,
THO. LOGGAN.
Basinghall Street,
May 7, 1799."

But lifting was only one of the sports of old Eastertide. There were games on land and water, and much eating and drinking, indeed it was a season not kept holy but devoted entirely to merriment. Such are the origins of our own Easter vacations, when for a short spell we visit the seaside and prepare for the work of an arduous summer. To some people the absence of picturesque usage and ceremony is an irreparable loss; to others the absence of vulgar customs and general horse play is a testimony to the advance of civilisation. Certainly it is a pity to lose the picturesque, but on the whole there is more gain than loss in the sober and sombre Easter vacation of to-day as compared with the rollicking past.

BIDDENDEN CAKES

Hasted, in his History of Kent, speaking of Biddenden, tells us that "twenty acres of land, called the Bread and Cheese Land, lying in five pieces, were given by persons unknown, the yearly rents to be distributed among the poor of this parish. This is yearly done on Easter Sunday, in the afternoon, in six hundred cakes, each of which have the figures of two women impressed on them, and are given to all such as attend the church; and two hundred and seventy loaves, weighing three pounds and a half a-piece, to which latter is added one pound and a half of cheese, are given to the parishioners only, at the same time. There is a vulgar tradition in these parts that the figures on the cakes represent the donors of this gift, being two women, twins, who were joined together in their bodies, and lived together so till they were between twenty and thirty years of age. But this seems without foundation. The truth seems to be that it was the gift of two maidens of the name of Preston--and that the print of the women on the cakes has taken place only within these fifty years, and was made to represent two poor widows, as the general objects of a charitable benefaction. An engraving of one of these cakes will be found in Hone's Every Day Book."

These cakes or loaves are still given out on Easter Sunday, and in Sir Benjamin Stone's Pictures of National Life and History there is a photograph of the people receiving their cakes.

EASTER EGGS

The Easter egg is quite as important an item to the modern manufacturer of toys and sweetmeats as it was to the ancient religious devotee, who believed that eggs laid on Good Friday could be kept all the year, simply because the day itself exercised some charm on the products of the farmyard. But why an egg? and why Easter? Why is a Christmas egg of no account at all? Gébélin, author of The Religious History of the Calendar, answers these questions by saying that all the nations of antiquity--the Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Greeks, Gauls, and others--regarded the egg as an emblem of the Universe--a work of the supreme Divinity. Easter was the time of the solar New Year--the day of the renewal of all things--the incubation of Nature. The colouring and ornamentation of Easter eggs seems to have been part of the original custom, and was taken over by the Church, who used red to denote the blood of Christ. The following statement from Emilianne's Romish Monks and Priests is interesting:--

"On Easter Eve and Easter Day, all the heads of families send great chargers, full of hard eggs, to the Church to get them blessed, which the priests perform by saying several appointed prayers, and making great signs of the Cross over them, and sprinkling them with holy water. The priest, having finished the ceremony, demands how many dozen eggs there be in every bason?" . . . "These blest eggs have the virtue of sanctifying the entrails of the body, and are to be the first fat or fleshy nourishment they take after the abstinence of Lent.

The Italians do not only abstain from flesh during Lent, but also from eggs, cheese, butter, and all white meats. As soon as the eggs are blessed, every one carries his portion home, and causeth a large table to be set in the best room in the house, which they cover with their best linen, all bestrewed with flowers, and place round about it a dozen dishes of meat, and the great charger of eggs in the midst. 'Tis a very pleasant sight to see these tables set forth in the houses of great persons, when they expose on side-tables (round about the chamber) all the plate they have in the house, and whatever else they have that is rich and curious, in honour of their Easter eggs, which of themselves yield a very fair show, for the shells of them are all painted with divers colours and gilt. Sometimes they are no less than twenty dozen in the same charger, neatly laid together in the form of a pyramid. The table continues in the same posture, covered, all the Easter week, and all those who come to visit them in that time are invited to eat an Easter egg with them, which they must not refuse."

As in the case of hot cross buns, the emblem and the religious idea have become obscured, and this pagan-Christian relic survives only as a social custom.

KNUTSFORD: THE MAY QUEEN AND THE MORRIS DANCES

Knutsford enjoys the distinction of celebrating the custom of crowning the May Queen with an enthusiasm, an efficiency, and a pictorial splendour which is more impressive than anything else in the same sphere. Early in the morning the streets are "sanded" with brown and white sand in preparation for the procession. All the old characters are present, and many new ones are imported from time to time, whilst children in scores eagerly participate. The procession starts from the Town Hall, and is nearly a mile long; at the end is the uncrowned Queen. She is chosen by ballot by the ladies and gentlemen who are responsible for getting up the demonstration, and the crown becomes her own property. Circuiting the town, the procession goes to the Heath, where the actual crowning takes place, followed by games, morris dances, and the usual festivities, all of which are performed before the throne--quite an imposing structure in itself.

It is hardly necessary to trace the origin of May festivals in Europe, for all nations have observed them as a mark of joy at the return of the earth to life again. But to show how quickly some of the features of a celebration can drop out of sight, I need only reproduce the following from The Morning Post, May 2nd, 1791. The paragraph says that "yesterday, being the 1st of May, according to annual and superstitious custom, a number of persons went into the fields and bathed their faces with the dew on the grass, under the idea that it would render them beautiful. I remember, too, that in walking that same morning between Hounslow and Brentford, I was met by two distinct parties of girls, with garlands of flowers, who begged money of me, saying, 'Pray, sir, remember the Garland.'" The distinctive feature in the festivities at Knutsford, after the coronation, is the Morris dance; and as this is becoming more popular elsewhere, not so much in the festival as in the social sense, it may be wise to say a word or two on the origin of so interesting a custom. Authorities trace the dance to the Moors--the word Morisco being Spanish for a Moor.

The Moorish or Morisco dance was, however, very different from the English form. Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners, cites a passage from a play called Variety (1649), in which the Spanish Morisco is mentioned, adding that this not only shows the legitimacy of the term Morris, but that the real and uncorrupted Moorish dance was to be found in Spain under the name of Fandango. The Spanish Morrice was also danced at puppet shows by a person habited like a Moor, with castagnets; and Junius has informed us that the Morris dancers usually blackened their faces with soot, that they might the better pass for Moors. Douce goes on to say that "it has been supposed that the Morris Dance was first brought into England in the time of Edward the Third, when John of Gaunt returned from Spain (see Peck's Memoirs of Milton P. 135), but it is much more probable that we had it from our Gallic neighbours, or even from the Flemings. Few, if any, vestiges of it can be traced beyond the time of Henry the Seventh, about which time, and particularly in that of Henry the Eighth, the Churchwardens' accounts in several parishes afford materials that throw much light on the subject, and show that the Morris Dance made a very considerable figure in the parochial festivals."

"We find also that other festivals and ceremonies had their Morris, as: Holy Thursday; the Whitsun Ales; the Bride Ales or Weddings; and a sort of Play, or Pageant, called the Lord of Misrule. Sheriffs, too, had their Morris Dance."

"The May Games of Robin Hood," it is observed, "appear to have been principally instituted for the encouragement of archery, and were generally accompanied by Morris dancers, who, nevertheless, formed but a subordinate part of the ceremony. It is by no means clear that, at any time, Robin Hood and his companions were constituent characters in the Morris. In Lancham's Letter from Kenilworth, or Killingworth Castle, a Bride Ale is described, in which mention is made of 'a lively Moris dauns, according to lite auncient manner: six dauncerz, Mawd Marion, and the fool.'"

Modern Morris dances are sometimes criticised as to an alleged defect in the number of constituent characters, but it is clear no specific number is necessary, although Maid Marian and the fool are probably as important as any.

FURRY DANCE--HELSTON

On May 8th every year the inhabitants of Helston celebrate the return of Spring by what is known as the "Furry Dance," to the accompaniment of a quaint horn-pipe tune. A ballad is also sung, and the opening verse is:--

Robin Hood and Little John.
They both are gone to the fair, O,
And me to the merry green wood,
To see what they do there, O.
And for to chase, O
To chase the buck and doe,
With Hal-and-Tow,
Jolly rumble, O.

At dawn a band marches through the town, and soon the young people begin to dance in the streets. The "Furry Dance" itself does not "happen" until about 1 p.m. The band begins to play the horn-pipe tune, and the couples trip to the nearest house, waltz through it, and out into the next house, through that, and so on to the next. The band itself actually goes through the houses. There were other ceremonies on Furry Day in bygone years, but the dance alone now survives.

Writing in 1790 a correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazane says:--"At Helstone, a genteel and populous borough town in Cornwall, it is customary to dedicate the eighth of May to revelry (festive mirth, not loose jollity). It is called the Furry Day, supposed Flora's Day; not, I imagine, as many have thought, in remembrance of some festival instituted in honour of that goddess, but rather from the garlands commonly worn on that day. In the morning, very early, some troublesome rogues go round the streets with drums, or other noisy instruments, disturbing their sober neighbours; if they find any person at work, make him ride on a pole, carried on men's shoulders, to the river, over which he is to leap in a wide place, if he can; if he cannot, he must leap in, for leap he must, or pay money. About 9 o'clock they appear before the school, and demand a holiday for the Latin boys, which is invariably granted; after which they collect money from house to house. About the middle of the day they collect together, to dance hand-in-hand round the streets, to the sound of the fiddle, playing a particular tune, which they continue to do till it is dark. This they call a 'Faddy.'

In the afternoon the gentility go to some farm-house in the neighbourhood to drink tea, syllabub, etc., and return in a Morris dance to the town, where they form a Faddy, and dance through the streets till it is dark, claiming a right of going through any person's house, in at one door and out at the other. And here it formerly used to end, and the company of all kinds to disperse quietly to their several habitations; but latterly corruptions have in this, as in other matters, crept in by degrees. The ladies, all elegantly dressed in white muslins, are now conducted by their partners to the ball-room, where they continue their dance till supper-time; after which they all faddy it out of the house, breaking off by degrees to their respective houses. The mobility imitate their superiors, and also adjourn to the several public-houses, where they continue their dance till midnight. It is, upon the whole, a very festive, jovial, and withal so sober, and, I believe, singular custom; and any attempt to search out the original of it, inserted in one of your future Magazines, will very much please and gratify DURGAN."

The "original" of it is still wanting--and likely to be. It is one of those obscurities which must be sought, if sought at all, in the local genius of the people.

BAAL FIRE--ST. JOHN'S EVE

Readers of the Old Testament are well acquainted with the condemnation passed upon the worship of Baal, but some of them may be surprised to know that there is a custom in Northumberland of lighting Baal fires on St. John's Eve, which is a relic of ancient Baal worship. The identity between the celebration of the pagan rite of old and of the modern remainder is too obvious to be doubted. The ancients passed their children through the fire, and the villagers at Whalton used to jump over and through the flames. Moreover, as will be seen from the historical references to be given shortly, there is further ground provided for establishing a genuine fire worship. Of the Whalton custom a modern writer says:--

" As midsummer approaches, much wood is marked out for the bonfire, sometimes with the consent of local farmers. When this has been cut, it is brought into the village with a certain amount of formality. On the evening of the 4th July a cart is borrowed and loaded with branches of faggots, some of the men get into the shafts, more are hooked on by means of long ropes, and then, with a good deal of shouting and horn blowing, the lumbersome vehicle is run down into the village." The same site for the fire is chosen year after year, and it has never been changed. The village turns out en masse to see the bonfire built. The children join hands and dance round the stack of wood and branches until they are tired; youths and maidens also dance a little distance away.

At dark a cry is raised: "Light her!" Soon the whole village is illuminated by a huge blaze, and the Baal fire is at its height. No ceremony follows, but tradition says people used to jump over the fire and through it, a tradition which is well founded, for we have strong evidence of such practices in Scotland and Ireland.

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland (1794), the minister of Callander, in Perthshire, speaking of "Peculiar Customs," says:--"The people of this district have two customs, which are fast wearing out, not only here but all over the Highlands, and therefore ought to be taken notice of while they remain. Upon the first day of May, which is called Beltan or Bal-tein-day, all the boys in a township or hamlet meet in the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by casting a trench in the ground of such circumference as to hold the whole company. They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone.

After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal until it be perfectly black. They put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they moan to implore, in rendering the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast. There is little doubt of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this country as well as in the East, although they now pass from the act of sacrificing, and only compel the devoted person to leap three times through the flames; with which the ceremonies of this festival are closed."

In the same work, the minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, says:--"On the 1st of May, O. S., a festival called Beltan is annually held here. It is chiefly celebrated by the cowherds, who assemble by scores in the fields to dress a dinner for themselves of boiled milk and eggs. These dishes they eat with a sort of cakes baked for the occasion, and having small lumps, in the form of nipples, raised all over the surface. The cake might, perhaps, be an offering to some deity in the days of Druidism."

Pennant's account in his Tour in Scotland (1771) of this rural sacrifice is more minute. He tells us that, on the 1st of May, in the Highlands of Scotland, the herdsmen of every village hold their Bel-tein.

"They cut a square trench in the ground, leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make a fire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal, and milk, and bring, besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky; for each of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation; on that, every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them. Each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and, flinging it over his shoulders, says: 'This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses;' 'This to thee, preserve thou my sheep;' and so on. After that they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals.

'This I give to thee, O fox! spare thou my lambs;' 'this to thee, O hooded crow;' 'this to thee, eagle!'

When the ceremony is over, they dine on the caudle; and after the feast is finished, what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose; but on the next Sunday they reassemble and finish the reliques of the first entertainment."

"That the Caledonians paid a superstitious respect to the sun, as was the practice among other nations, is evident," says Ellis, "not only by the sacrifice at Baltein but upon many other occasions. When a Highlander goes to bathe, or to drink waters out of a consecrated fountain, he must always approach by going round the place from east to west on the south side in imitation of the apparent diurnal motion of the sun. This is called in Gaelic going round the right or the lucky way. And if a person's meat or drink were to affect the wind-pipe, or come against his breath, they instantly cry out disheal, which is an ejaculation praying that it may go the right way."

The Baal worship is even more pronounced in Irish history. In The Survey of the South of Ireland we read something similar to what has already been quoted in a note from The Statistical Account of Scotland. "The sun" (says the writer) "was propitiated here by sacrifices of fire: one was on the 1st of May, for a blessing on the seed sown. The 1st of May is called in Irish language La Beal-tine, that is, the day of Beal's fire. Vossius says it is well known that Apollo was called Belinus, and for this he quotes Herodian, and an inscription at Aquileia, Apollini Beline. The Gods of Tyre were Baal, Ashtaroth, and all the Host of Heaven, as we learn from the frequent rebukes given to the backsliding Jews for following after Sidonian idols; and the Phenician Baal, or Baalam, like the Irish Beal, or Bealin, denotes the sun, as Ashtaroth does the moon."

In another place the same author says:--"It is not strange that many Druid remains should still exist; but it is a little extraordinary that some of their customs should still be practised. They annually renew the sacrifices that used to be offered to Apollo, without knowing it. On Midsummer's Eve, every eminence, near which is a habitation, blazes with Bonfires--and round these they carry numerous torches, shouting and dancing, which affords a beautiful sight, and at the same time confirms the observation of Scaliger:--'En Irelande ils sont quasi tous papistes, mais c'est Papauté meslee de Paganisme, comme partout.' Though historians had not given us the mythology of the pagan Irish, and though they had not told us expressly that they worshipped Beal, or Bealin, and that this Beal was the Sun and their chief God, it might nevertheless be investigated from this custom, which the lapse of so many centuries has not been able to wear away. . . I have, however, heard it lamented that the alteration of the style had spoiled these exhibitions; for the Roman Catholics light their Fires by the new style, as the correction originated from a pope; and for that very same reason the Protestants adhere to the old."

I find the following, much to our purpose, in The Gentleman's Magazine for February 1795:--"The Irish have ever been worshippers of Fire and of Baal, and are so to this day. This is owing to the Roman Catholics, who have artfully yielded to the superstitions of the natives, in order to gain and keep up an establishment, grafting Christianity upon Pagan rites. The chief festival in honour of the Sun and Fire is upon the 21st of June, when the sun arrives at the summer solstice, or rather begins its retrogade motion. I was so fortunate in the summer of 1782 as to have my curiosity gratified by a sight of this ceremony to a very great extent of country. At the house where I was entertained, it was told me that we should see at midnight the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting of Fires in honour of the Sun. Accordingly, exactly at midnight, the Fires began to appear; and taking the advantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the Fires burning on every eminence which the country afforded. I had a farther satisfaction in learning, from undoubted authority, that the people danced round the Fires, and at the close went through these fires, and made their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pass through the Fire; and the whole was conducted with religious solemnity." This is at the end of some Reflections by the late Rev. Donald M'Queen, of Kilmuir, in the Isle of Skye, on ancient customs preserved in that Island.

The Roman Catholic bishop, Dr Milner, was opposed to the notion of the Irish having ever been worshippers of Fire and of Baal. In An Inquiry into certain Vulgar Opinions concerning the Catholic Inhabitants and the Antiquities of Ireland (Lond. 1808), he tells us that the "modern hunters after paganism in Ireland think they have discovered another instance of it (though they derive this neither from the Celtic Druidesses nor the Roman Vestals, but from the Carthaginians or Phoenicians) in the fires lighted up in different parts of the country on the Eve of St. John the Baptist, or Midsummer Day. This they represent as the idolatrous worship of Baal, the Philistine god of Fire, and as intended by his pretended Catholic votaries to obtain from him fertility for the earth. The fact is, these fires, on the eve of the 24th of June, were heretofore as common in England and all over the Continent as they are now in Ireland, and have as little relation with the worship of Baal as the bonfires have which blaze on the preceding 4th of June, being the King's birth-day: they are both intended to be demonstrations of joy. That, however, in honour of Christ's precursor is particularly appropriate, as alluding to his character of bearing witness to the light (John vi. 7) and his being himself a bright and shining light (John v. 35)."

It is only natural that a Christian apologist should take up this attitude, but the verdict of history is against him; for, in addition to the testimony from Scotland and Ireland, there is similar testimony from England to the actual survivals, one of which has already been noticed.

Borlase in his Antiquities of Cornwall tells us:--"Of the fires we kindle in many parts of England, at some stated times of the year, we know not certainly the rise, reason, or occasion, but they may probably be reckoned among the relics of the Druid superstitious Fires. In Cornwall, the festival Fires, called Bonfires, are kindled on the Eve of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter's Day; and Midsummer is thence, in the Cornish tongue, called 'Goluan,' which signifies both light and rejoicing. At these Fires the Cornish attend with lighted torches, tarr'd and pitch'd at the end, and make their perambulations round their Fires, and go from village to village carrying their torches before them; and this is certainly the remains of the Druid superstition, for 'faces praeferre,' to carry lighted torches, was reckoned a kind of Gentilism, and as such particularly prohibited by the Gallick Councils: they were in the eye of the law 'accensores facularum,' and thought to sacrifice to the devil, and to deserve capital punishment."

Echoes of the ceremony are also found in unexpected quarters:--Every Englishman has heard of the "Dance round our coal-fire," which receives illustration from the probably ancient practice of dancing round the fires in our Inns of Court (and perhaps other halls in great men's houses). This practice was still in 1733 observed at an entertainment at the Inner Temple Hall, on Lord Chancellor Talbot's taking leave of the house, when "the Master of the Revels took the Chancellor by the hand, and he, Mr Page, who with the Judges, Sergeants, and Benchers, danced round the Coal Fire, according to the old ceremony, three times; and all the times the antient song, with music, was sung by a man in a Bar gown."

In an old collection of Epigrams and Satires this leaping over the Midsummer fire is mentioned among other pastimes:--

At Shrove-groate, ventor-point or crosse and pile
At leaping over a Midsummer bone-fier.
Or at the drawing clear out of the myer.

Leaping over the fires is mentioned among the superstitious rites used at the Palilia in Ovid's Fasti. The Palilia were feasts instituted in honour of Pales, the goddess of Shepherds on the Calends of May. But fire ceremonies are not the property of one nation: they belonged to all, and to-day in Japan it is possible to see the celebration of fire-walking. From Japan one may travel to other Continents and see similar phenomena. As civilisation advances these customs tend to die down; but there can be no doubt the few remaining fire festivals in this country are the relics of a very old and superstitious worship, which our semi-savage forefathers indulged in at a time when the sun and moon were not items of science, but Gods of a truth. Christianity was responsible for most of the abolition of these curious practices. For instance, the Sixth Council of Constantinople, A.D. 680, by its 65th canon (cited by Prynne in his Histriomastix), has the following interdiction:--"Those Bonefires that are kindled by certaine people on New Moones before their shops and houses, over which also they are ridiculously and foolishly to leape, by a certaine antient custome, we command them from henceforth to cease. Whoever therefore shall doe any such thing; if he be a clergyman, let him be deposed; if a layman, let him be excommunicated; for, in the Fourth Book of the Kings, it is thus written: 'And Manasseh built an altar to all the hoast of heaven, in the two courts of the Lord's house, and made his children to pass through the Fire,' etc."

Prynne--the Puritan stalwart--remarks on this:--

"Bonefires therefore had their originall from this idolatrous custome, as this Generall Councell hath defined; therefore all Christians should avoid them." And the Synodus Francica under Pope Zachary, A.D. 742, cited ut supra, inhibits "those sacrilegious Fires which they call Nedfri (or Bonefires), and all other observations of the Pagans whatsoever."

A custom that has survived so long in particular places--though few--in England, occasions the enquiry: How have they prevented the death which overtook the celebration elsewhere? At Whalton the people are more a people to themselves than others, because they are removed from train, tram, and motor bus. By and bye these agents of civilisation will reach them, and the end will be in sight. A new generation with new ideas will spring up, and there will be less disposition to gather the faggots and burn them as the darkness comes down. Finally, Baal fire, even as a fire, will cease to be, and one more custom will pass into history.

HOCKTIDE--OR HOKE DAY

Hocktide is a very old term used to denote the Monday and Tuesday in the week following the second Tuesday after Easter. The origin of the term and the occasion which gave the festival birth are keenly controverted by antiquarians, and the season itself is now all but forgotten: indeed, if it were not for the fact that Hocktide still survives at Hungerford and other places, it would, like many other customs of the past, find no notice in these pages; our standpoint being that survivals of superstitions and customs are alone of popular interest.

First as to the word itself. Bryant says Hock--the German Hoch, and means "a high day." But what made it a high day? Spelman believed the word came from hocken--to bind. He says:--"Hoc day, Hoke day, Hoc-Tuesday, a festival celebrated annually by the English in remembrance of their having ignominiously driven out the Danes, in like manner as the Romans had their Fugalia, from having expelled their kings. He inclines to Lambarde's opinion, that it means 'deriding Tuesday,' as Hocken in German means to attack, to seize, to bind, as the women do the men on this day, whence it is called 'Binding Tuesday.' The origin he deduces from the slaughter of the Danes by Ethelred, which is first mentioned in the Laws of Edward the Confessor, c. 35. He says the day itself is uncertain, and varies, at the discretion of the common people, in different places."

But as the massacre of the Danes took place on Nov. 13--the feast of St. Brice, hocktide could hardly be celebrated in the earlier part of the year. And yet there is a persistent tradition that the Danish massacre was the true origin of hocktide. For instance, Wise in his Further Observations upon the White Horse (Oxford, 1742) has collected some interesting evidence. He tells us that the Danes' inhuman behaviour drew upon them at length the general resentment of the English in King Ethelred's reign; so that in one day (St. Brice's Day A.D. 1001) they were entirely cut off in a general massacre. And, though this did not remain long unrevenged, yet a festival was appointed in memory of it, called Hoc Tuesday, which was kept up in Sir Henry Spelman's time, and perhaps may be so in some parts of England. (D. Henr. Spelman, Glossarium, in voce Hoc-day.) I find this, among other sports, exhibited at Kenilworth Castle by the Earl of Leicester, for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth, A.D. 1575. "And that there might be nothing wanting that these parts could afford, hither came the Coventre men, and acted the ancient play, long since used in that city, called HOCKS-TUESDAY, setting forth the destruction of the Danes in King Ethelred's time, with which the Queen was so pleas'd, that she gave them a brace of bucks, and five marks in money, to bear the charges of a feast." (Sir Will. Dugdale's Antiq. of Warwickshire, fol. Lond 1656, p. 166.)

This is evidence of considerable weight, and, although there are other theories of the origin of hocktide, they can produce nothing so substantial. As to the manner of celebrating the event it may be said, in the words of Ellis, that "the expreission Hock, or Hoke-tyde, comprises both days. Tuesday was most certainly the principal day, the dies Martis ligatoria. Hoke Monday was for the men, and Hock Tuesday for the women. On both days the men and women, alternately, with great merriment intercepted the public roads with ropes, and pulled passengers to them, from whom they exacted money, to be laid out in pious uses. So that Hoketyde season, if you will allow the pleonasm, began on the Monday immediately following the second Sunday after Easter, in the same manner as several feasts of the dedications of churches, and other holidays, commenced on the day or the vigil before, and was a sort of preparation for, or introduction to, the principal feast."

Some of the entries in the Lambeth Book recording hocktyde collections, are very quaint.

"1556-1557. Item of Godman Rundell's wife, Godman Jackson's wife, and Godwife Tegg, for Hoxce money by them received to the use of the Church, xijs." (Archaeol. vol. vii. p. 252.)

"1518-1519. Item of William Elyot and John Chamberlayne, for Hoke money gydered in the pareys, iijs. ixd.

"Item of the gaderyng of the Churchwardens wyffes on Hoke Mondaye, viijs. iijd."

The modern celebration at Hungerford is begun by a watercress supper at the 'John o' Gaunt'--(he being the patron of the place,) where his wonderful horn, the town's most treasured possession, is kept. The supper consists of black broth, Welsh rarebit, macaroni, and salad, with bowls of punch. Next morning the town crier blows the horn, and the Hocktide court assembles. The jury is sworn, the names of freemen called, and officials elected. The tything or tutti men receive from the constable a pole on the top of which is a tutti or posy. They then go round the town collecting pennies from the men and kisses from the women. Of course there is a lot of "fun," and women make themselves scarce. The crier, poor fellow, is only allowed to collect pennies: kisses are forbidden fruit. When this part of the celebration is over, the Constable (who is chief ruler of the town) gives a luncheon and then holds the Sandon Fee Court for regulating cattle feeding on the Marsh. After another dinner, court leet is held. "Then comes the Constable's banquet, at which his worship sits beneath the famous John o' Gaunt's horn, suspended from the two tutti poles, and the principal feature of which is a toast, 'To the memory of John o' Gaunt.' This is drunk in solemn silence as the clock strikes the midnight hour." And Hocktide is over.

GARLAND DAY AT ABBOTSBURY

Do we offer floral tributes to Neptune in England to-day? Yes, at Abbotsbury on the 13th May every year the children go round the village with large garlands, asking for gifts from the inhabitants. When the round has been completed, a start is made for the beach, the flowers are placed in boats, and put out to sea--not for Neptune to do as he likes with--for they are brought back again, taken to the church, where a service is gone through. Here then is an excellent instance of a Christianised pagan superstition, for the floral tributes, if Neptune is to be worshipped, should be committed to the waves. The idea was to propitiate the god and bring luck in fishing. In all probability the custom will linger for some years to come, but it is already robbed of its original significance, and shows some signs of decay in consequence. Maybe some modern pagan, interested in old customs, will induce the inhabitants to return to the old rite of trusting the floral gifts to Father Neptune.

ASCENSION DAY--"BEATING THE BOUNDS."

The visitor to London, be he a Britisher or a foreigner, cannot but be struck by the manner in which the City Corporation keeps up some of the old customs, particularly those which are carried out under the eyes of the public. Among them is the practice of "beating the bounds." Even the callous man of the City will pause in, say Coleman Street, as he sees a uniformed servant of the Corporation stop at a certain point, utter a few words from a document, and then wait a moment as two or three boys with bunches of long, thin rods belabour the walls or doorways to their own satisfaction and the amusement of the crowd? What does it all mean?

It was a general custom formerly (says Bourne), and is still observed in some country parishes, to go round the bounds and limits of the parish on one of the three days before Holy Thursday, or the Feast of our Lord's Ascension, when the minister, accompanied by his churchwardens and parishioners, were wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and preserve the rights and properties of the parish.

He cites Spelman as deriving this custom from the times of the Heathens, and that it is an imitation of the Feast called Terminalia, which was dedicated to the god Terminus, whom they considered as the guardian of fields and landmarks, and the keeper up of friendship and peace among men. The primitive custom used by Christians on this occasion was for the people to accompany the bishop or some of the clergy into the fields, where Litanies were made, and the mercy of God implored, that He would avert the evils of plague and pestilence, that He would send them good and seasonable weather, and give them in due season the fruits of the earth.

In Herbert's Country Parson (1652), we are told that "the Country Parson is a lover of old customs, if they be good and harmlesse. Particularly, he loves Procession, and maintains it, because there are contained therein four manifest advantages. First, a blessing of God for the fruits of the field.
2. Justice in the preservation of bounds.
3. Charitie in loving, walking, and neighbourly accompanying one another, with reconciling of differences at that time, if there be any.
4. Mercie, in relieving the poor by a liberal distribution and largess, which at that time is or ought to be used. Wherefore he exacts of all to be present at the Perambulation, and those that withdraw and sever themselves from it he mislikes, and reproves as uncharitable and unneighbourly; and, if they will not reforme, presents them."

This gives a fair notion of the custom in the middle of the seventeenth century. Sir John Hawkins (1776) says in his History of Music, "it is the custom of the inhabitants of parishes, with their officers, to perambulate in order to perpetuate the memory of their boundaries, and to impress the remembrance thereof in the minds of young persons, especially boys; to invite boys, therefore, to attend to this business, some little gratuities were found necessary; accordingly it was the custom, at the commencement of the procession, to distribute to each a willow-wand, and at the end thereof a handful of points, which were looked on by them as honorary rewards long after they ceased to be useful, and were called Tags."

In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill in the City of London, 1682, are the following entries:--

	£	s.	d.
For fruit on Perambulation Day	1	0	0
For points for two yeres - -	2	10	0

The following extracts are from the Churchwardens' Books of Chelsea:--

	£	s.	d.
"1679. Spent at the Perambulation Dinner - - - - - - -	3	10	0
Given to the boys that were whipt -	0	4	0
Paid for poynts for the boys - -	0	2	0

(Lysons's Environs of London, vol. ii. p. 126.)

The second of these entries alludes to another expedient for impressing the recollection of particular boundaries on the minds of some of the young people.

"Bumping persons to make them remember the parish boundaries has been kept up even to this time (1830). See a trial on the occasion, where an angler was bumped by the parishioners of Walthamstow parish, reported in the Observer Newspaper of January 10th, 1830. He was found angling in the Lea, and it was supposed that bumping a stranger might probably produce an independent witness of parish boundary. He obtained £50 damages."

The encroaching of boundaries is now an item against which it is superfluous to obtain protection, and all that remains of a once important custom is the quaint journey round the City of London previously referred to, and the repetition of similar functions in Linlithgow and Selkirk, also the Tower of London.

ASCENSION DAY--OTHER SUPERSTITIONS

W. C. Hazlitt quotes from The Times of 1888 an interesting account of the Penrhyn quarrymen:--"Yesterday, being Ascension Day, work was entirely suspended at Lord Penrhyn's extensive slate quarries near Bangor. The cessation of work is not due to any religious regard for the day, but is attributable to a susperstition, which has long lingered in the district, that if work is continued an accident is inevitable. Some years ago the management succeeded in overcoming this feeling, and in inducing the men to work. But each year there was a serious accident, and now all the men keep at a distance from the quarries on Ascension Day." It is difficult to account for this attitude on the part of the quarrymen, except that they are, by heredity and instinct, a superstitious race, well able to establish a local cult of their own. There is admittedly some logic in the argument that since Ascension Day has been a time of holiday festivity, at first religious, and afterwards secular, therefore work on that day savours of sacrilege. But in view of the immunity from accidents in other callings, it is not remarkable that fatalities should occur in somewhat dangerous occupations like quarrying.

Penrhyn is not alone in having a local superstition, or, perhaps, I ought to say, a custom based on an old superstition. Sir Henry Ellis says Shaftesbury had its own method of celebration (probably now discontinued), wherein the inhabitants paid a yearly tribute of acknowledgment to the Lord of Gillingham Manor for the water supplied from his estate. The tribute took the form of a calf's head and pair of gloves. "Riding the Marches" is said to be still prevalent in Scotland, and is celebrated on the day after Whitsunday fair by the Magistrates and Burgesses, called the Landsmark, or Langemark Day, from the Saxon Langemark. At Tissington, County Derby, the inhabitants were wont to decorate their well on Ascension Day.

ALL FOOLS' DAY

The unsuspecting City man who, on the point of commencing his day's work at 10 a.m. on any April 1st, receives a 'phone message from a friend desiring an immediate interview on important business, gets out at once for the place of meeting, only to find that the friend knows nothing about it, and has actually had no occasion to use the 'phone at all up to that moment. Then the City man remembers the date, and realises that he has been fooled. It is still early, just 10:30 a.m., and he begins to take his revenge on other friends, until things may be said to "hum." But whilst the fun is fast and furious, very few of these practical jokers can say how the custom of fooling on this day arose; and if one turns to his handy Encyclopaedia for information, he will read that "it is of unknown antiquity."

As might be expected, some writers attempt to trace the origin to a Nature feast--that of the Vernal Equinox--and through Nature to a starting point in Christian history. Maurice, in his Indian Antiquities (vol VI., p. 71) speaks of the first of April as the ancient feast of the Vernal Equinox, equally observed in India and Britain. He goes on to say that the date was held as a high and general festival, "in which an unbounded hilarity reigned through every order of its inhabitants; for the sun at that period of the year, entering into the sign Aries, the New Year, and with it the season of rural sports and vernal delight, was then supposed to have commenced. The proof of the great antiquity of the observance of this annual festival, as well as the probability of its original establishment in an Asiatic region, arises from the evidence of facts afforded us by astronomy. Although the reformation of the year by the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, and the adaptation of the period of its commencement to a different and far nobler system of theology, have occasioned the festival sports, anciently celebrated in this country on the first of April, to have long since ceased; and although the changes occasioned, during a long lapse of years, by the shifting of the Equinoctional points, have in Asia itself been productive of important astronomical alterations, as to exact aera of the commencement of the year; yet, on both Continents, some very remarkable traits of the jocundity which then reigned, remain even to these distant times. Of those preserved in Britain, none of the least remarkable or ludicrous is that relic of its pristine pleasantry, the general practice of making April-Fools, as it is called, on the first day of that month; but this, Colonel Pearce (Asiastic Researches, vol. 11., p. 334) proves to have been an immemorial custom among the Hindoos, at a celebrated festival holden about the same period in India, which is called the Huli Festival.

'During the Huli, when mirth and festivity reign among the Hindoos of every class, one subject of diversion is to send people on errands and expeditions that are to end in disappointment, and raise a laugh at the expense of the person sent. The Huli is always in March, and the last day is the general holiday. I have never yet heard any account of the origin of this English custom; but it is unquestionably very ancient, and is still kept up even in great towns, though less in them than in the country. With us, it is chiefly confined to the lower class of people; but in India high and low join in it; and the late Suraja Doulah, I am told, was very fond of making Huli Fools, though he was a Mussulman of the highest rank. They carry the joke here so far as to send letters making appointments, in the names of persons who it is known must be absent from their houses at the time fixed upon; and the laugh is always in proportion to the trouble given.' The least inquiry into the ancient customs of Persia, or the minutest acquaintance with the general astronomical mythology of Asia, would have told Colonel Pearce that the boundless hilarity and jocund sports prevalent on the first day of April in England, and during the Huli Festival of India, have their origin in the ancient practice of celebrating with festival rites the period of the Vernal Equinox, or the day when the new year of Persia anciently began."

Thus it would appear that All Fools' Day is not a British or even a continental monopoly, for the French "Poisson d'Avril" owes its existence to the same cause as our own. But why "All" Fools' Day? "All" is said by some authorities to be a corruption of "auld," i.e. old, mention being found in the Romish calendar of a "Feast of Old Fools." (Auldborough, in Yorkshire, now Aldborough, is always pronounced Allborough.) But this feast was held on January 1st, and although removals of feasts were not unknown in the crowded state of the Roman calendar, the theory that the ancient Druids were the old fools, whom the new Christians taunted and set apart for a day of "mafficking," is hardly tenable. The Christian interpretation is given by Bellingen in his Etymology of French Proverbs. The word "poisson" in the phrase "poisson d'Avril" is his starting point.

"Poisson," he contends, is corrupted through the ignorance of the people from "Passion"--and length of time has almost totally defaced the original intention, which was as follows: that as the Passion of our Saviour took place about this time of the year, and as the Jews sent Christ backwards and forwards to mock and torment him, i.e. from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, this ridiculous or rather impious custom took its rise from thence, by which we send about from one place to another such persons as we think proper objects of our ridicule.

This is rather too ingenious to be convincing. The most natural suggestion was made by Dr. Pegge, Rector of Whittington, in The Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1766. After discussing the theories previously outlined, he says:--"Now, thirdly, to account for it; the name undoubtedly arose from the custom, and this, I think, arose from hence: our year formerly began, as to some purposes and in some respects, on the 25th of March, which was supposed to be the Incarnation of our Lord; and it is certain that the commencement of the new year, at whatever time that was supposed to be, was always esteemed an high festival, and that both amongst the antient Romans and with us. Now great festivals were usually attended with an Octave (see Gentleman's Magazine, 1762, p. 568), that is, they were wont to continue eight days, whereof the first and last were the principal; and you will find the 1st of April is the octave of the 25th of March, and the close or ending, consequently, of that feast, which was both the Festival of the Annunciation and of the New Year. From hence, as I take it, it became a day of extraordinary mirth and festivity, especially amongst the lower sorts, who are apt to pervert and make a bad use of institutions which at first might be very laudable in themselves."

LICHFIELD GREENHILL BOWER

In the early days of England, when the nation was being organised for defence, it was incumbent upon every town and village to hold an annual meeting to consider the defence of the country against "all foreigners and enemies." This regulation is maintained in the Laws of Edward the Confessor. Other and later acts specify what the town must provide by way of the implements of war. Of course these duties now devolve upon a government department, but at Lichfield, in June, the city still holds its annual meeting, and boys are paraded, wearing the suits of armour provided for defence against the invasion of Germany! The function is carried out with dignity, as becomes the remembrance of an old custom, but when it is over the day is given up to jollity of the true English type.

LAMMAS DAY

Lammas Day seems to have been a great day of accounts in early British history; it is still a quarter day in Scotland. The origin of the word is much disputed. A writer in 1754 says:--"Our ancestors distributed the year into four quarters, Candlemas, Whitsuntide, Lammas, and Martinmas; and this was every whit as common as the present division of Lady Day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas, Lammas was the specific day whereon Peter's Pence, most rigorously collected, was paid. It was thus a day of accounts, and 'latter Lammas' means last day of accounts." The 1st of August was called Lammas because, some authorities say, the priests were then wont to gather their tithe lambs; others derive it from the Saxon word Leffmesse i.e. bread mass, it being kept as a thanksgiving for the first fruits of the corn. It is also called gule or yule of August in old almanacs. Mr G. L. Gomme in The Antiquary has thus summarised the available facts:--

"Lammas Day is properly the 1st of August. The Act of George II., which established the new style in England, excepted the days for the commencement of Lammas nights from the operation of the Statute. Lammas Day under this operation is now the 13th of August. It is one of the four cross quarter days as they are now called. Whitsuntide was formerly the first of these quarters, Lammas the second, Martinmas the next, and Candlemas the last. Such partition of the year was once as common as the present divisions of Lady Day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and 'Xmas. Some rents are still payable on those ancient quarter days in England, and they were not long ago, even if they do not still continue, general in Scotland. It is a day on which many quaint customs were enacted; but the one great custom, which marks it as a link with a very remote past, is the removal of the fences from many lands throughout the country, and the throwing open to common pasturage of lands which, till this day from the end of last Lammastide, had been used as private property.

In fact it is not too much to say that in this custom of Lammastide we have the key to the whole system of ancient agriculture. Wherever we find Lammas customs in England, we may take it for granted that it is the last remaining link of a whole group of customs which together make up the history of the primitive village community. It is curious to observe with what varying degrees of integrity customs have lived in various parts of the country. In some places, for instance, we may find only the bare mention of Lammastide, and the throwing down of fences and the consequent opening of land to common. In other places there is much more at the back of this Lammas customs--there is sufficient to enable us to open the great book of comparative politics and to take our studies to that ancient Aryan land, India, or even still further back in the history of primitive society, the native savages of Africa."

HARVEST HOME--THE KERN BABY

Macrobius tells us that among the ancients the farmers, when they got in their harvest, were wont to feast with their servants who had laboured with them in tilling the ground. So in later centuries when Europe had, for the most part, become christianised, the Harvest Home was a real celebration, master and servant sat at the same table, and, when the feasting was over, they spent the remainder of the night in dancing and singing. Such a custom has obviously a natural origin in the gladness of having sown and reaped, and stored the corn in the granary; there is an end of anxiety about sun, and weather, and blight, and all the ills affecting him who is at the mercy of the heavens.

Not much is left to us of the old Harvest Home. Grain growing is nowadays part and parcel of commerce; and railways and steamships have turned the channel of its romance from one of poetry into science. In England the farmer is as glad as the Roman, or the Hebrew of old, to gather in his crops under a benevolent sky, but he feels that the Harvest Home belongs to another age, and so the church has taken the festival out of his hands. The modern Harvest Thanksgiving service is about all that is left to us of one of the most natural and simple of customs--one belonging to no nation alone, but belonging to man as man.

In a few places, however, there are remnants of the old festival still left, and among others Whalton still holds the chief place. Here they still make and display the Kern Baby. A photograph of a recent baby is given in Sir Benjamin Stone's Pictures. Kern, or Cheorn, is said to come from the Icelandic Kirna--the feast of harvest home, so called because a churnful of cream formed an important part of the entertainment. Thus Scott in Marmion says:--

His rustic Kirn's loud revelry.

The Kern baby is an image dressed up with corn and carried before the reapers to the harvest home. This derivation is rather fanciful, and the most obvious explanation is that Kern is a corruption of corn. Hutchinson in his History of Northumberland is of this opinion.

"An old woman, who in a case of this nature is respectable authority, at a village in Northumberland informed me that, not half a century ago, they used everywhere to dress up something similar to the figure above described at the end of Harvest, which was called a Harvest Doll, or Kern Baby. This northern word is plainly a corruption of Corn Baby, or Image, as is the Kern Supper, which we shall presently consider, of Corn Supper. In Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 20 b, 'an ill kerned or saved Harvest' occurs."

Speaking of the custom itself, he adds:--"In some places, an Image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, a scycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with musick and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres."

In Kent the custom took another form, that of the Ivy Girl, "which is a figure composed of some of the best corn the field produces, and made as well as they can into a human shape; this is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings, cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, etc. of the finest lace. It is brought home with the last load of corn from the field upon the waggon, and they suppose entitles them to a supper at the expense of their employers."

In Scotland, according to the Statistical Account (1797), the custom was to make a figure called the Maiden. In Longforgan, Perthshire, it was "till very lately, the custom to give what was called a Maiden Feast, upon the finishing of the Harvest; and to prepare for which, the last handful of Corn reaped in the field was called the Maiden. This was generally contrived to fall into the hands of one of the finest girls in the field, was dressed up with ribands, and brought home in triumph with the music of fiddles or bagpipes. A good dinner was given to the whole band, and the evening spent in joviality and dancing, while the fortunate lass who took the Maiden was the Queen of the Feast; after which this handful of Corn was dressed out generally in the form of a Cross, and hung up with the date of the year, in some conspicuous part of the house. This custom is now entirely done away, and in its room each shearer is given 6d, and a loaf of bread. However, some farmers, when all their Corns are brought in, give their servants a dinner and a jovial evening, by way of Harvest Home."

The tendencies of the Protestant Reformation were so distinctly averse to images of any description that we must look to the quarrels of religious leaders for the cause of the decay in Harvest Festivals. So far back as 1602 Newton, in his Tryall of a Man's Owne Selfe, when speaking of breaches of the Second Commandment, says:--"the adorning with garlands, or presenting unto any image of any Saint, whom thou has made speciall choise of to be thy patron and advocate, the firstlings of thy increase, as CORNE and GRAINE, and other oblations."

Puritanism, and art, and poetry, do not dwell together.

HALLOWEEN

Hallow Even is the vigil of All Saints' Day, which is on the first of November. Christian history presents a curious divergence of custom in regard to this Church festival; for whilst in Catholic countries the faithful turn their steps to the churchyard and place flowers on the graves of the departed, the Protestant section, and that portion of the community known as worldly people, celebrate the occasion by making merry and using various means to peer into the future. All Saints' Day being originally a day for remembering the souls of the departed, it is confessedly difficult to trace any connection between a pious instruction on the part of the Church, and the old (and modern) practice of unmarried women, who use this day--or eve--to divine their matrimonial bliss, or misery. But as with so many Church festivals the jollity and the seriousness often went together, or the directly religious act preceded the merry-making; and in the course of time the religious element grew weaker, whilst the secular element retained more or less its vitality. Anyhow in the North of England the sanctity of Hallow Even became transmogrified into "Nut Crack Night." Girls anxious, or, shall I say, curious, to know the name of their husbands, would place two nuts in the fire side by side, giving them names. If the fire caused the nuts to burst and fly apart, the sign was distinctly bad; if they burned together, the omen was decidedly good. Gay in his Spell thus refers to the custom :-

"Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name:
This with the loudest bounce me sore amaz'd,
That in a flame of brightest colour blaz'd;
As blaz'd the nut, so may thy passion grow,
For 'twas thy Nut that did so brightly glow!"

"In marriage ceremonies among the Romans the bridegroom threw nuts about the room for the boys to scramble. The epithalamiums of the classics confirm this, and Horace speaks of the use of nuts in sports. They were not excluded from the catalogue of superstitions under Papal Rome. Thus on the 10th of August in the Romish ancient Calendar I find it observed that some religious use was made of them, and that they were in great estimation: Nuces in pretio et religiosae."

THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER

It is instructive to note how little influence the origin of this celebration has on the observance of the custom. There is no question of Roman Catholicism versus Protestantism; no preaching in churches against the papists; no defiance of Protestant practice. Gunpowder Plot is an item familiar to every schoolboy who has read his history-book, but the religious significance is a mere nothing compared with the fun of firing off fireworks. And I question whether even that will last another century; for whereas once--not thirty years ago--every part of the countryside would be alight with huge fires, one can now only note their slow decay; and the sale of fireworks is not on the increase. Perhaps it is just as well. If the function is religious, it should be religiously observed; if not, let it become what it has become--the one day in the year when we agree to let off our squibs and crackers. "The search for Guy Fawkes" is still kept up as a formal custom.

WROTH MONEY

Brand does not appear to have noticed this interesting custom, and for the following paragraphs I am indebted to Sir Benjamin Stone's Pictures of National Life and History, with notes by Michael McDonagh. Speaking of the ceremony at Knightlow Cross, he says:--"A tribute which dates back for 1,000 years, and connects the present with that remote past, when the central counties of England were for the most part a wild and uncultivated chase, is rendered on Knightlow Hill, near Dunchurch, Warwickshire, on the early morn of St. Martin's Day. Known as 'wroth money,' it is paid to the Duke of Buccleuch, as an acknowledgment of certain concessions made by his ancestors on pain of a forfeit for every penny of 20S. or 'a white bull with red nose and red ears.' Before dawn on St. Martin's Day, representatives of the townships which owe tribute, as well as crowds of spectators, wend their way to Knightlow Hill from all points of the compass. There on the summit, and close to the Holyhead Road, they gather round the base of an old cross. The Duke's agent then reads out the name of the parishes and hamlets which are called upon to make payments, whereupon the persons responsible for such dues drop their coins into the hollow of a large stone. In all there are 25 places which have to pay wroth money, the amount ranging from 1d. to 2s. 3-½d. The whole amount due (only 9s. 4d.) is usually collected, though within recent years there have been defaulters on several occasions. Once during the last century the prescribed penalty for nonpayment was enforced. When the collection is completed and the Duke's agent has checked the names on the list, the company adjourn to the village inn, which by its sign, the 'Dun Cow,' helps to perpetuate the legend of the slaying of the gigantic dun cow by Guy, Earl of Warwick. Here breakfast is served at the Duke's expense to those who have made payment, and subsequently the whole company, long churchwarden pipes in hand, drink his grace's health in tumblers of rum and milk. . . . In an ancient charter preserved in Broughton House, Northamptonshire--a charter which has only once been challenged, and having then (in 1685) been confirmed, has since remained undisputed--wroth money is merely declared to be a legal tribute for ancient privileges, the nature of those privileges not being defined."

CHRISTMAS

Christianity became civilly established in the fourth century, and the festivals held in honour of Bacchus and other heathen deities at the Christmas season of the year gradually fell into decay. The primitive teachers of the Christian religion prohibited these scenes of festivity as being unsuited to the character of their founder, but on the formation of a regular hierarchy, supported by political power, the introduction of particular festivals, adapted to the respective periods of the pagan ones, soon became general.

Thus by adopting the obsolete feasts of the Greeks and Romans, and adapting them to the most striking events in the lives of Christ and his notable followers, the prejudices of the pagan worshippers were shaken, and numerous converts obtained. Unfortunately these festival saint days at length became so numerous under the Papal authority, that the days of the year were not sufficiently numerous for their celebration. However, since the Reformation, the far greater portion have sunk into oblivion, and are only known by referring to the old calendars of the Saints.

Yet the principal ones commemorated in honour of Christ are still retained, though not celebrated with the same festivity and show as in former times. Among these Christmas Day may be considered the most important. The first festival of this kind ever held in Britain, it is said, was celebrated by King Arthur in the city of York, A.D. 521. Previously to this year the 25th of December was dedicated to Satan, or to the heathen deities worshipped during the dynasties of the British, Saxon, and Danish Kings. In the year 521 this chivalrous monarch won the battle of Badan Hills, when 90,000 (?) of the enemy were slain, and the city of York was delivered up to him. He took up his winter quarters there, and held the festival of Christmas. The churches which lay levelled to the ground he caused to be rebuilt, and the vices attendant on heathenish feasts were banished from York for ever. As if in memory of its origin this county, Yorkshire seems to preserve the festivities of Christmas with more ancient hospitality than any other part of Great Britain. But everywhere the spirit of Christmas festivity has been broken; the old customs die one by one, and Yuletide is now, much more a general holiday, with plum pudding, presents, and paid bills as specialities, than anything religious and historic.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

The custom of decorating churches, streets, and private houses with holly and evergreens at Christmas still prevails among us; and in these decorations mistletoe occupies a place of peculiar significance. Vergil compares the golden bough in Infernis to the misletoe, and there is evidence that the use of this plant-parasite was not unknown to the ancients in their religious ceremonies, particularly the Greeks, of whose poets Vergil was the ackno