and trading property of the town of Colchester. Richard I. granted to
the burgesses the fishery of the River Colne, from the North Bridge as
far as Westnesse; and this grant was confirmed to them by subsequent
charters, especially that of Edward IV. This fishery includes not merely
the plain course of the Colne, but all the creeks, &c., with which it
communicates: that is to say, the entire _Colne Water_, as it is
commonly called. It is, moreover, proved by records that the burgesses
of Colchester are legally entitled to the sole right of fishing in this
water, to the exclusion of all others not licensed and authorized by
them; “and have, and ever had, the full, sole, and absolute power to
have, take, and dispose of to their own use, all oysters and other fish
within the said river or water.” There are some parishes adjoining the
water whose inhabitants are admitted, upon licence from the mayor, to
fish and dredge oysters therein, these parishes being Brightlingsea,
Wivenhoe, and East Doniland. For the better preservation of this
privilege Courts of Admiralty or Conservancy have been customarily held
on Colne Water; at which all offences committed within the limits of the
aquatic royalty are presented by a jury, and fines exacted on the
offenders. In March or April yearly, proclamation is made by the legal
authorities on the water near Mersea Stone, “that the River Colne is
shut, and that all persons are forbidden to dredge, or take any oysters
out of the said river or the creeks thereto appertaining before the
feast of St. Mary Magdalen, the 22nd of July.” This is called _Setting_
(i.e. Shutting) the Colne.--Cromwell, _History of Colchester_, 1825, pp.
289-294.
LANCASHIRE.
Under the name of Richardson’s Charity, a distribution takes place at
Ince on the feast of the Ascension, of five loads of oatmeal, each load
weighing two hundred and forty pounds. Three loads are given to the poor
of the township of Ince, one to the poor of Abram, and the other to the
poor of Hindley.--_Old English Customs and Charities_, p. 36.
MIDDLESEX.
In St. Magnus and other city churches in London, the clergy are
presented with ribbons, cakes, and silk staylaces.--_N. & Q. 1st S._
vol. ix. p. 9.
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
It is customary to go in triennial processions on Holy Thursday, to
perambulate the parishes and beat the boundaries, for the purpose of
marking and retaining _possession_; hence the ceremony is called
_possessioning_. The parochial authorities are accompanied by other
inhabitants and a number of boys, to whom it is customary to distribute
buns, &c., in order to impress it upon their memory should the
boundaries at any future period be disputed.--Baker, _Glossary of
Northamptonshire Words and Phrases_, vol. ii. p. 131.
In the town of Northampton the ceremony of beating the bounds is termed
“beating the cross.”
NORTHUMBERLAND.
On Ascension Day, says Mackenzie in his _History of Newcastle_ (1827,
vol. ii. p. 744), every year the mayor and burgesses of Newcastle survey
the boundaries of the River Tyne. This annual festive expedition starts
at the Mansion-House Quay, and proceeds to or near the place in the sea
called Sparhawk, and returns up the river to the utmost limits of the
Corporation at Hedivin Streams. They are accompanied by the brethren of
the Trinity House and the River Jury in their barges.
Brockett mentions the _smock-race_ on Ascension Day, a race run by
females for a smock. These races were frequent among the young country
wenches in the north. The prize, a fine Holland chemise, was usually
decorated with ribbons. The sport is practised at Newburn, near
Newcastle.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 210.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.
In Rogation week the bounds of many of the parishes are still beaten
with as much pomp by the beadle as ever; and it is believed that if an
egg which is laid on Ascension Day be placed in the roof of a house, the
building will be preserved from fire and other calamities.--_Jour. of
Arch. Assoc._, 1853, vol. viii. p. 233.
OXFORDSHIRE.
At Oxford the little crosses cut in the stones of buildings to denote
the division of the parishes are whitened with chalk. Great numbers of
boys, with peeled willow rods in their hands, accompany the minister in
the procession.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 200.
Aubrey, in his _Remains of Gentilism and Judaism_, says: “The fellows of
New College have, time out of mind, every Holy Thursday, betwixt the
hours of eight and nine, goune to the hospital called Bart’lemews neer
Oxford, when they retire into the chapell, and certaine prayers are
read, and an antheme sung, from thence they goe to the upper end of the
grove adjoining to the chapell (the way being before them strewed with
flowers by the poor people of the hospitall), they place themselves
round about the spring there, where they warble forth melodiously a song
of three, four, or five parts; which being performed they refresh
themselves with a morning’s draught there, and retire to Oxford before
sermon.”
STAFFORDSHIRE.
Formerly, at Lichfield, the clergyman of the parish, accompanied by the
churchwardens and sidesmen and followed by a concourse of children
bearing green boughs, repaired to different reservoirs of water and
there read the gospel for the day, after which they were regaled with
cakes and ale; during the ceremony the door of every house was decorated
with an elm bough. This custom was founded on one of the early
institutions of Christianity, that of blessing the springs and
wells.--_Account of Lichfield_, 1818-19, p. 133.
SUFFOLK.
By his will, proved in December 1527, John Cole of Thelnetham, directed
that a certain farm-rent should be applied yearly to the purpose of
providing “a bushell and halffe of malte to be browne, and a bushell of
whete to be baked to _fynde a drinkinge upon Ascension Even everlastinge
for ye parishe of Thelnetham to drinke at the Cross of Trappetes_.”
WORCESTERSHIRE.
At Evesham it is customary for the master-gardeners to give their
work-people a treat of baked peas, both white and grey (and pork), every
year on Holy Thursday.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 208.
MAY EVE.
An old Roman kalendar, cited by Brand (_Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p.
216), says that on the 30th of April boys go to seek the May-trees
(Maii arbores a pueris exquiruntur), and in Dryden’s time this early
observance of May seems to have been customary; one of his heroines
“Wak’d, as her custom was, before the day,
To do th’ observaunce due to sprightly May;
For sprightly May commands our youth to keep
The vigils of her night, and breaks their rugged sleep.”--
_Med. Ævi Kalend._ vol. i. p. 229.
CORNWALL.
At Penzance a number of young men and women assemble together at a
public-house, and sit up till the clock strikes twelve, when they go
round the town with violins, drums, and other instruments, and by sound
of music call upon others to join them. As soon as the party is formed,
they proceed to different farm-houses within four or five miles of the
neighbourhood, where they are expected as regularly as May morning
comes; and they there partake of a beverage called junket, made of raw
milk and rennet, or running, as it is called, sweetened with sugar, and
a little cream added. After this they take tea, and “heavy country
cake,” composed of flour, cream, sugar, and currants, then partake of
rum and milk, and conclude with a dance. After thus regaling themselves
they gather the May. While some are breaking down the boughs, others sit
and make the “May-music.” This is done by cutting a circle through the
bark at a certain distance from the bottom of the May branches; then, by
gently and regularly tapping the bark all round from the cut circle to
the end, the bark becomes loosened, and slips away whole from the wood,
and a hole being cut in the pipe, it is easily formed to emit a sound
when blown through and becomes a whistle. The gathering and the
“May-music” being finished, they then “bring home the May” by five or
six o’clock in the morning, with the band playing and their whistles
blowing. After dancing throughout the town they go to their respective
employments. Although May-day should fall on a Sunday, they observe the
same practice in all respects, with the omission of dancing in the
town.--_Every Day Book_, vol. i. p. 561.
DEVONSHIRE.
On the last day of April, the proprietor of every flower-garden in the
neighbourhood of Torquay receives visits from a great number of girls,
who solicit “some flowers for the May-dolls.” This is usually complied
with, and at no great cost, as flowers are commonly very abundant. Soon
after nine o’clock on May-day, or the day following when that falls on
Sunday, the same young folk call at every house, and stop everyone they
meet, to show their May-dolls, collecting, at the same time, such small
gratuities as may be offered.--_Once a Week_, Sept. 24th, 1870.
HUNTINGDONSHIRE.
At Great Gransden on the evening or night preceding May-day, the young
men (farmers’ servants) go and cut the May or hawthorn boughs, which
they bring home in bundles, and leave some at almost every house,
according to the numbers of young persons in it, singing what they call
_The Night Song_. On the evening of May-day, and the following evenings,
they go round to every house where they left a bough, and sing the _May
Song_. One is dressed with a shirt over his other clothes, and decorated
with ribbons, and is called the _May Lord_, another in girls’ clothes,
is called the _May Lady_, or _Mary_. One has a handkerchief on a pole or
stick as a flag, whose business is to keep off the crowd. The rest have
ribbons in their hats. The money collected is spent in a feast of
plum cake, bread and cheese, and tea.
LANCASHIRE.
The evening before May-day is termed “Mischief Night” by the young
people of Burnley and the surrounding district, when all kinds of
mischief are perpetrated. Formerly shop-keepers’ sign-boards were
exchanged: “John Smith, Grocer,” finding his name and vocation changed,
by the sign over his door, to “Thomas Jones, Tailor,” and _vice versâ_;
but the police have put an end to these practical jokes. Young men and
women, however, still continue to play each other tricks by placing
branches of trees, shrubs, or flowers under each others’ windows, or
before their doors. All these have a symbolical meaning, as
significant, if not always as complimentary, as “the Language of
Flowers.” Thus “a thorn” implies “scorn;” “wicken” (the mountain ash),
“my dear chicken;” “a bramble,” for one who likes to ramble, &c. Much
ill-feeling is at times engendered by this custom.--Harland and
Wilkinson, _Lancashire Folk Lore_, 1867, p. 239; see _N. & Q. 1st S._
vol. v. p. 580; _4th S._ vol. vii. p. 525.
While reading one evening towards the close of April 1861, says a writer
in the _Book of Days_ (vol. i. p. 546), I was on a sudden aware of a
party of waits or carollers who had taken their stand on the lawn in my
garden,[41] and were serenading the family with a song. There were four
singers, accompanied by a flute and a clarionet, and together they
discoursed most simple and rustic music. I was at a loss to divine the
occasion of this loyal custom, seeing the time was not within any of the
great festivals, Easter, May-day, or Whitsuntide. Inquiry resulted in my
obtaining from an old “Mayer” the words of two songs, called by the
singers themselves “May Songs,” though the rule and custom are that they
_must_ be sung before the 1st of May. My chief informant, an elderly man
named Job Knight, tells me that he went out a May-singing for about
fourteen years, but has now left it off. He says that the Mayers usually
commence their singing-rounds about the middle of April, though some
parties start as early as the beginning of that month. The singing
invariably ceases on the evening of the 30th of April. Job says he can
remember the custom for about thirty years, and he never heard any other
than the two songs which follow. These are usually sung, he says, by
five or six men, with a fiddle or flute and clarionet accompaniment. The
songs are verbally as recited by Job Knight, the first of which leaves
marks of some antiquity, both in construction and phraseology. There is
its double refrain--the second and fourth lines in every stanza--which
both musically and poetically are far superior to the others. Its quaint
picture of manners, the worshipful master of the house in his chain of
gold, the mistress with gold along her breast, &c., the phrases “house
and harbour,” “riches and store,”--all seem to point to earlier times.
The last line of this song appears to convey its object and to indicate
a simple superstition that these songs were charms to draw or drive
“these cold winters away.” There are several lines in both songs, in
which the sense, no less than the rhythm, seems to have been marred from
the songs having been handed down by oral tradition alone, but I have
not ventured on any alteration.
[41] In the hamlet of Swinton, township of Worsley, parish of
Eccles.
In the second, and more modern, song, the refrain in the fourth line of
each stanza is again the most poetical and musical of the whole.
OLD MAY SONG.
All in this pleasant evening, together comers (? come are) we,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We’ll tell you of a blossom and buds on every tree,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
Rise up, the master of this house, put on your chain of gold,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We hope you’re not offended, (with) your house we make so bold,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
Rise up, the mistress of this house, with gold along your breast,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
And if your body be asleep, we hope your soul’s at rest,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
Rise up, the children of this house, all in your rich attire,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
For every hair upon your head(s) shines like the silver wire,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
God bless this house and harbour, your riches and your store,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We hope the Lord will prosper you, both now and evermore,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
So now we’re going to leave you, in peace and plenty here,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We shall not sing you May again until another year,
For to draw you these cold winters away.
NEW MAY SONG.
Come listen awhile to what we shall say,
Concerning the season, the month we call May;
For the flowers they are springing, and the birds they do sing,
And the baziers[42] are sweet in the morning of May.
When the trees are in bloom, and the meadows are green,
The sweet-smelling cowslips are plain to be seen;
The sweet ties of nature, which we plainly do see,
For the baziers are sweet in the morning of May.
All creatures are deem’d, in their station below,
Such comforts of love on each other bestow;
Our flocks they’re all folded, and young lambs sweetly do play,
And the baziers are sweet in the morning of May.
So now to conclude with much freedom and love,
The sweetest of blessings proceeds from above;
Let us join in our song that right happy may we be,
For we’ll bless with contentment in the morning of May.”[43]
[42] The _bazier_ is the name given in this part of Lancashire to the
auricula, which is usually in full bloom in April.
[43] The Cheshire May-song is very similar to this.
LINCOLNSHIRE.
Oliver in his _Monumental Antiquities of Great Grimsby_ (1825, p. 39),
speaking of Holm Hill and Abbey Hill, two of the seven hills on which
the British town of Grym-by was situated, says they were united by an
artificial bank, called the _Ket Bank_, in connection with which he
relates the following curious ceremony:--
The great female divinity of the British Druids was Ket, or Ceridwen; a
personification of the Ark of Noah; the famous Keto of Antiquity, or, in
other words Ceres, the patroness of the ancient mysteries. To enter into
a full explanation of these mysteries is unnecessary. Suffice it to say
that the aspirant, at the conclusion of the ceremony of initiation, was
placed in a small boat, to represent the confinement of Noah in the
Ark;--which boat was a symbol of the helio-arkite deity,--and committed
to the waves with directions to gain a proposed point of land, which was
to him a shore, not only of safety, but of triumph. On this shore he was
received by the hierophant and his attendants, who had placed themselves
there for the express purpose, and pronounced a favourite of Ket, by
whom he was now said to be purified with water, and consequently
regenerated and purged from all his former defilements. The Abbey Hill
was the place where these sacred mysteries were celebrated, and the
designation of this bank fully corroborates the conjecture, for whoever
will attentively consider the situation of these two hills, connected
by an extended embankment even at the present day, will be convinced
that a more convenient spot could not be found for the performance of
the above ceremony. The sacred rites were solemnized within the stone
circle, which doubtless existed on the Abbey Hill, and the candidate at
the highest time of the tide was committed to the mercy of the waves
from the point now known by the name of Wellow Mill, and he had to
struggle against the declining tide, until he was cast at the foot of
Holm Hill, upon the bank of Ket, the presiding deity, under whose
special protection he was ever after placed.
This ceremony always took place on May Eve, for at no other season was
the final degree of perfection conferred, and as soon as the fortunate
aspirants had succeeded in gaining the safe landing-place of Ket, which
led by an easy gradation to the summit of the hill, fires were lighted
on the apex of this and all the neighbouring hills, and the most
extravagant joy was visible throughout the district.
ISLE OF MAN.
On May Eve, the juvenile branches of nearly every family in the Isle of
Man, used to gather primroses, and strew them before the doors of their
dwellings, in order to prevent the entrance of fairies on that night. It
was quite a novel sight to a stranger to the custom to see this delicate
flower plentifully arranged at the door of every house he might pass,
particularly in the towns on the night in question or early on the
following morning. This custom is now abandoned: indeed, it was
continued to a late date more through the habit and amusement of
children than from superstition. Persons more advanced in life
congregated on the mountains on May Eve, and to scare fairies and
witches, supposed to be roaming abroad on that particular night in
numbers greater than ordinary, set fire to the gorse or _Koinney_, and
blew horns. Many of them remained on the hills till sunrise,
endeavouring to pry into futurity by observing particular omens. If a
bright light was observed to issue, seemingly, from any house in the
surrounding village, it was considered a certain indication that some
member of the family would soon be married; but if a dim light were
seen moving slowly in the direction of the parish church, it was then
deemed equally certain that a funeral would soon pass that way to the
churchyard.--Train, _History of the Isle of Man_, 1845, vol. ii. p. 118.
OXFORDSHIRE.
“At Woodstock,” says Aubrey, “they every May Eve goe into the parke and
fetch away a number of hawthorne trees, which they set about their
dores: ’tis pity that they make such a destruction of so fine a tree.”
WALES.
At Tenby the inhabitants went out in troops, bearing in their hands
boughs of thorn in full blossom, which were bedecked with other flowers,
and then stuck outside the windows of the houses. Maypoles were reared
up in different parts of the town, decorated with flowers, coloured
papers, and bunches of variegated ribbon.--Mason’s _Tales and Traditions
of Ireland_, 1858, p. 21.
IRELAND.
The following custom of the Irish is described in a MS. of the sixteenth
century, and seems to have been of Pagan origin: “Upon Maie Eve they
will drive their cattell upon their neighbour’s corne, to eate the same
up; they were wont to begin from the vast, and this principally upon the
English churl. Unlesse they do so upon Maie daie, the witch hath power
upon their cattell all the yere following.”--_N. & Q. 1st S._ vol. vii.
p. 81.
Sir Henry Piers, in his _Account of Westmeath_, 1682, says:--“On May
Eve, every family sets up before their door a green bush, strewed over
with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield plentifully. In counties
where timber is plentiful, they erect tall slender trees, which stand
high, and they continue almost the whole year; so that a stranger would
go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all
houses were ale-houses.”
MAY 1.] MAY DAY.
The festival of May Day has existed in this country, though its form has
often changed, from the earliest times, and we find abundant traces of
it both in our poets and old chroniclers. Tollet imagines that it
originally came from our Gothic ancestors; and certainly, if this is to
be taken for a proof, the Swedes and Goths welcomed the first of May
with songs and dance, and many rustic sports; but there is only a
general, not a particular, likeness between our May-day festivities and
those of our Gothic ancestors. Others again have sought for the origin
of our customs in the _Floralia_, or rather the _Maiuma_, of the Romans,
which were established at a later period under the Emperor Claudius, and
differed perhaps but little from the former, except in being more
decent. But though it may at first seem probable that our May-games may
have come immediately from the _Floralia_ or _Maiuma_ of the Romans,
there can be little question that their final origin must be sought in
other countries, and far remoter periods. Maurice says (_Indian
Antiquities_, vol i. p. 87) that our May-day festival is but a
repetition of the phallic festivals of India and Egypt, which in those
countries took place upon the sun entering Taurus, to celebrate Nature’s
renewed fertility. Φαλλος (_phallos_) in Greek signifies _a pole_, in
addition to its more important meaning, of which this is the type; and
in the precession of the Equinoxes and the changes of the calendar we
shall find an easy solution of any apparent inconsistencies arising from
the difference of seasons.
That the May-festival has come down to us from the Druids, who
themselves had it from India, is proved by many striking facts and
coincidences, and by none more than the vestiges of the god _Bel_, the
Apollo, or Orus, of other nations. The Druids celebrated his worship on
the first of May, by lighting immense fires in honour of him upon the
various carns, and hence the day is called by the aboriginal Irish and
the Scotch Highlanders--both remnants of the Celtic stock--la Bealtine,
Bealtaine or Beltine, that is, the _day of Belen’s fire_, for, in the
Cornish, which is a Celtic dialect, we find that _tan_ is fire, and _to
tine_ signifies to light the fire.
The Irish still retain the Phœnician custom of lighting fires at short
distances, and making the cattle pass between them. Fathers, too, taking
their children in their arms, jump or run through them, thus passing the
latter as it were through the flames--the very practice so expressly
condemned in Scripture. But even this custom appears to have been only a
substitute for the atrocious sacrifice of children as practised by the
elder Phœnicians. The god Saturn, that is, Moloch, was represented by a
statue bent slightly forward, and so placed that the least weight was
sufficient to alter its position. Into the arms of this idol the priest
gave the child to be sacrificed, when, its balance being thus destroyed,
it flung or rather dropt, the victim into a fiery furnace that blazed
below. If other proofs were wanting of Eastern origin, we might find
them in the fact that Britain was called by the earlier inhabitants the
Island of Beli, and that Bel had also the name of Hu, a word which we
see again occurring in the _Huli_ festival of India.--_New Curiosities
of Literature_, vol. i. p. 229. See Higgins’ _Celtic Druids_, chap. v.
sect. 23, p. 181; _Household Words_, 1859, vol. xix. p. 557; Tolan’s
_History of the Druids_, 8vo, p. 115; _Celtic Researches_, 1806, 8vo, p.
191; Vossius, _On the Origin of Idolatries_: _Essai sur le Culte des
Divinités Génératrices_.
_Going a-Maying._--Bourne (_Antiquitates Vulgares_, chap. xxv.)
describes this custom as it existed in his time:--On the calends, or
first of May, commonly called May-day, the juvenile part of both sexes
are wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some neighbouring
wood, accompanied with music and blowing of horns, where they break down
branches from the trees, and adorn themselves with nosegays and crowns
of flowers; when this is done they return with their booty homewards,
about the rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph
with their flowery spoils.
In Chaucer’s _Court of Love_ we read that early on May-day “Fourth goth
al the court, both most and lest, to fetche the flowris fresh and
blome.”
In the old romance, too, _La Morte d’Arthur_, translated by Sir Thomas
Maleor, or Mellor, in the reign of Edward IV., is a passage descriptive
of the customs of the times. “Now it befell in the moneth of lusty May,
that Queene Guenever called unto her the knyghtes of the Round Table,
and gave them warning that early in the morning she should ride on
maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster.” The rural clergy,
who seem to have mingled themselves with their flock on all occasions,
whether of sorrow, devotion, or amusement, were reproved by Grostete, or
Greathead, Bishop of Lincoln, for going a-maying.--_Med. Ævi Kalend._
vol. i. p. 233.