_For the Table Book._
On the first of May, the juvenile inhabitants of Skipton, in Craven,
Yorkshire, have a similar custom to the one in general use on the first
of April. Not content with making their companions _fools_ on one day,
they set apart another, to make them “May _goslings_,” or geese. If a
boy made any one a May gosling on the second of May, the following rhyme
was said in reply:--
“May-day’s past and gone,
Thou’s a gosling, and I’m none.”
This distich was also said, _mutatis mutandis_, on the second of April.
The practice of making May goslings was very common about twelve years
ago, but is now dying away.
As the present month is one when very severe colds are often caught by
bathers, it may not be amiss to submit to the readers of the _Table
Book_ the following old saying, which is very prevalent in Skipton:--
“They who bathe in May
Will be soon laid in clay;
They who bathe in June
Will sing a merry tune.”