_Buns_.--It has been suggested by Bryant, though, I believe, not noticed
by any writer on popular customs, that the Good Friday cakes, called
_Buns_, may have originated in the cakes used in idolatrous worship, and
impressed with the figure of an ox, whence they were called [Greek:
boun]. The cow or bull was likewise, as Coleridge (_Lit. Rem_. vol. ii.
p. 252.) has justly remarked, the {245} symbol of the _Cosmos_, the
prolific or generative powers of nature.