_Chapel Sunday_ (Vol. vii., p. 527.).--Not having received an answer to my
Query of the origin of the celebration of Chapel Sunday in the Lake
district, I would venture a surmise which some Cumbrian antiquary will
perhaps correct, if wrong. I take it to be the day in honour of the patron
saint of the chapel: and now, when such festivals are little observed, it
has been changed to the nearest Sunday. In this thinly populated district,
and where, from its mountainous and rugged character, travelling before the
formation of the present good roads was neither agreeable nor (probably)
safe, "at chapel" was the only time many of the inhabitants saw each other.
Meeting, therefore, on so auspicious a day as that of the patron saint,
might in "merrie time" of old induce a little festivity.