Part 41 (1/2)

It appears from Hall's Satires, 1598, that it was customary to make presents of gloves at Easter. In Much Ado About Nothing, the Count sends Hero a pair of perfumed gloves, and they seem to have been a common present between lovers. In Devons.h.i.+re, the young women thus address the first young man they happen to meet on St. Valentine's day-

Good morrow, Valentine, I go to-day, To wear for you what you must pay, A pair of gloves next Easter-day.

In Oxfords.h.i.+re I have heard the following lines intended, I believe, for the same festival:

The rose is red, the violet's blue, The gilly-flower sweet, and so are you; These are the words you bade me say For a pair of new gloves on Easter-day.

LENT-CROCKING.

Parties of young people, during Lent, go to the most noted farmhouses, and sing, in order to obtain a _crock_ of cake, an old song beginning-

I see by the latch There is something to catch; I see by the string The good dame's within; Give a cake, for I've none; At the door goes a stone.

Come give, and I'm gone.

”If invited in,” says Mrs. Bray, ”a cake, a cup of cider, and a health followed. If not invited in, the sport consisted in battering the house door with stones, because not open to hospitality. Then the a.s.sailant would run away, be followed and caught, and brought back again as prisoner, and had to undergo the punishment of roasting the shoe. This consisted in an old shoe being hung up before the fire, which the culprit was obliged to keep in a constant whirl, roasting himself as well as the shoe, till some damsel took compa.s.sion on him, and let him go; in this case he was to treat her with a little present at the next fair.”

CARE-SUNDAY.

Care Sunday, care away, Palm Sunday and Easter-day.

Care-Sunday is the Sabbath next before Palm Sunday, and the second before Easter. Etymologists differ respecting the origin of the term. It is also called Carling-Sunday, and hence the Nottinghams.h.i.+re couplet:

Tid, Mid, Misera, Carling, Palm, Paste-egg day.

APRIL-FOOL-DAY.

The custom of making fools on the 1st of April is one of the few old English merriments still in general vogue. We used to say on the occasion of having entrapped any one-

Fool, fool, April fool, You learn nought by going to school!

The legitimate period only extends to noon, and if any one makes an April-fool after that hour, the boy on whom the attempt is made, retorts with the distich-

April-fool time's past and gone, You're the fool, and I'm none!

MAY-DAY.

Rise up, fair maidens, fie, for shame, For I've been four lang miles from hame; I've been gathering my garlands gay; Rise up, fair maids, and take in your May.

This old Newcastle May-day song is given by Brockett, ii. 32. At Islip, near Oxford, the children go round the village on this day with garlands of flowers, singing-

Good morning, missus and measter, I wish you a happy day; Please to smell my garland, 'Cause it is the first of May.

HARVEST-HOME.

Here's a health unto our maister, The founder of the feast, And I hope to G.o.d wi' all my heart, His soul in heaven mid rest.

That everything mid prosper That ever he tiak in hand, Vor we be all his sarvants, And all at his command.