lxix. 143, on the struggle between two wards--the Sacred Way and the

Subura--for the head of the October Horse at Rome.

[490] Haddon, 270. The tug-of-war reappears in Korea and Japan as a ceremony intended to secure a good harvest.

[491] Mrs. Gomme, s. vv. _Bandyball_, _Camp_, _Football_, _Hockey_, _Hood_, _Hurling_, _Shinty_. These games, in which the ball is fought for, are distinct from those already mentioned as having a ceremonial use, in which it is amicably tossed from player to player (cf. p. 128). If _Golf_ belongs to the present category, it is a case in which the endeavour seems to be actually to bury the ball. It is tempting to compare the name _Hockey_ with the _Hock-cart_ of the harvest festival, and with _Hock-tide_; but it does not really seem to be anything but _Hookey_. The original of both the hockey-stick and the golf-club was probably the shepherd’s crook. Mr. Pepys tried to cast stones with a shepherd’s crook on those very Epsom downs where the stockbroker now foozles his tee shot.

[492] _F. L._ vii. 345; M. Shearman, _Athletics and Football_, 246; Haddon, 271; Gomme, _Vill. Comm._ 240; Ditchfield, 57, 64; W. Fitzstephen, _Vita S. Thomae_ (†1170-82) in _Mat. for Hist. of Becket_ (R. S.), iii. 9, speaks of the ‘lusum pilae celebrem’ in London ‘die quae dicitur Carnilevaria.’ Riley, 571, has a London proclamation of 1409 forbidding the levy of money for ‘foteballe’ and cok-thresshyng.’ At Chester the annual Shrove Tuesday football on the Roodee was commuted for races in 1540 (_Hist. MSS._ viii. 1. 362). At Dublin there was, in 1569, a Shrove Tuesday ‘riding’ of the ‘occupacions’ each ‘bearing balles’ (Gilbert, ii. 54).

[493] Haddon, _loc. cit._; Gomme, _loc. cit._; _Gloucester F. L._ 38. Cf. the _conflictus_ described in ch. ix, and the classical parallels in Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 267.

[494] _F. L._ iii. 441; Ditchfield, 85.

[495] _F. L._ vii. 330 (a very full account); viii. 72, 173; Ditchfield, 50. There is a local aetiological myth about a lady who lost her hood on a windy day, and instituted the contest in memory of the event.

[496] Mrs. Gomme, s. v. _Oranges and Lemons_.

[497] Mrs. Gomme, s. vv.

[498] Dyer, 6, 481. ‘Stang’ is a word, of Scandinavian origin, for ‘pole’ or ‘stake.’ The Scandinavian _nið-stöng_ (scorn-stake) was a horse’s head on a pole, with a written curse and a likeness of the man to be ill-wished (Vigfusson, _Icel. Dict._ s. v. _níð_).

[499] Cf. with Mr. Barrett’s account, Northall, 253; Ditchfield, 178; _Northern F. L._ 29; Julleville, _Les Com._ 205; also Thomas Hardy’s _Mayor of Casterbridge_, and his _The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s_ (_Wessex Poems_, 201). The penalty is used by schoolboys (_Northern F. L._ 29) as well as villagers.

[500] Grenier, 375; Ducange, s. v. _Charivarium_, which he defines as ‘ludus turpis tinnitibus et clamoribus variis, quibus illudunt iis, qui ad secundas convolant nuptias.’ He refers to the statutes of Melun cathedral (1365) in _Instrumenta Hist. Eccl. Melud._ ii. 503. Cf. _Conc. of Langres_ (1404) ‘ludo quod dicitur Chareuari, in quo utuntur larvis in figura daemonum, et horrenda ibidem committuntur’; _Conc. of Angers_ (1448), c. 12 (Labbé, xiii. 1358) ‘pulsatione patellarum, pelvium et campanarum, eorum oris et manibus sibilatione, instrumento aeruginariorum, sive fabricantium, et aliarum rerum sonorosarum, vociferationibus tumultuosis et aliis ludibriis et irrisionibus, in illo damnabili actu (qui cariuarium, vulgariter _charivari_, nuncupatur) circa domos nubentium, et in ipsorum detestationem et opprobrium post eorum secundas nuptias fieri consuetum, &c.’

[501] Cf. ch. xvi, and Leber, ix. 148, 169; Julleville, _Les Com._ 205, 243. In 1579 a regular _jeu_ was made by the Dijon _Mère-Folle_ of the _chevauchée_ of one M. Du Tillet. The text is preserved in _Bibl. Nat. MS._ 24039 and analysed by M. Petit de Julleville.

[502] In Berks a draped horse’s head is carried, and the proceeding known as a Hooset Hunt (Ditchfield, 178).

[503] Ducange, s. v. _Asini caudam in manu tenens_.

[504] Julleville, _Les Com._ 207.

[505] So on Ilchester Meads, where the proceeding is known as Mommets or Mommicks (Barrett, 65).

[506] On Hock-tide and the Hock-play generally see Brand-Ellis, i. 107; Strutt, 349; Sharpe, 125; Dyer, 188; S. Denne, _Memoir on Hokeday_ in _Archaeologia_, vii. 244.

[507] Cf. Appendix H. An allusion to the play by Sir R. Morrison (†1542) is quoted in chap. xxv.

[508] Laneham, or his informant, actually said, in error, 1012. On the historical event see Ramsay, i. 353.

[509] There were performers both on horse and on foot. Probably hobby-horses were used, for Jonson brings in Captain Cox ‘in his Hobby-horse,’ which was ‘foaled in Queen Elizabeth’s time’ in the _Masque of Owls_ (ed. Cunningham, iii. 188).

[510] Cf. _Representations_, s. v. Coventry.

[511] Rossius, _Hist. Regum Angliae_ (ed. Hearne, 1716), 105 ‘in cuius signum usque hodie illa die vulgariter dicta Hox Tuisday ludunt in villis trahendo cordas partialiter cum aliis iocis.’ Rous, who died 1491, is speaking of the death of Hardicanute. On the event see Ramsay, i. 434. Possibly both events were celebrated in the sixteenth century at Coventry. Two of the three plays proposed for municipal performance in 1591 were the ‘Conquest of the Danes’ and the ‘History of Edward the Confessor.’ These were to be upon the ‘pagens,’ and probably they were more regular dramas than the performance witnessed by Elizabeth in 1575 (_Representations_, s. v. Coventry).

[512] Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), v. 298 ‘uno certo die heu usitato (_forsan_ Hoc vocitato) hoc solempni festo paschatis transacto, mulieres homines, alioque die homines mulieres ligare, ac cetera media utinam non inhonesta vel deteriora facere moliantur et exercere, lucrum ecclesiae fingentes, set dampnum animae sub fucato colore lucrantes, &c.’ Riley, 561, 571, gives London proclamations against ‘hokkyng’ of 1405 and 1409.

[513] Brand-Ellis, i. 113; Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 229; C. Kerry, _Accts. of St. Lawrence, Reading_; Hobhouse, 232; _N. E. D._ s. vv. _Hock_, &c.

[514] Owen and Blakeway, _Hist. of Shrewsbury_, i. 559.

[515] Dyer, 191; Ditchfield, 90.

[516] _N. E. D._ s. v. _Hock-day_.

[517] Brand-Ellis, i. 106.

[518] Ibid. i. 109.

[519] Ducange, s. v. _Prisio_; Barthélemy, iv. 463. On Innocents’ Day, the customs of taking in bed and whipping were united (cf. ch. xii).

[520] _Northern F. L._ 84; Brand-Ellis, i. 94, 96; Vaux, 242; Ditchfield, 80; Dyer, 133.

[521] Brand-Ellis, i. 106; Owen and Blakeway, i. 559; Dyer, 173; Ditchfield, 90; Burne-Jackson, 336; _Northern F. L._ 84; Vaux, 242. A dignified H. M. I. is said to have made his first official visit to Warrington on Easter Monday, and to have suffered accordingly. Miss Burne describes sprinkling as an element in Shropshire heaving.

[522] Belethus, c. 120 ‘notandum quoque est in plerisque regionibus secundo die post Pascha mulieres maritos suos verberare ac vicissim viros eas tertio die.’ The spiritually minded Belethus explains the custom as a warning to keep from carnal intercourse.

[523] Dyer, 79; Ditchfield, 83.

[524] Brand-Ellis, i. 114; Ditchfield, 252. Mr. W. Crooke has just studied this and analogous customs in _The Lifting of the Bride_ (_F. L._ xiii. 226).

[525] _Suffolk F. L._ 69; _F. L._ v. 167. The use of _largess_, a Norman-French word (_largitio_), is curious. It is also used for the subscriptions to Lancashire gyst-ales (Dyer, 182).

[526] Ditchfield, 155.

[527] Frazer, ii. 233; Pfannenschmidt, 93.

[528] Haddon, 335; Grosse, 167; Herbert Spencer in _Contemp. Review_ (1895), 114; Groos, _Play of Man_, 88, 354. Evidence for the wide use of the dance at savage festivals is given by Wallaschek, 163, 187.

[529] Grimm, i. 39; Pearson, ii. 133; Müllenhoff, _Germania_, ch. 24, and _de antiq. Germ. poesi chorica_, 4; Kögel, i. 1. 8. The primitive word form should have been _laikaz_, whence Gothic _laiks_, O. N. _leikr_, O. H. G. _leih_, A.-S. _lâc_. The word has, says Müllenhoff, all the senses ‘_Spiel, Tanz, Gesang, Opfer, Aufzug_.’ From the same root come probably _ludus_, and possibly, through the Celtic, the O. F. _lai_. The A.-S. _lâc_ is glossed _ludus_, _sacrificium_, _victima_, _munus_. It occurs in the compounds _ecga-gelâc_ and _sveorða-gelâc_, both meaning ‘sword-dance,’ _sige-lâc_, ‘victory-dance,’ _as-lâc_, ‘god-dance,’ _wine-lâc_, ‘love-dance’ (cf. p. 170), &c. An A.-S. synonym for _lâc_ is _plega_, ‘play,’ which gives _sweord-plega_ and _ecg-plega_. _Spil_ is not A.-S. and _spilian_ is a loan-word from O. H. G.

[530] Gummere, _B. P._ 328; Kögel, i. 1. 6.

[531] S. Ambrose, _de Elia et Ieiunio_, c. 18 (_P. L._ xiv. 720), _de Poenitentia_, ii. 6 (_P. L._ xvi. 508); S. Augustine, _contra Parmenianum_, iii. 6 (_P. L._ xliii. 107); S. Chrysostom, _Hom._ 47 _in Iulian. mart._ p. 613; _Hom._ 23 _de Novilun._ p. 264; _C. of Laodicea_ (†366), c. 53 (Mansi, ii. 571). Cf. _D. C. A._ s. v. Dancing, and ch. i. Barthélemy, ii. 438, and other writers have some rather doubtful theories as to liturgical dancing in early Christian worship; cf. Julian. _Dict. of Hymn._ 206.

[532] Du Méril, _Com._ 67; Pearson, ii. 17, 281; Gröber, ii. 1. 444; Kögel, i. 1. 25; _Indiculus Superstitionum_ (ed. Saupe), 10 ‘de sacrilegiis per ecclesias.’ Amongst the prohibitions are Caesarius of Arles (†542), _Sermo_ xiii. (_P. L._ xxxix. 2325) ‘quam multi rustici et quam multae mulieres rusticanae cantica diabolica, amatoria et turpia memoriter retinent et ore decantant’; _Const. Childeberti_ (c. 554) _de abol. relig. idololatriae_ (Mansi, ix. 738) ‘noctes pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis, etiam in ipsis sacris diebus, pascha, natale Domini, et reliquis festivitatibus, vel adveniente die Dominico dansatrices per villas ambulare ... nullatenus fieri permittimus’; _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 9 (Maassen, i. 180) ‘non licet in ecclesia choros secularium vel puellarum cantica exercere nec convivia in ecclesia praeparare’; _C. of Chalons_ (639-54), c. 19 (Maassen, i. 212) ‘Valde omnibus noscetur esse decretum, ne per dedicationes basilicarum aut festivitates martyrum ad ipsa solemnia confluentes obscoena et turpia cantica, dum orare debent aut clericos psallentes audire, cum choris foemineis, turpia quidem decantare videantur. unde convenit, ut sacerdotes loci illos a septa basilicarum vel porticus ipsarum basilicarum etiam et ab ipsis atriis vetare debeant et arcere.’ _Sermo Eligii_ (Grimm, iv. 1737) ‘nullus in festivitate S. Ioannis vel quibuslibet sanctorum solemnitatibus solstitia aut vallationes vel saltationes aut caraulas aut cantica diabolica exerceat’; _Iudicium Clementis_ (†693), c. 20 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 226) ‘si quis in quacunque festivitate ad ecclesiam veniens pallat foris, aut saltat, aut cantat orationes amatorias ... excommunicetur’ (apparently a fragment of a penitential composed by Clement or Willibrord, an A.-S. missionary to Frisia, on whom see Bede, _H. E._ v. 9, and the only dance prohibition of possible A.-S. _provenance_ of which I know); _Statuta Salisburensia_ (Salzburg: †800; Boretius, i. 229) ‘Ut omnis populus ... absque inlecebroso canticu et lusu saeculari cum laetaniis procedant’; _C. of Mainz_ (813), c. 48 (Mansi, xiv. 74) ‘canticum turpe atque luxuriosum circa ecclesias agere omnino contradicimus’; _C. of Rome_ (826), c. 35 (Mansi, xiv. 1008) ‘sunt quidam, et maxime mulieres, qui festis ac sacris diebus atque sanctorum natalitiis non pro eorum quibus debent delectantur desideriis advenire, sed ballando, verba turpia decantando, choros tenendo ac ducendo, similitudinem paganorum peragendo, advenire procurant’; cf. _Dicta abbatis Pirminii_ (Caspari, _Kirchenhistorische Anecdota_, 188); _Penitentiale pseudo-Theodorianum_ (Wasserschleben, 607); _Leonis IV Homilia_ (847, Mansi, xiv. 895); Benedictus Levita, _Capitularia_ (†850), vi. 96 (_M. G. H. Script._ iv. 2); and for Spain, _C. of Toledo_ (589), c. 23 (Mansi, ix. 999), and the undated _C. of Braga_, c. 80 (quoted on p. 144). Cf. also the denunciations of the _Kalends_ (ch. xi and Appendix N). Nearly four centuries after the _C. of Rome_ we find the _C. of Avignon_ (1209), c. 17 (Mansi, xxii. 791) ‘statuimus, ut in sanctorum vigiliis in ecclesiis historicae saltationes, obscoeni motus, seu choreae non fiant, nec dicantur amatoria carmina, vel cantilenae ibidem....’ Still later the _C. of Bayeux_ (1300), c. 31 (Mansi, xxv. 66) ‘ut dicit Augustinus, melius est festivis diebus fodere vel arare, quam choreas ducere’; and so on _ad infinitum_. The pseudo-Augustine _Sermo_, 265, _de Christiano nomine cum operibus non Christianis_ (_P. L._ xxxix. 2237), which is possibly by Caesarius of Arles, asserts explicitly the pagan character of the custom: ‘isti enim infelices et miseri homines, qui balationes et saltationes ante ipsas basilicas sanctorum exercere non metuunt nec erubescunt, etsi Christiani ad ecclesiam venerint, pagani de ecclesia revertuntur; quia ista consuetudo balandi de paganorum observatione remansit.’ A mediaeval preacher (quoted by A. Lecoy de la Marche, _Chaire française au Moyen Âge_, 447, from _B. N. Lat. MS._ 17509, f. 146) declares, ‘chorea enim circulus est cuius centrum est diabolus, et omnes vergunt ad sinistrum.’

[533] Tille, _D. W._ 301; G. Raynaud, in _Études dédiées à Gaston Paris_, 53; E. Schröder, _Die Tänzer von Kölbigk_, in _Z. f. Kirchengeschichte_, xvii. 94; G. Paris, in _Journal des Savants_ (1899), 733.

[534] H. E. Reynolds, _Wells Cathedral_, 85 ‘cum ex choreis ludis et spectaculis et lapidum proiectionibus in praefata ecclesia et eius cemeteriis ac claustro dissentiones sanguinis effusiones et violentiae saepius oriantur et in hiis dicta Wellensis ecclesia multa dispendia patiatur.’

[535] Menestrier, _Des Ballets anciens et modernes_ (1863), 4; on other French church dances, cf. Du Tilliot, 21; Barthélemy, iv. 447; Leber, ix. 420. The most famous are the _pilota_ of Auxerre, which was accompanied with ball-play (cf. ch. vi) and the _bergeretta_ of Besançon. Julian, _Dict. of Hymn._ 206, gives some English examples.

[536] Grove, 106. A full account of the ceremony at the feast of the Conception in 1901 is given in the _Church Times_ for Jan. 17, 1902.

[537] Grove, 103; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 430; _Mélusine_ (1879), 39; _N. and Q._ for May 17, 1890. The dance is headed by the clergy, and proceeds to a traditional tune from the banks of the Sûre to the church, up sixty-two steps, along the north aisle, round the altar _deasil_, and down the south aisle. It is curious that until the seventeenth century only _men_ took part in it. St. Willibrord is famous for curing nervous diseases, and the pilgrimage is done by way of vow for such cures. The local legend asserts that the ceremony had its origin in an eighth-century cattle-plague, which ceased through an invocation of St. Willibrord: it is a little hard on the saint, whose prohibition of dances at the church-door has just been quoted.

[538] Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 409. A similarly named saint, St. Martial, was formerly honoured in the same way. Every psalm on his day ended, not with the _Gloria Patri_, but with a dance, and the chant, ‘Saint-Marceau, pregas per nous, et nous epingaren per vous’ (Du Méril, _La Com._ 68).

[539] Cf. p. 26. There were ‘madinnis that dansit’ before James IV of Scotland at Forres, Elgin and Dernway in 1504, but nothing is said of songs (_L. H. T. Accounts_, ii. 463).

[540] _Carm. Bur._ 191:

‘ludunt super gramina virgines decorae quarum nova carmina dulci sonant ore.’

_Ibid._ 195:

‘ecce florescunt lilia, et virginum dant agmina summo deorum carmina.’

[541] W. Fitzstephen, _Descriptio Londin_. (_Mat. for Hist. of Becket_, R. S. iii. 11) ‘puellarum Cytherea ducit choros usque imminente luna, et pede libero pulsatur tellus.’

[542] Jeanroy, 102, 387; Guy, 504; Paris, _Journal des Savants_ (1892), 407. M. Paris points out that dances, other than professional, first appear in the West after the fall of the Empire. The French terms for dancing--_baller_, _danser_, _treschier_, _caroler_--are not Latin. Caroler, however, he thinks to be the Greek χοραυλεῖν, ‘to accompany a dance with a flute.’ But the French _carole_ was always accompanied, not with a flute, but with a sung _chanson_.

[543] Paris, _loc. cit._ 410; Jeanroy, 391. In Wace’s description of Arthur’s wedding, the women _carolent_ and the men _behourdent_. Cf. Bartsch, _Romanzen und Pastourellen_, i. 13:

‘Cez damoiseles i vont por caroler, cil escuier i vont por behorder, cil chevalier i vont por esgarder.’

[544] On the return of Edward II and Isabella of France in 1308, the mayor and other dignitaries of London went ‘coram rege et regina karolantes’ (_Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II_, R. S. i. 152). On the birth of Prince Edward in 1312, they ‘menerent la karole’ in church and street (Riley, 107).

[545] Kögel, i. 1. 6.

[546] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 228; Haddon, 345.

[547] Cf. ch. vi on the motion _deasil_ round the sacred object. It is curious that the modern round dances go _withershins_ round a room. Grimm, i. 52, quotes Gregory the Great, _Dial._ iii. 28 on a Lombard sacrifice, ‘caput caprae, hoc ei, per circuitum currentes, carmine nefando dedicantes.’

[548] At Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts (which preserves its Anglo-Saxon church), and at South Petherton, Somerset, in both cases on Shrove Tuesday (Mrs. Gomme, ii. 230); cf. Vaux, 18. The church at Painswick, Gloucester, is danced round on wake-day (_F. L._ viii. 392). There is a group of games, in which the players wind and unwind in spirals round a centre. Such are _Eller Tree_, _Wind up the Bush Faggot_, and _Bulliheisle_. These Mrs. Gomme regards as survivals of the ritual dance round a sacred tree. Some obscure references in the rhymes used to ‘dumplings’ and ‘a bundle of rags’ perhaps connect themselves with the cereal cake and the rags hung on the tree for luck. In Cornwall such a game is played under the name of ‘Snail’s Creep’ at certain village feasts in June, and directed by young men with leafy branches.

[549] Du Méril, _La Com._ 72; Haddon, 346; Grove, 50, 81; Haigh, 14; N. W. Thomas, _La Danse totémique en Europe_, in _Actes d. Cong. intern. d. Trad. pop._ (1900).

[550] Plot, _Hist. of Staffs._ (1686); _F. L._ iv. 172; vii. 382 (with cuts of properties); Ditchfield, 139.

[551] The O. H. G. _hîleih_, originally meaning ‘sex-dance,’ comes to be ‘wedding.’ The root _hi_, like _wini_ (cf. p. 170), has a sexual connotation (Pearson, ii. 132; Kögel, i. 1. 10).

[552] Coussemaker, _Chants populaires des Flamands de France_, 100:

‘In den hemel is eenen dans: Alleluia. Daer dansen all’ de maegdekens: Benedicamus Domino, Alleluia, Alleluia. ‘t is voor Amelia: Alleluia. Wy dansen naer de maegdekens: Benedicamus, etc.’

[553] Frazer, i. 35; Dyer, 7; Northall, 233. A Lancashire song is sung ‘to draw you these cold winters away,’ and wishes ‘peace and plenty’ to the household. A favourite French May _chanson_ is

‘Étrennez notre épousée, Voici le mois, Le joli mois de Mai, Étrennez notre épousée En bonne étrenne. Voici le mois, Le joli mois de Mai, Qu’on vous amène.’

If the _quêteurs_ come on a churl, they have an ill-wishing variant. The following is characteristic of the French peasantry:

‘J’vous souhaitons autant d’enfants, Qu’y a des pierrettes dans les champs.’

Often more practical tokens of revenge are shown. The Plough Monday ‘bullocks’ in some places consider themselves licensed to plough up the ground before a house where they have been rebuffed.’

[554] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 1, 399; Haddon, 343; Du Méril, _La Com._ 81. Amongst the _jeux_ of the young Gargantua (Rabelais, i. 22) was one ‘à semer l’avoyne et au laboureur.’ This probably resembled the games of _Oats and Beans and Barley_, and _Would you know how doth the Peasant?_ which exist in English, French, Catalonian, and Italian versions. On the mimetic character of these games, cf. ch. viii.

[555] Text from _Harl. MS._ 978 in H. E. Wooldridge, _Oxford Hist. of Music_, i. 326, with full account. The music, to which religious as well as the secular words are attached, is technically known as a _rota_ or _rondel_. It is of the nature of polyphonic part-song, and of course more advanced than the typical mediaeval _rondet_ can have been.

[556] On these songs in general, see Northall, 233; Martinengo-Cesaresco, 249; Cortet, 153; Tiersot, 191; Jeanroy, 88; Paris, _J. des Savants_ (1891), 685, (1892), 155, 407.

[557] H. A. Wilson, _Hist. of Magd. Coll._ (1899), 50. Mr. Wilson discredits the tradition that the performance began as a mass for the obit of Henry VII. The hymn is printed in Dyer, 259; Ditchfield, 96. It has no relation to the summer festival, having been written in the seventeenth century by Thomas Smith and set by Benjamin Rogers as a grace. In other cases hymns have been attached to the village festivals. At Tissington the well-dressing,’ on Ascension Day includes a clerical procession in which ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘A Living Stream’ are sung (Ditchfield, 187). A special ‘Rushbearers’ Hymn’ was written for the Grasmere Rushbearing in 1835, and a hymn for St. Oswald has been recently added (E. G. Fletcher, _The Rushbearing_, 13, 74).

[558] Dyer, 240, from Hertfordshire. There are many other versions; cf. Northall, 240.

[559] Kögel, i. 1. 32.

[560] Pertz, _Leges_, i. 68 ‘nullatenus ibi uuinileodos scribere vel mittere praesumat.’ Kögel, i. 1. 61: Goedeke, i. 11, quote other uses of the term from eighth-century glosses, e.g. ‘_uuiniliod_, cantilenas saeculares, psalmos vulgares, seculares, plebeios psalmos, cantica rustica et inepta.’ _Winiliod_ is literally ‘love-song,’ from root _wini_ (conn. with _Venus_). Kögel traces an earlier term O. H. G. _winileih_, A.-S. _winelâc_ = _hîleih_. On the erotic motive in savage dances, cf. Grosse, 165, 172; Hirn, 229.

[561] _Romania_, vii. 61; _Trad. Pop._ i. 98. Mr. Swinburne has adapted the idea of this poem in _A Match_ (_Poems and Ballads_, 1st Series, 116).

[562] _Romania_, ix. 568.

[563] K. Bartsch, _Chrest. Prov._ 111. A similar _chanson_ is in G. Raynaud, _Motets_, i. 151, and another is described in the _roman_ of _Flamenca_ (ed. P. Meyer), 3244. It ends

‘E, si parla, qu’il li responda: Nom sones mot, faitz vos en lai, Qu’entre mos bracs mos amics j’ai. Kalenda maia. E vai s’ en.’

[564] _Trimousette_, from _trî mâ câ_, an unexplained burden in some of the French _maierolles_.

[565] Guy, 503.

[566] Tiersot, _Robin et Marion_; Guy, 506. See the refrain in Bartsch, 197, 295; Raynaud, _Rec. de Motets_, i. 227.

[567] Langlois, _Robin et Marion: Romania_, xxiv. 437; H. Guy, _Adan de la Hale_, 177; J. Tiersot, _Sur le Jeu de Robin et Marion_ (1897); Petit de Julleville, _La Comédie_, 27; _Rep. Com._ 21, 324. A _jeu_ of _Robin et Marion_ is recorded also as played at Angers in 1392, but there is no proof that this was Adan de la Hale’s play, or a drama at all. There were folk going ‘desguiziez, à un jeu que l’en dit Robin et Marion, ainsi qu’il est accoutumé de fere, chacun an, en les foiries de Penthecouste’ (Guy, 197). The best editions of _Robin et Marion_ are those by E. Langlois (1896), and by Bartsch in _La Langue et la Littérature françaises_ (1887), col. 523. E. de Coussemaker, _Œuvres de Adam de la Halle_ (1872), 347, gives the music, and A. Rambeau, _Die dem Trouvère Adam de la Halle zugeschriebenen Dramen_ (1886), facsimiles the text. On Adan de la Hale’s earlier _sottie_ of _La Feuillée_, see ch. xvi.

[568] Thomas Wright, _Lyrical Poems of the Reign of Edward I_ (Percy Soc.).

[569] Cf. ch. xvii.

[570] The May-game is probably intended by the ‘Whitsun pastorals’ of _Winter’s Tale_, iv. 4. 134, and the ‘pageants of delight’ at Pentecost, where a boy ‘trimmed in Madam Julias gown’ played ‘the woman’s part’ (i. e. Maid Marian) of _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, iv. 4. 163. Cf. also W. Warner, _Albion’s England_, v. 25:

‘At Paske began our Morrise, and ere Penticost our May.’

[571] _Flores Historiarum_ (R. S.), iii. 130 ‘aestimo quod rex aestivalis sis; forsitan hyemalis non eris.’

[572] Cf. Appendix E.

[573] ‘King-play’ at Reading (_Reading St. Giles Accounts_ in Brand-Hazlitt, i. 157; Kerry, _Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading_, 226).

[574] ‘King’s revel’ at Croscombe, Somerset (_Churchwardens’ Accounts_ in Hobhouse, 3).

[575] ‘King’s game’ at Leicester (Kelly, 68) and ‘King-game’ at Kingston (Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 225). On the other hand the King-game in church at Hascombe in 1578 (_Representations_, s. v. Hascombe), was probably a miracle-play of the Magi or Three Kings of Cologne. This belongs to Twelfth night (cf. ch. xix), but curiously the accounts of St. Lawrence, Reading, contain a payment for the ‘Kyngs of Colen’ on _May day_, 1498 (Kerry, _loc. cit._).

[576] Cf. ch. xvii. Local ‘lords of misrule’ in the _summer_ occur at Montacute in 1447-8 (Hobhouse, 183 ‘in expensis Regis de Montagu apud Tyntenhull existentis tempore aestivali’), at Meriden in 1565 (Sharpe, 209), at Melton Mowbray in 1558 (Kelly, 65), at Tombland, near Norwich (_Norfolk Archaeology_, iii. 7; xi. 345), at Broseley, near Much Wenlock, as late as 1652 (Burne-Jackson, 480). See the attack on them in Stubbes, i. 146. The term ‘lord of misrule’ seems to have been borrowed from Christmas (ch. xvii). It does not appear whether the lords of misrule of Old Romney in 1525 (_Archaeologia Cantiana_, xiii. 216) and Braintree in 1531 (Pearson, ii. 413) were in winter or summer.

[577] Owen and Blakeway, i. 331; Jackson and Burne, 480 (cf. Appendix E). Miss Burne suggests several possible derivations of the name; from _mar_ ‘make mischief,’ from Mardoll or Marwell (St. Mary’s Well), streets in Shrewsbury, or from Muryvale or Meryvalle, a local hamlet. But the form ‘Mayvoll’ seems to point to ‘Maypole.’

[578] _Representations_, s. v. Aberdeen. Here the lord of the summer feast seems to have acted also as presenter of the Corpus Christi plays.

[579] Cf. ch. xvii.

[580] Batman, _Golden Books of the Leaden Gods_ (1577), f. 30. The Pope is said to be carried on the backs of four deacons, ‘after the maner of carying whytepot queenes in Western May games.’ A ‘whitepot’ is a kind of custard.

[581] Such phrases occur as ‘the May-play called Robyn Hod’ (Kerry, _Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading_, 226, s. a. 1502), ‘Robin Hood and May game’ and Kynggam and Robyn Hode’ (_Kingston Accounts_, 1505-36, in Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 225). The accounts of St. Helen’s, Abingdon, in 1566, have an entry ‘for setting up Robin Hood’s bower’ (Brand-Hazlitt, i. 144). It is noticeable that from 1553 Robin Hood succeeds the Abbot of Mayvole in the May-game at Shrewsbury (Appendix E). Similarly, in an Aberdeen order of 1508 we find ‘Robert Huyid and Litile Johne, quhilk was callit, in yers bipast, Abbat and Prior of Bonacord’ (_Representations_, s. v. Aberdeen). Robin Hood seems, therefore, to have come rather late into the May-games, but to have enjoyed a widening popularity.

[582] The material for the study of the Robin Hood legend is gathered together by S. Lee in _D. N. B._ s. v. Hood; Child, _Popular Ballads_, v. 39; Ritson, _Robin Hood_ (1832); J. M. Gutch, _Robin Hood_ (1847). Prof. Child gives a critical edition of all the ballads.

[583] _Piers Plowman_, B-text, passus v. 401.

[584] Fabian, _Chronicle_, 687, records in 1502 the capture of ‘a felowe whych hadde renewed many of Robin Hode’s pagentes, which named himselfe Greneleef.’

[585] Cf. p. 177.

[586] Kühn, in Haupt’s _Zeitschrift_, v. 481.

[587] Ramsay, _F. E._ i. 168.

[588] In the Nottingham _Hall-books (Hist. MSS._ i. 105), the same locality seems to be described in 1548 as ‘Robyn Wood’s Well,’ and in 1597 as ‘Robyn Hood’s Well.’ Robin Hood is traditionally clad in green. If he is mythological at all, may he not be a form of the ‘wild-man’ or ‘wood-woz’ of certain spring dramatic ceremonies, and the ‘Green Knight’ of romance? Cf. ch. ix.

[589] The earliest mention of her is (†1500) in A. Barclay, _Eclogue_, 5, ‘some may fit of Maide Marian or else of Robin Hood.’

[590] _Hist. MSS._ i. 107, from _Convocation Book_, ‘pecuniae ecclesiae ac communitatis Welliae ... videlicet, provenientes ante hoc tempus de Robynhode, puellis tripudiantibus, communi cervisia ecclesiae, et huiusmodi.’

[591] The accounts of Croscombe, Somerset, contain yearly entries of receipts from ‘Roben Hod’s recones’ from 1476 to 1510, and again in 1525 (Hobhouse, 1 sqq.). At Melton Mowbray the amount raised by the ‘lord’ was set aside for mending the highways (Kelly, 65).

[592] Lysons, _Environs_, i. 225. Mention is made of ‘Robin Hood,’ ‘the Lady,’ ‘Maid Marion,’ ‘Little John,’ ‘the Frere,’ ‘the Fool,’ ‘the Dysard,’ ‘the Morris-dance.’

[593] _Archaeologia Cantiana_, xiii. 216.

[594] C. Kerry, _History of St. Lawrence, Reading_, 226. ‘Made Maryon,’ ‘the tree’ and ‘the morris-dance,’ are mentioned.

[595] _L. H. T. Accounts_, ii. 377.

[596] Stowe, _Survey_ (1598), 38. He is speaking mainly of the period before 1517, when there was a riot on ‘Black’ May-day, and afterwards the May-games were not ‘so freely used as before.’

[597] Appendix E (vi).

[598] Cf. _Representations_.

[599] Bower (†1437), _Scotichronicon_ (ed. Hearne), iii. 774 ‘ille famosissimus sicarius Robertus Hode et Litill-Iohanne cum eorum complicibus, de quibus stolidum vulgus hianter in comoediis et tragoediis prurienter festum faciunt, et, prae ceteris romanciis, mimos et bardanos cantitare delectantur.’ On the ambiguity of ‘comoediae’ and ‘tragoediae’ in the fifteenth century, cf. ch. xxv.

[600] Gairdner, _Paston Letters_, iii. 89; Child, v. 90; ‘W. Woode, whyche promysed ... he wold never goo ffro me, and ther uppon I have kepyd hym thys iij yer to pleye Seynt Jorge and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottyngham, and now, when I wolde have good horse, he is goon into Bernysdale, and I withowt a keeper.’ The _Northumberland Household Book_, 60, makes provision for ‘liveries for Robin Hood’ in the Earl’s household.

[601] Printed by Child, v. 90; Manly, i. 279. The MS. of the fragment probably dates before 1475.

[602] Printed by Child, v. 114, 127; Manly, i. 281, 285. They were originally printed as one play by Copland (†1550).

[603] Printed in Dodsley-Hazlitt, vol. viii. These plays were written for Henslowe about February 1598. In November Chettle ‘mended Roben hood for the corte’ (_Henslowe’s Diary_, 118-20, 139). At Christmas 1600, Henslowe had another play of ‘Roben hoodes penerths’ by William Haughton (_Diary_, 174-5). An earlier ‘pastoral pleasant comedie of Robin Hood and Little John’ was entered on the Stationers’ Registers on May 18, 1594. These two are lost, as is _The May Lord_ which Jonson wrote (_Conversations with Drummond_, 27). Robin Hood also appears in Peele’s _Edward I_ (†1590), and the anonymous _Look About You_ (1600), and is the hero of Greene’s _George a Greene the Pinner of Wakefield_ (†1593). Anthony Munday introduced him again into his pageant of _Metropolis Coronata_ (1615), and a comedy of _Robin Hood and his Crew of Soldiers_, acted at Nottingham on the day of the coronation of Charles II, was published in 1661. On all these plays, cf. F. E. Schelling, _The English Chronicle Play_, 156.

[604] Furnivall, _Robert Laneham’s Letter_, clxiii. Chaucer, _Rom. of Rose_, 7455, has ‘the daunce Joly Robin,’ but this is from his French original ‘li biaus Robins.’

[605] Cf. p. 176.

[606] Dyer, 278; Drake, 86; Brand-Ellis, i. 157; Cutts, _Parish Priests_, 317; _Archaeologia_, xii. 11; Stubbes, i. 150; _F. L._ x. 350. At an ‘ale’ a cask of home-brewed was broached for sale in the church or church-house, and the profits went to some public object; at a church-ale to the parish, at a clerk-ale to the clerk, at a bride-ale or bridal to the bride, at a bid-ale to some poor man in trouble. A love-ale was probably merely social.

[607] At Reading in 1557 (C. Kerry, _Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading_, 226).

[608] At Tintinhull in 1513 (Hobhouse, 200, ‘Robine Hood’s All’).

[609] Brand-Ellis, i. 157; Dyer, 278. A carving on the church of St. John’s, Chichester, represents a Whitsun-ale, with a ‘lord’ and ‘lady.’

[610] Cf. p. 141.

[611] At Ashton-under-Lyne, from 1422 to a recent date (Dyer, 181). ‘Gyst’ appears to be either ‘gist’ (_gîte_) ‘right of pasturage’ or a corruption of ‘guising’; cf. ch. xvii.

[612] Cf. p. 91. On _Scot-ale_, cf. Ducange, s. v. Scotallum; _Archaeologia_, xii. 11; H. T. Riley, _Munimenta Gildhallae Londin_. (R. S.), ii. 760. The term first appears as the name of a tax, as in a Northampton charter of 1189 (Markham-Cox, _Northampton Borough Records_, i. 26) ‘concessimus quod sint quieti de ... Brudtol et de Childwite et de hieresgiue et de Scottale, ita quod Prepositus Northamptonie ut aliquis alius Ballivus scottale non faciat’; cf. the thirteenth-century examples quoted by Ducange. The _Council of Lambeth_ (1206), c. 2, clearly defines the term as ‘communes potationes,’ and the primary sense is therefore probably that of an _ale_ at which a _scot_ or tax is raised.

[613] Malory, _Morte d’ Arthur_, xix. 1. 2.

[614] Hall, 515, 520, 582; Brewer, _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII_, ii. 1504. In 1510, Henry and his courtiers visited the queen’s chamber in the guise of Robin Hood and his men on the inappropriate date of January 18. In Scotland, about the same time, Dunbar wrote a ‘cry’ for a maying with Robin Hood; cf. _Texts_, s. v. Dunbar.

[615] Latimer, _Sermon vi before Edw. VI_ (1549, ed. Arber, 173). Perhaps the town was Melton Mowbray, where Robin Hood was very popular, and where Latimer is shown by the churchwardens’ accounts to have preached several years later in 1553 (Kelly, 67).

[616] Machyn, 20.

[617] Ibid. 89, 137, 196, 201, 283, 373. In 1559, e.g. ‘the xxiiij of June ther was a May-game ... and Sant John Sacerys, with a gyant, and drumes and gunes [and the] ix wordes (worthies), with spechys, and a goodly pagant with a quen ... and dyvers odur, with spechys; and then Sant Gorge and the dragon, the mores dansse, and after Robyn Hode and lytyll John, and M[aid Marian] and frere Tuke, and they had spechys round a-bout London.’

[618] ‘Mr. Tomkys publicke prechar’ in Shrewsbury induced the bailiffs to ‘reform’ May-poles in 1588, and in 1591 some apprentices were committed for disobeying the order. A judicial decision was, however, given in favour of the ‘tree’ (Burne-Jackson, 358; Hibbert, _English Craft-Gilds_, 121). In London the Cornhill May-pole, which gave its name to St. Andrew Undershaft, was destroyed by persuasion of a preacher as early as 1549 (Dyer, 248); cf. also Stubbes, i. 306, and Morrison’s advice to Henry VIII quoted in ch. xxv.

[619] Archbishop Grindal’s _Visitation Articles_ of 1576 (_Remains_, Parker Soc. 175), ‘whether the minister and churchwardens have suffered any lords of misrule or summer lords or ladies, or any disguised persons, or others, in Christmas or at May-games, or any morris-dancers, or at any other times, to come unreverently into the church or churchyard, and there to dance, or play any unseemly parts, with scoffs, jests, wanton gestures, or ribald talk, namely in the time of Common Prayer.’ Similarly worded _Injunctions_ for Norwich (1569), York (1571), Lichfield (1584), London (1601) and Oxford (1619) are quoted in the _Second Report_ of the Ritual Commission; cf. the eighty-eighth _Canon_ of 1604. It is true that the _Visitation Articles_ for St. Mary’s, Shrewsbury, in 1584 inquire more generally ‘whether there have been any lords of mysrule, or somer lords or ladies, or any disguised persons, as morice dancers, maskers, or mum’ers, or such lyke, within the parishe, ether in the nativititide or in som’er, or at any other tyme, and what be their names’; but this church was a ‘peculiar’ and its ‘official’ the Puritan Tomkys mentioned in the last note (Owen and Blakeway, i. 333; Burne-Jackson, 481).

[620] Stafford, 16.

[621] Stubbes, i. 146; cf. the further quotations and references there given in the notes.

[622] 6 _Mary_, cap. 61.

[623] Child, v. 45; cf. _Representations_, s.v. Aberdeen, on the breaches of the statute there in 1562 and 1565.

[624] Dyer, 228; Drake, 85. At Cerne Abbas, Dorset, the May-pole was cut down in 1635 and made into a town ladder (_F. L._ x. 481).

[625] Grimm, ii. 784; _Kleinere Schriften_, v. 281; Pearson, ii. 281.

[626] Frazer, ii. 82; Grant Allen, 293, 315; Grimm, ii. 764; Pearson, ii. 283.

[627] Frazer, ii. 86; Martinengo-Cesaresco, 267. Cf. the use of the bladder of blood in the St. Thomas procession at Canterbury (_Representations_, s. v.).

[628] Frazer, iii. 70. Amongst such customs are the expulsion of Satan on New Year’s day by the Finns, the expulsion of Kore at Easter in Albania, the expulsion of witches on March 1 in Calabria, and on May 1 in the Tyrol, the frightening of the wood-sprites Strudeli and Strätteli on Twelfth night at Brunnen in Switzerland. Such ceremonies are often accompanied with a horrible noise of horns, cleavers and the like. Horns are also used at Oxford (Dyer, 261) and elsewhere on May 1, and I have heard it said that the object of the Oxford custom is to drive away evil spirits. Similar discords are _de rigueur_ at Skimmington Ridings. I very much doubt whether they are anything but a degenerate survival of a barbaric type of music.

[629] Frazer, iii. 121.

[630] Tylor, _Anthropology_, 382.

[631] Caspari, 10 ‘qui in mense februario hibernum credit expellere ... non christianus, sed gentilis est.’

[632] Frazer, ii. 91.

[633] Frazer, ii. 60.

[634] Sometimes the _Pfingstl_ is called a ‘wild man.’ Two ‘myghty woordwossys [cf. p. 392] or wyld men’ appeared in a revel at the court of Henry VIII in 1513 (_Revels Account_ in Brewer, ii. 1499), and similar figures are not uncommon in the sixteenth-century masques and entertainments.

[635] Frazer, ii. 62.

[636] Ibid. ii. 61, 82; E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_, 374, 409.

[637] _Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knyghte_ (ed. Madden, Bannatyne Club, 1839); cf. J. L. Weston, _The Legend of Sir Gawain_, 85. Arthur was keeping New Year’s Day, when a knight dressed in green, with a green beard, riding a green horse, and bearing a holly bough, and an axe of green steel, entered the hall. He challenged any man of the Round Table to deal him a buffet with the axe on condition of receiving one in return after the lapse of a year. Sir Gawain accepts. The stranger’s head is cut off, but he picks it up and rides away with it. This is a close parallel to the resurrection of the slain ‘wild man.’

[638] Frazer, ii. 105, 115, 163, 219; _Pausanias_, iii. 53; v. 259; Gardner, _New Chapters in Greek History_, 395, give Russian, Greek, and Asiatic parallels.

[639] Frazer, ii. 71; Pfannenschmidt, 302. The victim is sometimes known as the Carnival or Shrovetide ‘Fool’ or ‘Bear.’

[640] Dyer, 93. The Jack o’ Lent apparently stood as a cock-shy from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, and was then burnt. Portuguese sailors in English docks thrash and duck an effigy of Judas Iscariot on Good Friday (Dyer, 155).

[641] Alleluia was not sung during Lent. Fosbrooke, _British Monachism_, 56, describes the Funeral of Alleluia by the choristers of an English cathedral on the Saturday before Septuagesima. A turf was carried in procession with howling to the cloisters. Probably this cathedral was Lincoln, whence Wordsworth, 105, quotes payments ‘pro excludend’ Alleluya’ from 1452 to 1617. Leber, ix. 338; Barthélemy, iii. 481, give French examples of the custom; cf. the Alleluia top, p. 128.

[642] Dyer, 158. Reeds were woven on Good Friday into the shape of a crucifix and left in some hidden part of a field or garden.

[643] Dyer, 333. The village feast was on St. Peter’s day, June 29. On the Saturday before an effigy was dug up from under a sycamore on May-pole hill; a week later it was buried again. In this case the order of events seems to have been inverted.

[644] Frazer, i. 221. The French May-queen is often called _la mariée_ or _l’épouse_.

[645] Frazer, i. 225; Jevons, _Plutarch R. Q._ lxxxiii. 56.

[646] Waldron, _Hist. of Isle of Man_, 95; Dyer, 246.

[647] Olaus Magnus, _History of Swedes and Goths_, xv. 4, 8, 9; Grimm, ii. 774.

[648] Grimm, ii. 765; Paul, _Grundriss_ (ed. 1), i. 836.

[649] Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 267.

[650] Cf. ch. iv.

[651] Grimm, ii. 675, 763; Swainson, _Folk-lore of British Birds_ (F. L. S.), 109; Hardy, _Popular History of the Cuckoo_, in _F. L. Record_, ii; Mannhardt, in _Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie_, iii. 209. Cf. ch. v.

[652] Aristotle, _Poetics_, i. 5 αὐτῷ δέ τῷ ῥυθμῷ [ποιεῖται τὴν μίμησιν] χωρὶς ἁρμονίας ἡ [τέχνη] τῶν ὀρχηστῶν, καὶ γὰρ οὗτοι διά τῶν σχηματιζομένων ῥυθμῶν μιμοῦνται καὶ ἤθη καὶ πάθη καὶ πράξεις. Cf. Lucian, _de Saltatione_, xv. 277. Du Méril, 65, puts the thing well: ‘La danse n’a été l’invention de personne: elle s’est produite d’elle-même le jour que le corps a subi et dû refléter un état de l’âme.... On ne tarda pas cependant à la séparer de sa cause première et à la reproduire pour elle-même ... en simulant la gaieté on parvenait réellement à la sentir.’

[653] Wallaschek, 216; Grosse, 165, 201; Hirn, 157, 182, 229, 259, 261; Du Méril, _Com._ 72; Haddon, 346; Grove, 52, 81; Mrs. Gomme, ii. 518; G. Catlin, _On Manners ... of N. Amer. Indians_ (1841), i. 128, 244. Lang, _M. R. R._ i. 272, dwells on the representation of myths in savage mystery-dances, and points out that Lucian (_loc. cit._) says that the Greeks used to ‘dance out’ (ἐξορχεῖσθαι) their mysteries.

[654] The _chanson_ of _Transformations_ (cf. p. 170) is sung by peasant-girls as a semi-dramatic duet (_Romania_, vii. 62); and that of _Marion_ was performed ‘à deux personnages’ on Shrove Tuesday in Lorraine (_Romania_, ix. 568).

[655] Giraldus Cambrensis, _Itinerarium Cambriae_, i. 2 (_Opera_, R.S. vi. 32) ‘Videas enim hic homines seu puellas, nunc in ecclesia, nunc in coemiterio, nunc in chorea, quae circa coemiterium cum cantilena circumfertur, subito in terram corruere, et primo tanquam in extasim ductos et quietos; deinde statim tanquam in phrenesim raptos exsilientes, opera quaecunque festis diebus illicite perpetrare consueverant, tam manibus quam pedibus, coram populo repraesentantes. videas hunc aratro manus aptare, illum quasi stimulo boves excitare; et utrumque quasi laborem mitigando solitas barbarae modulationis voces efferre. videas hunc artem sutoriam, illum pellipariam imitari. item videas hanc quasi colum baiulando, nunc filum manibus et brachiis in longum extrahere, nunc extractum occandum tanquam in fusum revocare; istam deambulando productis filis quasi telam ordiri: illam sedendo quasi iam orditam oppositis lanceolae iactibus et alternis calamistrae cominus ictibus texere mireris. Demum vero intra ecclesiam cum oblationibus ad altare perductos tanquam experrectos et ad se redeuntes obstupescas.’

[656] Cf. p. 151 with Mrs. Gomme’s _Memoir_ (ii. 458) _passim_, and Haddon, 328. Parallel savage examples are in Wallaschek, 216; Hirn, 157, 259.

[657] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 399, 494 and s. vv.; Haddon, 340. Similar games are widespread on the continent; cf. the Rabelais quotation on p. 167. Haddon quotes a French formula, ending

‘Aveine, aveine, aveine, Que le Bon Dieu t’amène.’

[658] Wallaschek, 273; Hirn, 285.

[659] The German data here used are chiefly collected by Müllenhoff and F. A. Mayer; cf. also Creizenach, i. 408; Michels, 84; J. J. Ammann, _Nachträge zum Schwerttanz_, in _Z. f. d. Alterthum_ xxxiv (1890), 178; A. Hartmann, _Volksschauspiele_ (1880), 130; F. M. Böhme, _Geschichte des Tanzes in Deutschland_ (1886); Sepp, _Die Religion der alten Deutschen, und ihr Fortbestand in Volkssagen, Aufzügen und Festbräuchen bis zur Gegenwart_ (1890), 91; O. Wittstock, _Ueber den Schwerttanz der Siebenbürger Sachsen_, in _Philologische Studien: Festgabe für Eduard Sievers_ (1896), 349.

[660] Tacitus, _Germania_, 24 ‘genus spectaculorum unum atque in omni coetu idem. nudi iuvenes, quibus id ludicrum est, inter gladios se atque infestas frameas saltu iaciunt. exercitatio artem paravit, ars decorem, non in quaestum tamen aut mercedem; quamvis audacis lasciviae pretium est voluptas spectantium.’

[661] _Beowulf_, 1042. It is in the hall of Hrothgar at Heorot,

‘þæt wæs hilde-setl: heah-cyninges, þonne sweorda-gelác: sunu Healfdenes efnan wolde: nǽfre on óre lǽg wíd-cúþes wíg: þonne walu féollon.’

[662] Appendix N, no. xxxix; ‘arma in campo ostendit.’

[663] Strutt, 215. The tenth-century τὸ γοτθικόν at Byzantium seems to have been a kind of sword-dance (cf. ch. xii _ad fin._).

[664] Strutt, 260; Du Méril, _La Com._ 84.

[665] Mayer, 259.

[666] Müllenhoff, 145, quoting _Don Quixote_, ii. 20; _Z. f. d. A._ xviii. 11; Du Méril, _La Com._ 86.

[667] Webster, _The White Devil_, v. 6, ‘a matachin, it seems by your drawn swords’; the ‘buffons’ is included in the list of dances in the _Complaynt of Scotland_ (†1548); cf. Furnivall, _Laneham’s Letter_, clxii.

[668] Tabourot, _Orchésographie_, 97, _Les Bouffons ou Mattachins_. The dancers held bucklers and swords which they clashed together. They also wore bells on their legs.

[669] Cf. Appendix J.

[670] Henderson, 67. The sword-dance is also mentioned by W. Hutchinson, _A View of Northumberland_ (1778), ii _ad fin._ 18; by J. Wallis, _Hist. of Northumberland_ (1779), ii. 28, who describes the leader as having ‘a fox’s skin, generally serving him for a covering and ornament to his head, the tail hanging down his back’; and as practised in the north Riding of Yorks, by a writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ (1811), lxxxi. 1. 423. Here it took place from St. Stephen’s to New Year’s Day. There were six lads, a fiddler, Bessy and a Doctor. At Whitby, six dancers went with the ‘Plough Stots’ on Plough Monday. The figures included the placing of a hexagon or rose of swords on the head of one of the performers. The dance was accompanied with ‘_Toms_ or _clowns_’ masked or painted, and ‘_Madgies_ or Madgy-Pegs’ in women’s clothes. Sometimes a farce, with a king, miller, clown and doctor was added (G. Young, _Hist. of Whitby_ (1817), ii. 880).

[671] Cf. Appendix J.

[672] R. Bell, _Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England_, 175.

[673] Cf. Appendix J.

[674] Mayer, 230, 417.

[675] Henderson, 67. The clown introduces each dancer in turn; then there is a dance with raised swords which are tied in a ‘knot.’ Henderson speaks of a later set of verses also in use, which he does not print.

[676] R. Bell, _Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England_, 175 (from Sir C. Sharpe’s _Bishoprick Garland_). A Christmas dance. The captain began the performance by drawing a circle with his sword. Then the Bessy introduced the captain, who called on the rest in turn, each walking round the circle to music. Then came an elaborate dance with careful formations, which degenerated into a fight. Bell mentions a similar set of verses from Devonshire.

[677] Bell, 172. A Christmas dance. The clown makes the preliminary circle with his sword, and calls on the other dancers.

[678] Bell, 181. The clown calls for ‘a room,’ after which one of the party introduces the rest. This also is a Christmas dance, but as the words ‘we’ve come a pace-egging’ occur, it must have been transferred from Easter. Bell says that a somewhat similar performance is given at Easter in Coniston, and Halliwell, _Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales_, 244, describes a similar set of rhymes as used near York for pace-egging.

[679] Described by Müllenhoff, 138, from _Ausland_ (1857), No. 4, f. 81. The clown gives the prologue, and introduces the rest.

[680] Cf. p. 221.

[681] Mayer prints and compares all three texts.

[682] Cf. p. 185. The original names seem to be best preserved in the Styrian verses: they are Obersteiner (the _Vortänzer_) or Hans Kanix, Fasching (the _Narr_), Obermayer, Jungesgsell, Grünwald, Edlesblut, Springesklee, Schellerfriedl, Wilder Waldmann, Handssupp, Rubendunst, Leberdarm, Rotwein, Höfenstreit.

[683] H. Pröhle, _Weltliche und geistliche Volkslieder und Volksschauspiele_ (1855), 245.

[684] Müllenhoff, _Z. f. d. A._ xx. 10.

[685] Brand-Ellis, i. 142; Douce, 576; Burton, 95; Gutch, _Robin Hood_, i. 301; Drake, 76.

[686] Burton, 117; Warner, _Albion’s England_, v. 25 ‘At Paske begun our Morrise, and ere Penticost our May.’ The morris was familiar in the revels of Christmas. Laneham, 23, describes at the Bride-ale shown before Elizabeth at Kenilworth ‘a lively morrisdauns, according too the auncient manner: six daunserz, Mawdmarion, and the fool.’

[687] A good engraving of the window is in _Variorum Shakespeare_, xvi. 419, and small reproductions in Brand, i. 145; Burton, 103; Gutch, i. 349; Mr. Tollet’s own account of the window, printed in the _Variorum_, _loc. cit._, is interesting, but too ingenious. He dates the window in the reign of Henry VIII; Douce, 585, a better authority, ascribes it to that of Edward IV.

[688] Ben Jonson, _The Gipsies Metamorphosed_ (ed. Cunningham, iii. 151):

‘_Clod._ They should be morris-dancers by their gingle, but they have no napkins.

‘_Cockrel._ No, nor a hobby-horse.

‘_Clod._ Oh, he’s often forgotten, that’s no rule; but there is no Maid Marian nor Friar amongst them, which is the surer mark.

‘_Cockrel._ Nor a fool that I see.’

[689] The lady, the fool, the hobby-horse are all in Tollet’s window, and in a seventeenth-century printing by Vinkenboom from Richmond palace, engraved by Douce, 598; Burton, 105. Cf. the last note and other passages quoted by Douce, Brand, and Burton. In _Two Noble Kinsmen_, iii. 5, 125, a morris of six men and six women is thus presented by Gerrold, the schoolmaster:

‘I first appear ... The next, the Lord of May and Lady bright, The Chambermaid and Serving-man, by night That seek out silent hanging: then mine Host And his fat Spouse, that welcomes to their cost The galled traveller, and with a beck’ning Informs the tapster to inflame the reck’ning: Then the beast-eating Clown, and next the Fool, The Bavian, with long tail and eke long tool; _Cum multis aliis_, that make a dance.’

Evidently some of these _dramatis personae_ are not traditional; the ingenuity of the presenter has been at work on them. ‘Bavian’ as a name for the fool, is the Dutch _baviaan_, ‘baboon.’ His ‘tail’ is to be noted; for the phallic shape sometimes given to the bladder which he carries, cf. Rigollot, 164. In the Betley window the fool has a bauble; in the Vinkenboom picture a staff with a bladder at one end, and a ladle (to gather money in) at the other. In the window the ladle is carried by the hobby-horse. ‘The hobby-horse is forgot’ is a phrase occurring in _L. L. L._ iii. 1. 30; _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 144, and alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher, _Women Pleased_, iv. 1, and Ben Jonson, in the masque quoted above, and in _The Satyr_ (Cunningham, ii. 577). Apparently it is a line from a lost ballad.

[690] Stubbes, i. 147, of the ‘devil’s daunce’ in the train of the lord of misrule, evidently a morris, ‘then haue they their Hobby-horses, dragons & other Antiques.’ In W. Sampson’s _Vow-breaker_ (1636), one morris-dancer says ‘I’ll be a fiery dragon’; another, ‘I’ll be a thund’ring Saint George as ever rode on horseback.’

[691] Burton, 40, 43, 48, 49, 56, 59, 61, 65, 69, 75, 115, 117, 121, 123, cites many notices throughout the century, and gives several figures. The morris is in request at wakes and rushbearings. Both men and women dance, sometimes to the number of twenty or thirty. Gay dresses are worn, with white skirts, knee-breeches and ribbons. Handkerchiefs are carried or hung on the arm or wrist, or replaced by dangling streamers, cords, or skeins of cotton. Bells are not worn on the legs, but jingling horse-collars are sometimes carried on the body. There is generally a fool, described in one account as wearing ‘a horrid mask.’ He is, however, generally black, and is known as ‘King Coffee’ (Gorton), ‘owd sooty-face,’ ‘dirty Bet,’ and ‘owd molly-coddle.’ This last name, like the ‘molly-dancers’ of Gorton, seems to be due to a linguistic corruption. In 1829 a writer describes the fool as ‘a nondescript, made up of the ancient fool and Maid Marian.’ At Heaton, in 1830, were two figures, said to represent Adam and Eve, as well as the fool. The masked fool, mentioned above, had as companion a shepherdess with lamb and crook.

[692] Burton, 115, from _Journal of Archaeol. Assoc._ vii. 201. The dancers went on Twelfth-night, without bells, but with a fool, a ‘fool’s wife’ and sometimes a hobby-horse.

[693] Jackson and Burne, 402, 410, 477. The morris-dance proper is mainly in south Shropshire and at Christmas. At Shrewsbury, in 1885, were ten dancers, with a fool. Five carried trowels and five short staves which they clashed. The fool had a black face, and a bell on his coat. No other bells are mentioned. Staves or wooden swords are used at other places in Shropshire, and at Brosely all the faces are black. The traditional music is a tabor and pipe. A 1652 account of the Brosely dance with six sword-bearers, a ‘leader or lord of misrule’ and a ‘vice’ (cf. ch. xxv) called the ‘lord’s son’ is quoted. In north-east Shropshire, the Christmas ‘guisers’ are often called ‘morris-dancers,’ ‘murry-dancers,’ or ‘merry-dancers.’ In Shetland the name ‘merry dancers’ is given to the _aurora borealis_ (J. Spence, _Shetland Folk-Lore_, 116).

[694] _Leicester F. L._ 93. The dance was on Plough Monday with paper masks, a plough, the bullocks, men in women’s dresses, one called Maid Marian, Curly the fool, and Beelzebub. This is, I think, the only survival of the name Maid Marian, and it may be doubted if even this is really popular and not literary.

[695] P. Manning, _Oxfordshire Seasonal Festivals_, in _F. L._