TRANSLATION OF ST. THOMAS. "In Translatione D. Thomæ (mense Julii) solebant rogum construere, sed nec ornare lectos, nec carmina componere, sed ludere si placet preceptori." 1560, MS. ut supra. Status Scholæ Etonensis, A.D. ST. ULRIC. JULY 4. THE following are the ceremonies of this day preserved in Googe's Translation of Naogeorgus: "ST. HULDRYCHE. "Wheresoever Huldryche hath his place, the people there brings in TRANSLATION OF MARTIN. [A similar tradition was current on this day, July 4th, to that now ascribed to St. Swithin "Martini magni translatio in pluviam det ST. SWITHIN'S DAY. JULY 15. THE following is said to be the origin of the old adage: "If it rain on St. Swithin's Day, there will be rain more or less for forty-five succeeding days." In the year 865, St. Swithin, Bishop of Winchester, to which rank he was raised by King Ethelwolfe, the Dane, dying, was canonized by the then Pope. He was singular for his desire to be buried in the open churchyard, and not in the chancel of the minster, as was usual with other bishops, which request was complied with; but the monks, on his being canonized, taking it into their heads that it was disgraceful for the saint to lie in the open churchyard, resolved to remove his body into the choir, which was to have been done with solemn procession on the 15th of July. It rained, however, so violently on that day, and for forty days succeeding, as had hardly ever been known, which made them set aside their design as heretical and blasphemous; and instead, they erected a chapel over his grave, at which many miracles are said to have been wrought. Blount tells us that St. Swithin, a holy Bishop of Winchester about the year 860, was called the weeping St. Swithin, for that, about his feast, Præsepe and Aselli, rainy constellations, arise cosmically, and commonly cause rain. Gay, in his Trivia, mentions "How if, on Swithin's feast the welkin lours, And ev'ry pent-house streams with hasty show'rs, Nothing occurs in the legendary accounts of this Saint, which throws any light upon the subject; the following lines occur in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1697: Who in his time did many a feat, And to make hay while sun doth shine, Which idle monks and friars devise." [And in Poor Robin for 1735: "If it rain on St. Swithin's Day; Ben Jonson, in Every Man out of his Humour, thus alludes to the day :-"O, here St. Swithin's, the fifteenth day; variable weather, for the most part rain; good; for the most part rain. Why, it should rain fourty days after, now, more or less; it was a rule held afore I was able to hold a plough, and yet here are two days no rain; ha! it makes me to muse."] Churchill thus glances at the superstitious notions about rain on St. Swithin's Day: "July, to whom, the dog-star in her train, St. James gives oisters, and St. Swithin rain." These lines upon St. Swithin's Day are still common in many parts of the country: "St. Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain, A pleasant writer in the World, No. 10 (the late Lord Orford), speaking on the alteration of the style, says: "Were our astronomers so ignorant as to think that the old proverbs would serve for their newfangled calendar? Could they imagine that St. Swithin would accommo. date her rainy planet to the convenience of their calculations ?" There is an old saying, that when it rains on St. Swithin's Day, it is the Saint christening the apples. In the Churchwardens' Accounts of the parish of Horley, in the county of Surrey, under the years 1505-6, is the following entry, which implies a gathering on this saint's day, or account: "Itm. Saintt Swithine farthyngs the said 2 3eres, 3s. 8d." In Lysons's Environs of London, i. 230, is a list of church duties and payments relating to the church of Kingston-uponThames, in which the following items appear: "23 Hen. VII. Imprimis, at Easter for any howseholder kepying a brode gate, shall pay to the paroche prests wages 3d. Item, to the paschalld. To St. Swithin d. Also any howse-holder kepyng one tenement shall pay to the paroche prests wages 2d. Item, to the Paschal d. And to St. Swithin d.” [The following local proverbs may find a place here : "If St. Swithin greets [weeps], the proverb says, A shower of rain in July, when the corn begins to fill, Is worth a plough of oxen, and all that belongs theretill. Some rain, some rest; Fine weather isn't always best. Frosty nights, and hot sunny days, Set the corn-fields all in a blaze, (i.e. they have a tendency to forward the ripening of the 'white' crops."] ST. KENELM'S DAY. JULY 17. [A VERY curious custom was formerly practised at Clent, in the parish of Hales-Owen, co. Salop. "A fair was wont to be held in the field in which St. Kenelm's Chapel is situate; it is of very ancient date, and probably arose from the congregating together of numbers of persons to visit the shrine of St. Kenelm on the feast of the Saint, 17th of July. By the 33d Henry VIII., the fair, or rather, we presume, the tolls of the fair, were granted to Roger de Somery, the Lord of Clent. The article of cheese was the principal commodity brought for sale till, about a quarter of a century ago, the fair was numbered amongst the bygones. Clent was royal demesne, and still enjoys peculiar privileges: the inhabitants are free from serving on juries at assizes and sessions, and also of tolls throughout the kingdom, and at St. Kenelm's fair, and also at the fair of Holy Cross, in the parish of Clent, and the inhabitants sold ale and other refreshments without license or the intervention of the gauger, by an old charter which was granted by Edward the Confessor, and confirmed by Elizabeth. St. Kenelm's wake is held, or rather used to be held, for 'tis now but little noticed, on the Sunday after the fair; on which day, within the recollection of numbers of persons now living, it was the annual practice to crab the parson. The last clergyman but one who was subjected to this process was a somewhat eccentric gentleman, named Lee. He had been chaplain to a man-of-war, and was a jovial old fellow in his way, who could enter into the spirit of the thing. My informant well recollects the worthy divine, after partaking of dinner at the solitary house near the church, quietly quitting the table when the time for performing the service drew nigh, and reconnoitring the angles of the building, and each buttress and coign of vantage' behind which it was reasonable to suppose the enemy would be posted, and watching for a favourable opportunity, he would start forth at his best walking pace (he scorned to run) to reach the church. Around him, thick and fast, fell from ready hands a shower of crabs, not a few telling with fearful emphasis on his burly person, amid the intense merriment of the rustic assailants; but the distance is small; he reaches the old Saxon porch, and the storm is over. Another informant, a man of Clent, states that he has seen the late incumbent, the Rev. John Todd, frequently run the gauntlet, and that on one occasion there were two sacks of crabs, each containing at least three bushels, emptied in the church field, besides large store of other missiles provided by other parties; and it also appears that some of the more wanton not unfrequently threw sticks, stakes, &c., which probably led to the suppression of the practice. The custom of crabbing the parson is said to have arisen on this wise. 'Long, long ago,' an incumbent of Frankley, to which St. Kenelm's is attached, was accustomed, through horrid, deeprutted, miry roads, occasionally to wend his way to the sequestered depository of the remains of the murdered Saint King, to perform divine service. It was his wont to carry creature |