Irish "have a custom every May Day, which they count their first day of summer, to have to their meal one formal dish, whatever else they have, which some call stir-about, or hasty-pudding, that is, flour and milk boiled thick; and this is holden as an argument of the good wive's good huswifery, that made her corn hold out so well as to have such a dish to begin summer fare with; for if they can hold out so long with bread, they count they can do well enough for what remains of the year till harvest; for then milk becomes plenty, and butter, new cheese and curds and shamrocks, are the food of the meaner sort all this Nevertheless, in this mess, on this day, they are so formal, that even in the plentifullest and greatest houses, where bread is in abundance all the year long, they will not fail of this dish, nor yet they that for a month before wanted bread P."

season.

Camden, in his "Antient and Modern Manners of the Irish," says: "They fancy a green bough of a tree, fastened on May Day against the house, will produce plenty of milk that summer."

General Vallancey, in his "Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language," 8vo. Dubl. 1772, p. 19, speaking of the first of May, says: "On that day the Druids drove all the cattle through the fires, to preserve them from disorders the ensuing year. This pagan custom is still observed in Munster and Connaught, where the meanest cottager worth a cow and a wisp of straw practises the same on the first day of May, and with the same superstitious ideas"."

[Aubrey, in his "Remains of Gentilisme," MS. Lansd. 226, informs us that ""Tis commonly sayd in Germany that the witches do meet in the night before

P Vallancey's Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, No. 1. p. 121, 8vo. Dubl. 1770.

1 Gough's Camden, fol. Lond. 1789, vol. iii. p. 659 [properly, 667]. Du Chesne, in his History of England, p. 18, mentions the same circumstance. "Il tiennent pour Sorciere la premiere femme qui leur demande du feu le premier jour de May: tuent ce jour mesme un lievre au milieu de leurs troupeaux, pour empescher qu'on ne derobe leur beurre; et mettant encore à pareil jour des rameux verds a leurs portes, a fin que le laict abonde a leur bestiail tout le long de l'Esté.". See also "Memorable Things noted in the Description of the World," p. 112.

In the "Survey of the South of Ireland,” p. 233, we read something similar to what has been already quoted in a note from the Statistical Account of Scotland. "The sun," (says the writer,) "was propitiated here by sacrifices of fire: one was on the first of May, for a blessing on the seed

the first day of May, upon an high mountain, called the Blocks-berg, situated in Ascanien," (Hercynia, the Hartz-forest) "where they, together with the devils, doe dance and feast; and the common people doe, the night before the said day, fetch a certain thorn, and stick it at their house-door, believing the witches can then doe them no harm."]

Bourne cites Polydore Vergil as telling us that, among the Italians, the youth, of both sexes, were accustomed to go into the fields on the Calends of May, and bring thence the branches of trees, singing all the way as they came, and so place them on the doors of their houses.

This, he observes, is the relick of an ancient custom among the Heathens, who observed the four last days of April, and the first of May, in honour of the Goddess Flora, who was imagined the deity presiding over the fruit and flowers: a festival that was observed with all manner of obscenity and lewdness$.

sown. The first of May is called, in the Irish language, La Beal-tine, that is, the day of Beal's fire. Vossius says it is well known that Apollo was called Belinus, and for this he quotes Herodian, and an inscription at Aquileia, Apollini Belino. The Gods of Tyre were Baal, Ashtaroth, and all the Host of Heaven, as we learn from the frequent rebukes given to the backsliding Jews for following after Sidonian idols: and the Phenician Baal, or Baalam, like the Irish Beal, or Bealin, denotes the sun, as Asturoth does the moon."

• Antiq. Vulg. ch. xxv.-"Est item consuetudinis ut juventus promiscui sexus lætabunda cal. Maii exeat in agros, et cantillans inde virides reportet arborum ramos, eosque ante domorum fores ponat-præsertim apud Italos. Hæc vel a Romanis mutuo sumpta videntur, apud quos sic Flora cunctorum fructuum dea mense Maio, lascive colebatur, sicut supra diximus, vel ab Atheniensibus sunt, quod illi in fame in templo Delphico gï, id est, iresionem ponebant, hoc est ramum olivæ, sive lauri plenum variis fructibus." Polyd. Verg. de Rer. Invent. l. v. c. ii. fol. Bas. 1525, p. 145.

So Hospinian de Festis Judæor. & Ethnicor. fol. 100. "Celebrabantur autem hæ Feriæ atque Ludi, Lactantio teste, cum omni lascivia verbis et moribus pudendis, ad placandam Deam, quæ floribus et fructibus præerat. Nam per Tubam convocabantur omnis generis Meretrices. Unde Juvenalis, [Sat. vi. 1. 249.]

Eæ in theatro denudatæ," &c.

'dignissima prorsus

Florali Matrona Tuba.'

Dr. Moresin follows Polydore Vergil in regard to the origin of this

custom*.

MAY POLES.

BOURNE, speaking of the first of May, tells us: "The after-part of the day is chiefly spent in dancing round a tall Poll, which is called a May Poll; which being placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there, as it were consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, without the least violation offer'd to it, in the whole circle of the year."

Stubs, a puritanical writer of Queen Elizabeth's days, in continuation of a passage already quoted from his "Anatomie of Abuses," says: "But their cheefest jewell they bring from thence" [the woods] "is their Maie poole, whiche they bring home with greate veneration, as thus. They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this Maie poole, (this stinckyng Idoll rather,) which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men, women, and children followyng it, with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkercheifes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up Sommer haules, Bowers, and Arbours hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their Idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself"."

"Maio mense exire in agros et cantando viridem frondem reportare, quam in domibus & domorum foribus appendant, aut à Flora lasciviæ Romanæ dea, aut ab Atheniensibus est." Papatus, p. 91.

See p. 179, note a,

In "Vox Graculi," 4to. 1623, p. 62, speaking of May, the author says: "This day shall be erected long wooden Idols, called May Poles; whereat many greasie churles shall murmure, that VOL. I.

C C

Mr. Tollett, of Betley, in Staffordshire, in the account of his painted window printed in Mr. Steevens's Shakespeare, at the end of the play of King Henry IV. Part I. tell us, that the May Pole there represented "is painted yellow and black, in spiral lines. Spelman's Glossary mentions the custom of erecting a tall May Pole, painted with various colours: and Shakespeare, in

will not bestow so much as a faggot-sticke towards the warming of the poore: an humour that, while it seemes to smell of conscience, savours indeed of nothing but covetousnesse.”

“The tall young

M. Stevenson, in "The Twelve Moneths," &c. 4to. Lond. 1661, p. 22, says: oak is cut down for a May Pole, and the frolick fry of the town prevent the rising sun, and, with joy in their faces and boughs in their hands, they march before it to the place of erection."

I find the following in a curious collection of poetical pieces, entitled, "A pleasant Grove of New Fancies," 8vo. Lond. 1657, p. 74 :

"The May Pole. "The May Pole is up,

Now give me the cup,

I'll drink to the garlands around it,

But first unto those

Whose hands did compose

The glory of flowers that crown'd it."

On the subject of the May Pole consult Vossius de Orig. & Prog. Idololatriæ, lib. ii.

In Northbrooke's "Treatise wherein Dicing, Dauncing, vaine Playes, or Enterluds, with other idle Pastimes, &c. commonly used on the Sabboth Day, are reproued." 4to. Lond. H. Bynnem. p. 140, is the following passage: "What adoe make our yong men at the time of May? Do they not use nightwatchings to rob and steale yong trees out of other mens grounde, and bring them home into their parishe, with minstrels playing before: and, when they have set it up, they will decke it with floures and garlandes, and daunce rounde, (men and women togither, moste unseemely and intollerable, as I have proved before,) about the tree, like unto the children of Israell that daunced about the golden calfe that they had set up," &c.

Owen, in his Welsh Dictionary, voce BEDWEN, a Birch-tree, explains it also by "a May Pole, because it was always (he says) made of birch.—It was customary to have games of various sorts round the Bedwen; but the chief aim, and on which the fame of the village depended, was, to preserve it from being stolen away, as parties from other places were continually on the watch for an opportunity; who, if successful, had their feats recorded in songs on the occasion.”

In the Chapel Wardens' Accounts of Brentford, under the year 1623, is the following article: "Received for the May-pole, 1. 4s." Lysons's Envir. of Lond. vol. ii. p. 54.

с

Apud nostrates hodie sospitat, cum in plebe tum in Regis palatio. Solet juventus palum in villis erigere eximiæ proceritatis, variis pictum coloribus, floribusque, fasciis, et teniis adornatum : celebritatis Dominam ceu Reginam eligere quæ circa palum choreas ducit. Mane etiam Diei ad nemora confluunt, deductisque inde Ramis viridibus ædes tam sacras quam profanas excolunt.

the play of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iii. sc. 2, speaks of a painted May Pole. Upon our Pole (adds Mr. Tollett) are displayed St. George's red cross, or the banner of England, and a white penon, or streamer, emblazoned with a red cross, terminating like the blade of a sword, but the delineation. thereof is much faded." "Keysler," (he goes on to observe,) "in p. 78 of his Northern and Celtic Antiquities, gives pens, rhaps, the original of May Poles; and that the French used to erect them appears also from Mezeray's History of their King Henry IV. and from a passage in Stow's Chronicle, in the year 1560. Mr. Theobald and Dr. Warburton acquaint us that the May Games, and particularly some of the characters in them, became exceptionable to the puritanical humour of former times. By an ordinance of the [Long] Parliament, in April 1644, all May Poles were taken down, and removed by the constables, churchwardens, &c. After the restoration, they were permitted to be erected again."

Egrediuntur et cum cœtu aulico ad nemus ipse Rex et Regina frondes atque ramulos referentes. Viguisse sub Edouardo I. consuetudinem ex eo constat, quod ab uxore Roberti Breucii, fortissimi coronæ Scotia restauratoris, cum apud Anglos captiva teneretur, et de Regno desperaret, dictum est anno 1306, futuros ipsos Regem et Reginam eis similes, qui choreas ducunt circa palum Maiumæ. Spelmanni Glossarium, fol. Lond. 1687, v. MAIUMA. See also Ducange, v. MAIUMA, and Carpentier's Glossary, v. MAIUM.

d Lodge, in his Wits Miserie, or the Devils Incarnat of their age," 4to. Lond. 1596, p. 27, describing Usury, says: "His Spectacles hang beating * * * like the Flag in the Top of a May Pole." Borlase, speaking of the manners of the Cornish people, says: "From towns they make excursions on May Eve into the country, cut down a tall elm, bring it into the town with rejoicings, and having fitted a straight taper pole to the end of it, and painted it, erect it in the most public part, and, upon holidays and festivals, dress it with garlands of flowers, or ensigns and streamers."

• Reed's Shaksp. 8vo. 1803, vol. xi. p. 440. By King Charles the First's warrant, dated Oct. 18, 1633, it was enacted, that, "for his good people's lawfull recreation, after the end of Divine Service, his good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawfull recreation: such as dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreations; nor from having of May Games, Whitson Ales, and Morris Dances, and the setting up of MAY POLES, and other sports therewith used; so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine Service. And that women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church, for the decorating of it, according to their old custom. But with all his Majesty doth hereby account still as prohibited, all unlawful games to be used on Sundays