The diversions of May Day are too numerous to be chronicled here, and
I must refer the reader to my book for a full description of the
sports that usher in the spring; but we must not forget the remarkable
Furry Dance at Helston on May 8th, and the beating of the bounds of
many a township during Rogation Week. Our boys still wear oak-leaves
on Royal Oak Day, and the Durham Cathedral choir sing anthems on the
top of the tower in memory of the battle of Neville's Cross, fought so
long ago as the year 1346.
Club-feasts and morris-dancers delight the rustics at Whitsuntide, and
the wakes are well kept up in the north of England, and rush-beating
at Ambleside, and hay-strewing customs in Leicestershire. The horn
dance at Abbot Bromley is a remarkable survival. The fires on
Midsummer Eve are still lighted in a few places in Wales, but are fast
dying out. Ratby, in Leicestershire, is a home of old customs, and has
an annual feast, when the toast of the immortal memory of John of
Gaunt is drunk with due solemnity. Harvest customs were formerly very
numerous, but are fast dying out before the reaping-machines and
agricultural depression. The "kern-baby" has been dead some years.
Bonfire night and the commemoration of the discovery of Gunpowder Plot
and the burning of "guys" are still kept up merrily, but few know the
origin of the festivities or concern themselves about it.
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