"And in further indignation, they commonly cut the latch of ye door, or stop the keyhole with dirt, or leave some more nasty token of displeasure." AN. (1686-87).

The Jack a' Lent named in the preceding song refers to an image so called which was formerly thrown at in Lent, like cocks on Shrove Tuesday. Thus Ben Jonson, in his Tale of a Tub, says

"On an Ash Wednesday

When thou didst stand six weeks the Jack a Lent
For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee."
Id. Notes, p. 238.

GOOD FRIDAY.

The term Good Friday is erroneously said to be peculiar to the English Church; but it is certainly an adoption of the old German Gute Freytag, which may have been a corruption of Gottes Freytag, God's Friday, so called on the same principle that Easter Day in England was at one period denominated God's Day. A MS. quoted by Strutt (Horda Angel-Cynna, iii. 175), says it is called Good Friday, because on this day good men were reconciled to God. P. 148.

Kendal children on the eve of Good Friday (Thursday night), obtain an old tin can, tie a string to it, and one of the lads starts off at a great run, trailing the can after him, whilst his companions follow, striking the can with sticks, at the same time singing the following refrain—

"Trot hearin', trot horn,

Good Friday ta morn."-CI. iii. 247.

The familiar street cry on the morning of Good Friday is "Hot Cross Buns." The bun is highly spiced, and the brown, glazed surface is marked with a cross. variations

The usual rhyme admits certain

One a penny, poker,

Two a penny tongs,

Three a penny fire irons,

Hot Cross buns.

Warwicks.

In Berkshire they have a com

Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross mencing line—

Buns,

When Good Friday comes,

If you have no daughters,
Pray give them to your sons:
But if you have none of these
little elves,

Then you may keep them all
yourselves.

Northamps., D. 339.

Near Sheffield they have it

One a penny, etc.

The awld 'oomen runs.

AD. 16. But this is part of a verse in Poor Robin's Almanac for 1733.

One for your daughters, and two for your sons.—R. 56.

In Nottinghamshire the rhyme follows the first lines of the second example from Northamptonshire, see CL. (1876), 11.

"The offerings which people in ancient times used to present to the gods were generally purchased at the entrance of the Temple, especially every species of consecrated bread, which was denominated accordingly. One species of sacred bread which used to be offered to the gods was of great antiquity, and called Boun.* Hesychius speaks of the Boun, and describes it as a 'kind of cake with a representation of two horns.'" Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology, 1807, i. 371-73.

Winckelman relates this remarkable fact, that at Herculaneum were found two entire loaves of the same size, a palm and a half, or five inches in diameter; they were marked by a cross, within which were four other lines, and so the bread of the Greeks was marked from the earliest period. Dyer, Customs, p. 151, quoting Med. Evi Kalend., i. 187.

The Romans divided their sacred cakes with lines intersecting each other in the centre at right angles, and called the quarters Quadra. See Virgil, Æn. bk. vii. pp. 114, 115, and Martial, bk. iii. Epig. 77.

It is also worth while to draw attention to Jeremiah vii. 18. "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven," etc. The "queen of heaven" here refers to Astoreth or Astarte; and it is possible that such cakes were marked with horns in allusion to the crescent moon, or with a cross which was the symbol of that goddess.

The idea suggested by the cross on our buns needs no mention.

*It must be observed, however, as Dr. Jamieson remarks, that the term occurs in Hesychius in the form of Bous, and that for the support of the etymon Bryant finds it necessary to state that "the Greeks, who changed the nu final into a sigma, expressed it in the nominative Bous, but in the accusative more truly Bouv." See P. 150, 151.

Easter.

The name of Easter [which we regard as the anniversary of our Lord's Resurrection from the dead] is clearly traced to that of Eostre, a goddess to whom the Saxons and other Northern nations sacrificed in the month of April, in which the paschal feast falls. (See Bed. Eccles. Hist., Lib. ii. cap. 19, 23; iii. 25; iv. 22.) Hampson's Medii Evi Kalend., 1841, i. 201. See also Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, ii. 15; Nares' Glossary edit., 1859, ad vocem, and Hazlitt's edit. of Brand's Antiquities, 1870, i. 90.

Or, as others suppose, from Oster, which signifies rising. If the latter supposition be correct, Easter is in name, as well as in reality, the feast of the Resurrection. P. 161.

During the last century it was customary in Dorsetshire, on Easter Eve, for the boys to form a procession bearing rough torches, and a small black flag, chanting the following lines—

"We fasted in the light,

For this is the night."

This custom was no doubt a relic of the Popish ceremony formerly in vogue at this season. Dyer, Customs, 1876, 160, quoting Brand, Pop. Antiq., 1849, i. 160.

"Love, to thee I send these gloves,

If you love me,

Leave out the G,

And make a pair of loves."

It appears from Hall's Satires,* 1598, that it was customary to

make presents of gloves at Easter.

In Devonshire they 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 Oxfordshire I have heard the following lines, intended, I believe, for the same festival

"The rose is red, the violet's blue,

The gillyflower's sweet, and so are you ;

* For Easter gloves, or for a Shrovetide hen,
Which bought to give, he takes to sell again.

Virgidemarium, iv. 5.

These are the words you bade me say

For a pair of new gloves on Easter day.”—AV. 250.

During Holy Week, children, and sometimes older people, go round to the farm-houses begging for pace eggs.* They collect a considerable number, and have a custard pudding on Easter Sunday. Occasionally some of the eggs are boiled hard, with bits of ribbon wrapped round them, or onion skins to stain them, and they are then kept for a time as ornaments. Their rhymes are"Here's two or three jovial boys all in a mind,

We've come a pace-eggin' if you will prove kind;
But if you'll prove kind with your eggs and strong beer,
We'll come no more here until the next year.

Fol de riddle lol, fol de ray,

Fol de riddle lol, lol de lay."

Wilmslon. In the Wirral district they say

'Please, Mr.

Please give us an Easter egg.

If you do not give us one,

Your hen shall lay an addled one,
Your cock shall lay a stone."

Leigh's Ballads and Legends of Cheshire; quoted by Holland in his Cheshire Glossary, 1886, p. 250.

Mr. Dyer, Customs, 1876, p. 169, quotes another Cheshire version from Journ. Archæolog. Assoc., 1850, v. 253. It is spoken on Easter Monday

66

'Eggs, bacon, apples or cheese,

Bread or corn, if you please,

Or any good thing that will make us merry."

The words pays, pas, pace, pase, pasce, pask, pasch, passhe, still used in the north, are clearly derived from the Hebrew through the Greek ráoxa. The Danish Paaske egg, and the Swedish Paskegg, both likewise signify coloured eggs. Brand considers this custom a relic of ancient Catholicism,† the egg being emblematic

* See Brand's Pop. Antiqs., 1849, i. 172, for a custom of pace-egging in the north of England on Easter eve.

† Bless, Lord, we beseech Thee, this Thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance to Thy faithful servants, eating it in thankfulness to Thee, on account of the resurrection of our Lord. Pope Paul V., Ritual.

of the Resurrection [so the dye most generally used to colour the eggs was red, in allusion to the blood of the redemption]; but it is not improbable that it is in its origin like many other ancient popular customs, totally unconnected with any form of Christianity, and that it had its commencement in the time of heathenism. P. 163, 164.

Brewer, Dict. Phrase and Fable, thinks the allusion is to the mundane egg, for which Ormuzd and Ahriman were to contend till the consummation of all things and says that there is a tradition also that the world was created or hatched at Eastertide. Dyer says, too: "The egg was a symbol of the world, and ancient temples in consequence sometimes received an oval form. This typification is found in almost every oriental cosmogony, . . . and eggs are presented about the period of Easter in many countries."

In old days, when Easter eggs were sent to friends, the decorations were of a simple character; cochineal or some other dye was used, and then the operator with a penknife traced a design which showed white on the coloured ground. For other simple plans of decoration, see Hone's Every Day Book.

Now, especially on the Continent, the Easter egg is artistic and costly.

Rogation Week.

From rogare, to beseech: so called because the earliest Christians appointed Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday—called the Rogation Days for extraordinary prayers and supplications, as a preparation for the devout observance of our Saviour's Ascension, on the day following, called Holy Thursday or Ascension Day.

Claudius Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, in France, added a humble supplication for a blessing on the fruits of the earth, at this period tender, that they might not be blighted; and the first Council of Orleans, held in the sixth century, confirmed its observance through the Church.

Another name for Rogation is Gang Week, from the custom of ganging, or perambulating the country parishes to mark the bounds. One of our Church homilies for the day is composed particularly for this occasion. See an injunction of Queen Elizabeth in support of this, Dyer's Customs, 1876, p. 205.

These latter observances, which follow closely those of the terminalia of the Romans, may or may not have been merely adapted from pagan rites; but some of our customs of the time are of heathen origin.

"There is an old custom used in these parts about Keston and Wickham [Kent], in Rogation Week ;" says Hasted, History of Kent, i. 109, "at which time a number of young men meet together