the tankard a piece of lemon-peel, and also upon her left arm a clean white napkin. I believe these customs are invariably observed. From what cause they originated, some ingenious correspondent may be able to inform me." Hutchinson, speaking of Eskdale chapelry, says; "Wakes and doles are customary; and weddings, christenings, and funerals are always attended by the neighbours, sometimes to the amount of a hundred people. The popular diversions are hunting and cock-fighting." Cumberland, i., 579. "At the funerals of the rich in former days," says the compiler of the Whitby Glossary," (quoted by Atkinson, in his "Cleveland Glossary," 1868), "it was here a custom to hand burnt wine to the company in a silver flagon, out of which every one drank. This cordial seems to have been a heated preparation of port wine with spices and sugar. And if any remained, it was sent round in the flagon to the houses of friends for distribution."

An allusion to these entertainments occurs in the Romance of Sir Degore (about 1500) :

"A great feaste would he holde Upon his quenes mornynge day, That was buryed in an abay." So Dickenson, in "Greene in Conceipt," 1598: "His corpes was with funerall pompe conveyed to the church and there solemnly entered, nothing omitted which necessitie or custom could claime: a sermon, a banquet, and like observations.' We are all familiar with the passage in Hamlet, 1603-4, where, speaking of his mother's marriage, Hamlet says:

"The funeral bak'd meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage

tables."

Upon which Steevens noted: "It was anciently the general custom to give a cold entertainment to mourners at a funeral. In distant counties this practice is continued among the yeomanry." In Lord North's "Forest of Varieties," 1645, is the following: "Nor are all banquets (no more than musick) ordained for merry humors, some being used even at funeralls." In his "Whimsies," 1631, p. 89, speaking of a launderer, Braithwaite says: So much she hath reserv'd out of all the labours of her life, as will buy some small portion of diet bread, comfits, and burnt claret, to welcome in her neighbours now at her departing, of whose cost they never so freely tasted while she was living." Again, in describing a jealous neighbour, he concludes with observing: "Meate for his funerall pye is shred, some few ceremonial teares on his funeral pile are shed; but the

ob

worms are scarce entered his shroud, his corpse flowers not fully dead, till this jealous earth-worme is forgot, and another more amorous, but lesse jealous mounted his bed." Flecknoe, speaking of a "curious glutton," serves: "In fine, he thinks of nothing else, as long as he lives, and when he dyes, onely regrets that funeral feasts are quite left off, else he should have the pleasure of one feast more, (in imagination at least), even after death; which he can't endure to hear of, onely because they say there is no eating nor drinking in the other world." Characters, 1658, ed. 1665, p. 14.

"In Northern customs duty was exprest

To friends departed by their fun'ral feast.

Tho' I've consulted Hollingshead and

Stow,

I find it very difficult to know

Who to refresh th' attendants to the

grave,

Burnt claret first, or Naples-bisket gave."

King's Art of Cookery, p. 65. The writer of "Pleasant Remarks on the Humours of Mankind” observes : "How like

epicurists do some persons drink at a funeral, as if they were met there to be merry, and make it a matter of rejoycing that they have got rid of ther friends and relations.'

Funerals, References in the

Poets to. A writer in the "Gorgious Gallery of Gallant Inventions," 1578, describing the death of Pyramus and Thisbe, says:

"And mulberries in signe of woe, from white to blacke turnde were." So in "Romeo and Juliet," 1597:

"All things, that we ordained festival, Turn from their office to black funeral; Our instruments, to melancholy bells; Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial

feast;

Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;

Our bridal flowers serve for a buried

"Let my bier Be borne by virgins, that shall sing by

course

The truth of maids and perjuries of men."

-Beaum. and Fl. Maids Tragedy, 1619. Compare Arval, Bidding, Burial, Death, Dole, Flowers, Graves, Lichway, &c.

Furmety. Furmety is made of what is called, in a certain town in Yorkshire, kneed wheat," or whole grains first boiled plump and soft, and then put into and boiled in milk sweetened and spiced." In Ray's "North Country Words," " "to cree wheat or barley, is to boil it soft." Gower tells us: "I cannot avoid reminding you upon the present occasion that furmenty makes the principal entertainment of all our country wakes: our common people call it Firmitry.' It is an agreeable composition of boiled wheat, milk, spice, and sugar." Sketch of the Materials for a History of Cheshire. Beckwith, in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for February, 1784, tells us that, in the country about Rotherham, in Yorkshire, furmety used, in his remembrance, to be always the breakfast and supper on Christmas Eve. In his epistle before Greene's Arcadia, 1589, Thomas Nash takes occasion to observe that "" a tale of Ioane of Brainfords will, and the vnlucky frumenty, will be as soone entertained into their Libraries as the best Poëme that euer Tasso eternis❜ht.' He refers to a fugitive piece of verse by G. Kyttes, called The Inlucky firmentie, of which there seems to be a MS. copy under the title of Panche in Bishop Percy's Folio MS.

Furmety Sunday. See Mother

ing.

Furry Day.-A writer in a periodical for 1790 says: "At Helstone, a genteel and populous borough town in Cornwall, it is customary to dedicate the eighth of May to revelry (festive mirth, not loose jollity). It is called the Furry Day, supposed Flora's Day; not, I imagine, as many have thought, in remembrance of some festival instituted in honour of that goddess, but rather from the garlands commonly worn on that day. In the morning, very early, some troublesome rogues go round the streets with drums, or rather noisy instruments, disturbing their sober neighbours, and singing parts of a song, the whole of which nobody now recollects, and of which I know no more than that there is mention in it of 'the grey goose quill,' and of going to the green wood to bring home the Summer and the May-o.' And, accordingly, hawthorn flowering branches are

a general holiday; and if they find any person at work, make him ride on a pole, carried on men's shoulders, to the river, over which he is to leap in a wide place, if he can; if he cannot, he must leap in, for leap he must, or pay money. About and demand holiday for the Latin boys, 9 o'clock they appear before the school, which is invariably granted; after which they collect money from house to house. About the middle of the day they collect together, to dance hand-in-hand round the streets, to the sound of the fiddle, playing a particular tune, which they continue to do till it is dark. This they call a Faddy.' In the afternoon, the gentility go to some farmhouse in the neighbourhood, to drink tea, syllabub, etc., and return in a Morrice dance to the town, where they form a faddy, and dance through the streets till it is dark, claiming a right of going through any person's house, in at one door, and out at the other. And here it formerly used to end, and the company of all kinds to disperse quietly to their several habitations; but latterly corruptions have in this as in other matters crept in by degrees. The ladies all elegantly dressed in white muslins, are now conducted by their partners to the ball-room, where they continue their dance till supper time; after which they all faddy it out of the house, breaking off by degrees to their respective houses. The mobility imitate their superiors, and also adjourn to the several public houses, where they continue their dance till midnight. It is, upon the whole, a very festive, jovial, and withall sober, and I believe singular custom." The song, which follows from another source, seems to betray a faint reminiscence of the Spanish Armada:

THE FURRY-DAY SONG. "Robin Hood and Little John, They both are gone to the fair, And we'll go to the merry green wood, And see what they do there. For we were up as soon as any day For to fetch the summer home, The summer and the May, 0,

For the summer now has come! Where are those Spaniards

That make so great a boast?
They shall eat the grey goose feather,
And we will eat the roast.
As for the brave St. George,

St. George he was a knight;
Of all the knights in Christendom.
St. Georgy is the right.
God bless Aunt Mary Moses,

And all her powers and might,
And send us peace in merry England,
Both day and night!"

Fye. In Scotland a ghost seems to have been known as a fye. Witness the following anecdote: "Some observing to an old woman, when in the 99th year of her age, that in the course of Nature she could not long survive-'Ay,' said the good old woman, with pointed indignation, what fye-token do you see about me?", Stat. Acc., xxi., 148; Parish of

Menghittes.

Gabriel, the Archangel. (March 26 and April 13). The Salutation of the Virgin by this personage was supposed to be commemorated by the chapel of Our Lady at Nazareth, on the model of which that at Walsingham is reported to have been built by a lady named Richold, A.D. 1061. See Foundation of the Chapel of Walsingham, printed about 1495, in Hazlitt's Fugitive Tracts, 1875, 1st Series. In the Vertue of the Masse (circa 1500), by Lydgate, St. Gabriel is named as the patron of "good rydynge"; but the whole passage seems worth copying, especially as it mentions one or two points not generally known:

"Herynge of masse dooth passynge grete auayle,

At nede at myschefe folke it doth releue, Causeth saynt Nicholas to gyue good counsayle,

And saynt Iulyan good hostel at eue; To beholde saynt Crystofer none enemy shall hym greue,

And saynt Loy your Iourney shall pre

serue,

Horse ne caryage that daye shall not
myscheue,

Masse herde before who dooth these
sayntes serue.
Partynge fro masse begynnynge your
Iourney,

Call saynt Myghell you to fortefye, For sodayne haste and good prosperyte, And for good rydynge saynt Gabryell shall you gye.' Gabriel-Rachet, The. This, says Mr. Atkinson, in his "Cleveland Glossary," 1868, is a name for a yelping sound heard at night, more or less resembling the cry of hounds or yelping of dogs, probably due to flocks of wild geese (anser segetum) which chance to be flying by night, and is taken as an omen or warning of approaching death to the hearer or some one connected with him or her." Mr. Atkinson speaks of a Cleveland tradition about the local origin of the Gabrielrachet; but probably very slight credit is due to the legend narrated by him. It seems to be nothing more or less than a form of the belief current all over the world from the remotest times in spectral

apparitions and sounds seen or heard in the deadness of night. Compare Lucas, Studies in Nidderdale, pp. 156-7.

Gambling.-A very curious sketch of the early passion for speculation, even of the wildest character, in playing at games both of skill and chance, is given by Mr. Wright. Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages, 1862, ch. x. Comp. Games below. Game."6 "Formerly," says Mr. Tanswell, "Lambeth was celebrated for game of all sorts, but principally in the neighElizabeth a licence was granted to Anbourhood of Brixton. In the 5th of drew Perne, D.D., Dean of Ely (who resided at Stockwell), to appoint one of his servants, by special name, to shoot but, or demy-hack, at all manner of deadwith any cross-bow, hand-gonne, hacquemarks, at all manner of crows, rooks, cormorants, kytes, puttocks, and suchall manner of sea-fowls, and fen-fowls, like, bustards, wyld swans, barnacles, and wild doves, small birds, teals, coots, ducks, and all manner of deare, red, fallow, and roo.' In the reign of James I., Alexander Glover received, as 'Keeper of the game about Lambeth and Clapham, 12d. per diem, and 26s. 8d. per annum for his livery'; in all £36_10s." History of Lambeth, 1858, p. 15. And at the same period Putney Park was a royal demesne with deer and a keeper under the Crown. The site is still remembered in Putney Park Lane.

Game at the Hole. So named in an entry at Stationers' Hall in 1587. The full title is: "The game at the hole, otherwise, if you be not pleased, you shall be eased."

Games.-Dr. Arbuthnot used to say, that notwithstanding all the boasts of the safe conveyance of tradition, it was no where preserved pure and uncorrupt but plays are delivered down invariably the amongst school-boys, whose games and same from one generation to another.

Benedictus Abbas has preserved a very curious edict, which shows the state of gaming in the Christian army commanded by Richard the First King of England, and Philip of France, during the Crusade in the year 1190. No person in the army is permitted to play at any sort of game for money, except knights and clergymen ; who in one whole day and night shall not, each, lose more than twenty shillings, on pain of losing one hundred shillings to the archbishops of the army. The two Kings may play for what they please, but their attendants not for more than twenty shillings. Otherwise, they are to be whipped naked through the army for three days. The monarchs probably played at Quatuor Reges or chess, and

their followers at dice. Many of the early romances comprise notices of amusements enjoyed by the characters introduced; but it is sometimes, of course, difficult to judge how much is exaggeration; and in the Books of Hours we often meet with interesting illustrations of this class, intended as ornamental accessories. In the 13th. c. fabliau of Blonde of Oxford and Jean de Dammartin, the hero and heroine play at chess, tables, and dice; and in a MS. of the romance of Meliadus de Lyonnois, of the fourteenth century, there are representations of parties engaged in games at chess and cards-the latter perhaps the earliest graphic view of that amusement, and apparently prior to anything known to Chatto. Archæol. Album, 1845, p. 75. In a fine MS. in the Bodleian, cited by Strutt, and after him by Brand, there is a series of representations of the more popular games then (1343) in favour. It is remarkable that among them are to be found many of the amusements still in fashion among the old or young, such as top-spinning, cock-fighting, chess, bowls, dice, &c., while others have completely disappeared. In a volume of Homilies of the 14th century, there is a strong illustration of the ungovernable propensity among our countrymen and countrywomen for enjoying themselves in ways, which were not in all cases highly proper. The Homily says:

per is an oper lepre of yonge folk: pat pei ben moche smyttid with now a daies/ and pis is veyn laughtre, and idul wordis, and many oper vayn iapis; pat seelden or neuer pei kunnen stynte from hem/ pei taken noon heede of goddis word. pei rennen to enterludes with gret delijt; yhe, pat is more reupe, to strumpetis daunce pe preest for hem mai stonde alone in pe chirche, but pe harlot in pe clepyng shal be hirid for good money: to tellen hem fablis of losengerie/ but to such maner folk: christ seip ful sharplei pese wordis./ wo to you pat now lawen: for ye shuln wepe ful fore her-aftir/" This notice concurs with what a later writer observes respecting the desertion of the churches and the devotion of the people to frivolous and wicked sports. Harl. MS. 2276, fol. 37. I am indebted to my friend Mr. F. J. Furnivall for this extract.

Some of these are recognizable as still surviving institutions, while others are obsolete variations of the game of chess. The subjoined literary notices are interesting:

"Herlotes walkes thurghe many tounes Wyth speckede mantels and bordouns; And ate ilke mannes house ga pai inne, pare pai hope oght for to wynne. Bote herlotes' mene calles comonlye Alle pat hauntes herlottrye: Herlotes falles to stande on pe flore, And play some tyme ate pe spore, Atte pe beyne, and ate pe cate,— A foule play holde I pate,And pare agayne may pai noght be Whene mene byddes paim for paire fe, ffor pe rewele of paire relygyoune Es swylke, thurgh paire professyoune; pis es a poynte of paire reule ilke tyme, To lykene mene pare pai come, in ryme. zhyte haunte pai oft other Iapes; Some ledes beres, and some ledes apes pat mus sautes and solace pat sees: All pise are bote foly and nycetees." William of Nassyngton, Myrrour of Lyfe (14th century).

"Also use not to pley at the dice ne at the tablis,

Ne none maner gamys uppon the holidais;

Use no tavernys where be jestis and

fablis,

Syngyng of lewde balettes, rondelettes, or virolais;

Nor erly in mornyng to fecche home fresch mais,

For yt makyth maydins to stomble and falle in the breirs,

And afterward they telle her councele to the freirs."

MS. Laud 416, (circa 1460) apud Rel. Antiq. vol. ii., p. 27. By the Statute 6 Hen. iv. c 4, labourers and servants playing at

unlawful games were made liable to imprisonment for six days, and any magistrate or other officer neglecting to take cognizance of such offences was subject to a penalty. By the statute 17 Edw. IV. c. 3, this earlier enactment was confirmed as follows: "Laborers and seruauntys that vse dyse and other sych games shall haue imprisonment of .vi. dayes," and it was also provided, that noo gouerner of howse, tenement or gardeyn suffer wyllyngly any person to occupy to playe at the classe keyles [ninepins,] halfe bowle, handyn handout or quekbourd vpon payn or inprisonment by iii. yerys,' &c. By 11 Hen. VII. 2, and 19 Hen. VII. c. 12, it was laid down that 66 no apprentyce nor uant of husbandry, laborer, nor seruant artificer play at the tablys, tenyse, dyse, cardys, bowlys, nor at none other vnlawfull game owt of the tyme of Crystmas but for mete and drynke, and in crystmas to playe onely in the dwellyng howse of his mayster or in the presence of hys mayster."

C.

ser

In an account of the visit of Louis of Bruges and his suite to England in 1472 there are references to the amusements of the Court at Windsor. The Queen and her ladies played at the morteaulx, a game supposed to be allied to bowls, and others at closkeys, or ninepins, which are described as being of ivory, but were more probably of bone. England as seen by Foreigners, by W. B. Rye, 1865, p. xli. In the contemporary narrative of the marriage of Catherine of Arragon to Prince Arthur of England, in 1501, mention occurs of galleries and other buildings fitted up in the royal gardens: In the lougher ende of this gardeyn both pleasaunt gallerys, and housis of pleasure to disporte inn, at chesse, tables, dise, cardes, bylys; bowling aleys, butts for archers, and goodly tenes play.' Antiq. Repert., ii., 316. The statutes of Wadham College, Oxford, drawn up in 1613, prescribe that gaming with cards or dice was not permissible except on All Saints' Day, Christmas Day, and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, when cards might be used, provided the stakes were small, and suitable hours were observed. "Thei hauke, thei hunt, they card, thei dice, they pastyme in theyr prelacies with gallaunte gentlemen, with theyr daunsinge minyons, and with theyr freshe companions, so that ploughinge is set a syde."-Latimer's Sermon of the Plough, 1548. Humphrey Roberts, in his "Complaint for Reformation," 1572, represents that his countrymen 66 vpon the Saboath Day resorte rather to bearebayting, bulbayting, dauncing, fenceplaying and suche lyke vayn exercises then to the Church."

Roberts adds: ". in London, other cyties, and in the countrey townes also, there are many other places of concourse of people: As dycing houses, bowling aleys, fencyng scooles, yea tauerns and ale-houses: wherin are such a nomber of ruffians and cutters (as they call them): that those places are become yonge helles, suche is their wickednesse. So that the tender yonglyngs, beynge come of good houses: and all others (once vsynge suche places), are, as it were, translated, or chaunged, into monsters." The resort to amusements on Sundays was evidently not unusual. In A Devonshire Yeoman's Diary, under 1602, we find the following entry: "August 22. I went to Trusham Church. After evening prayers went to bowles." Antiquary, 1892, p. 259. In the dedication to "Mihil Mumchance, his discoverie of the Art of Cheating in false Dice play," 1597, we read, "making the divel to daunce in the bottome of your purses, and to turne your angels out of their houses like bad tenants."

In the

same tract, "Novum, Hassard, and Swiftfoot-passage occur as games. Some of the undermentioned_games, quoted here from Rowlands' "Letting of Hvmors Blood," &c., 1611, are overlooked not only by Brand, but by Strutt and Hone:

"Man, I dare challenge thee to throw

the sledge,

To iumpe, or leape ouer ditch or hedge: To wrastle, play at stoole-ball, or to