cites Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel in the tenth century, in his Irish Glossary, as telling us that, "in his time, four great fires were lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids; viz. in February, May, August, and November." Vallancey also tells us, p. 472, that this day (the Gule of August) was dedicated to the sacrifice of the fruits of the soil. La-ith-mas was the day of the oblation of grain. It is pronounced La-ee-mas, a word readily corrupted to Lammas. Ith is all kinds of grain, particularly wheat: and mas, fruit of all kinds, especially the acorn, whence mast. Cul and Gul in the Irish implies a complete circle, a belt, a wheel, an anniversary." ST. SIXTUS, AUG. 6. [The following lines are quoted by Cole in vol. 44 of his MS. collections: "In Sixti festo venti validi memor esto; Si sit nulla quies, farra valere scies."] ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY. AUGUST 15. BARNABE GOOGE has the following lines upon this day in the English version of Naogeorgus: The blessed Virgin Maries feast hath here his place and time, For sundrie witchcrafts by these hearbs are wrought, and divers charmes, Popish Kingdome, p. 55. Bishop Hall also tells us, in the Triumphs of Rome, p. 58, "that upon this day it was customary to implore blessings upon herbs, plants, roots, and fruits." ST. ROCH'S DAY. AUGUST 16. AMONG the Extracts from the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Michael Spurrier-Gate, in the city of York, printed in Nichols's Illustrations of Ancient Manners, I find—“ 1518. Paid for writing of St. Royke Masse, 9d."1 Dr. Whitaker thinks that St. Roche or Rockes Day was celebrated as a general harvest-home. In Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, 1630, under that of the Franklin, he says: "He allowes of honest pastime, and thinkes not the bones of the dead any thing bruised, or the worse for it, though the country lasses dance in the churchyard after even-song. Rock Monday, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wakefull ketches on Christmas Eve, the hoky, or seed cake, these he yeerely keepes, yet holds them no reliques of Popery." I have sometimes suspected that "Rocke Monday” is a misprint for "Hock Monday;" but there is a passage in Warner's Albions England, ed. 1597 and 1602, p. 121, as follows: "Rock and Plow Monday gams sal gang with saint feasts and kirk sights." And again, ed. 1602, p. 407, "I'le duly keepe for thy delight Rock Monday and the wake, Have shrovings, Christmas gambols, with the hokie and seed cake." On this passage, Pegge, by whom the extracts were communicated, remarks, "St. Royk, St. Roche (Aug. 16). Q. why commemorated in particular? There is Roche Abbey, in the West Riding of the county of York, which does not take its name from the Saint, but from its situation on a rock, and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.-Tanner. The writing probably means making a new copy of the music appropriated to the day." ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY. AUGUST 24. IN New Essayes and Characters, by John Stephens the younger, of Lincolnes Inne, Gent. 1631, p. 297, we read :"Like a bookseller's shoppe on Bartholomew Day at London, the stalls of which are so adorn'd with Bibles and Prayerbookes, that almost nothing is left within, but heathen knowledge." Mr. Gough, in his History of Croyland Aboey, p. 73, mentions an ancient custom there of giving little knives to all comers on St. Bartholomew's Day. This abuse, he says, was abolished by Abbot John de Wisbech, in the time of Edward the Fourth, exempting both the abbot and convent from a great and needless expense. This custom originated in allusion to the knife wherewith St. Bartholomew was flead. Three of these knives were quartered with three of the whips so much used by St. Guthlac, in one coat borne by this house. Mr. Hunter had great numbers of them, of different sizes, found at different times in the ruins of the abbey and in the river. We have engraved three from drawings in the Minute Books of the Spalding Society, in whose drawers one is still preserved. These are adopted as the device of a town-piece, called the Poore's Halfe-peny of Croyland, 1670." [In allusion, says Mr. Hampson, to the forty days of rain which were supposed to depend upon the state of St. Swithin's Day, there is a proverb, "All the tears that St. Swithin can cry, St. Bartholomew's dusty mantle wipes dry."] HOLY-ROOD DAY. SEPTEMBER 14. THIS festival, called also Holy Cross Day, was instituted on account of the recovery of a large piece of the Cross by the emperor Heraclius, after it had been taken away, on the plundering of Jerusalem by Chosroes, king of Persia, about the year of Christ 615. Rood and cross are synonymous. From the Anglo-Saxon pod. "The rood," as Fuller observes, "when perfectly made, and with all the appurtenances thereof, had not only the image of our Saviour extended upon it, but the figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John, one on each side: in allusion to John xix. 26, Christ on the Cross saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by.'" See Fuller's Hist. Waltham Abbey, pp. 16, 17. Such was the representation denominated the rood, usually placed over the screen which divided the nave from the chancel of our churches. To our ancestors, we are told, it conveyed a full type of the Christian church: the nave representing the church militant, and the chancel the church triumphant; denoting that all who would go from the one to the other must pass under the rood, that is, carry the Cross and suffer affliction. Churchwardens' accounts, previous to the Reformation, are usually full of entries relating to the rood-loft. The following extracts belong to that formerly in the church of St. Mary-at-Hill, 5 Hen. VI.: "Also for makynge of a peire endentors betwene William Serle, carpenter, and us, for the rode lofte and the under clerks chambre, ijs. viijd.” The second leaf, he observes, of the churchwardens' accounts contains the names (it should seem) of those who contributed to the erection of the rood-loft.1 "Also ress. of serteyn men for the rod loft; fyrst of Ric. Goslyn 107.; also of Thomas Raynwall 107.; also of Rook 26s. 7d.; and eighteen others. Summa totalis 95l. 11s. 9d." The carpenters on this occasion appear to have had what in modern language is called "their drinks" allowed them over and above their wages. "Also the day after St. Dunston the 19 day of May, two carpenters with her Nonsiens."2 1 Other entries respecting the rood-loft occur, ibid. "Also payd for a rolle and 2 gojons of iron and a rope xiiijd. Also payd to 3 carpenters removing the stallis of the quer xxd. Also payd for 6 peny nail and 5 peny nail xjd. Also for crochats, and three iron pynnes and a staple xiijd. Also for 5 yardis and a halfe of grene bokeram iijs. d. ob. Also for lengthyng of 2 cheynes and 6 zerdes of gret wyer xiiijd. Also payd for eleven dozen pavyng tyles, iijs. iiijd." 2 Nunchion (s. a colloquial word), a piece of victuals eaten between meals. The word occurs in Cotgrave's Dictionary: “A nuncions or nuncheon (or afternoones repast), gouber, gouster, reciné, ressie. To take an afternoone's nuncheon, reciner, ressiner." In Howe's edition of Stow's Chronicle, 2 Edw. VI. 1547, we read: "The 17 of Nov. was begun to be pulled downe the roode in Paules Church, with Mary and John, and all other images in the church, and then the like was done in all the churches in London, and so throughout England, and texts of Scripture were written upon the walls of those churches against images, &c." Many of our rood-lofts, however, were not taken down till late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It appears to have been the custom to go a nutting upon this day, from the following passage in the old play of Grim the Collier of Croydon :". "This day, they say, is called Holy-rood Day, And all the youth are now a nutting gone." [The following occurs in Poor Robin, 1709: "The devil, as the common people say, It appears from the curious MS. Status Scholæ Etonensis, 1560, that in the month of September, " on a certain day," most probably on the 14th, the boys of Eton school were to have a play-day, in order to go out and gather nuts, with a portion of which, when they returned, they were to make presents to the different masters of that seminary. It is ordered, however, that before this leave be granted them, they should write verses on the fruitfulness of autumn, the deadly colds, &c. of advancing winter. MICHAELMAS. "MICHAELMAS," says Bailey, "is a festival appointed by the church to be observed in honour of St. Michael the Archangel, who is supposed to be the chief of the Host of Heaven, as Lucifer is of the infernal; and as he was supposed to be |