Chapter V: Between Two Worlds (3)

A curious old Scotch custom is recorded in Lanark, as "kept by the boys of the Grammar-school, beyond all memory in regard to date, on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. They then parade the streets with a palm, or its substitute, a large tree of the willow kind (_Salix caprea_), in blossom, ornamented with daffodils, mezereon, and box-tree. This day is called Palm Saturday, and the custom is certainly a popish relic of very ancient standing."

But to return to palms proper. Before taking leave of them, there is one more word to be said in their praise which may endear this noble race to eyes which will never be permitted to see the wonders of tropical forests.

As pot-plants they are not less remarkable for the picturesqueness of their forms, than for the patience with which they endure those vicissitudes of stuffiness and chill, dryness, dust, and gas, which prove fatal to so many inmates of the flower-stand or the window-sill. Pot-palms may be bought of any good nurseryman at prices varying from two or three shillings to two or three pounds. _Latania borbonica_ and _Phoenix reclinata_ are good and cheap. Sandy-peaty soil, with a little leaf-mould, is what they like, and this should be renewed (with a larger pot) every second year. Thus, with the most moderate care, and an occasional sponging, or a stand-out in a soft shower, the exiled Princes of Vegetation, whose shoots in their native forests would have been of giant luxuriance, will live for years, patiently adapting themselves by slow growth to the rooms which they adorn, easier of management than the next fern you dig up on your rambles, and, in the incomparable beauty of their forms, the perpetual delight of an artistic eye.

LITTLE WOODS.

By little woods are here meant--not woods of small extent, but--woods in which the trees never grow big, woods that are to grown-up woods as children to grown-up people, woods that seem made on purpose for children, and dwarfs, and dolls, and fairies.

These little woods have many names, varying with the trees of which they are composed, or the districts in which they are found. One of the best-known names is that of copse or coppice, and it brings with it remembrances of the fresh beauty of spring days, on which--sheltered by the light copse-wood from winds that are still keen--we have revelled in sunshine warm enough to persuade us that summer was come "for good," as we picked violets and primroses to the tolling of the cuckoo.

Things "in miniature" have a natural charm for little people, and most of my young readers have probably been familiar with favourite copses, or miniature pine-forests. Perhaps some of them would like to know why these little woods never grow into big ones, and something also of the history and uses of those trees of which little woods are composed.

They are not made of dwarf trees. There are little woods, as well as big woods, of oak, elm, ash, pine, willow, birch, beech, and larch. In some cases the little woods are composed of the growth which shoots up when the principal trunk of the tree has been cut down, but they are generally little merely because they are young, and are cut down for use before they have time to grow into forest-trees. The object of this little paper is to give some account of their growth and uses. It will be convenient to take them alphabetically, by their English names.

The Ash (_Fraxinus excelsior_ and other varieties) is a particularly graceful and fine tree at its full growth. It is a native of Great Britain, and of many other parts of the world. It is long lived. The most profitable age for felling it as a forest-tree is from eighty to a hundred years. The flower comes out before the leaves, which are late, like those of the oak. The bunches of seed-vessels, or "ash-keys," as they are fancifully called, were pickled in salt and water and eaten in old times. The Greeks and Romans made their spears of ash-wood. The wood is not so durable as that of some other trees, but it is tough, and is thus employed for work subject to sudden strains. It is good for kitchen-tables, as it scours well and does not easily splinter.

In little woods, or ash-holts, or ash-coppices, the ash is very valuable. They are either cut over entirely at certain intervals, or divided into portions which are cut yearly in succession. At four or five years old the ash makes good walking-sticks, crates to pack glass and china in, hoops, basket handles, fences, and hurdles. Croquet-mallets are also made of ash. At twelve or fourteen it is strong enough for hop-poles. There are many old superstitions in connection with the ash, and there is a midland counties saying that if there are no keys on the ash, within a twelvemonth there will be no king.

There are several fine American varieties, and both in the States and in Canada the wood is used for purposes similar to ours.

The Alder (_Alnus glutinosa_, &c.) is never a very large tree. It is supposed to be in maturity when it is sixty years old. It will grow in wetter places than any other tree in Europe--even than the willow. Though the wood is soft, it is very durable in water. Virgil speaks of it as being used for boats. It is highly valued in Holland for piles, and it is said that the famous bridge of the Rialto at Venice is built on piles of alder-wood. Though invaluable for water-pipes, pump-barrels, foundations for bridges, &c., alder-wood is of little use on dry land unless it can be kept _perfectly_ dry. Wooden vessels and sabots, however, are made of it.

Alders are chiefly grown in little woods. Planted by the side of rivers, too, their tough and creeping roots bind and support the banks. Alder-coppices are very valuable to the makers of--gunpowder! Every five or six years the little alders are cut down and burned to charcoal, and the charcoal of alder-wood is reckoned particularly good by gunpowder manufacturers.

The Aspen, or Trembling Poplar (_Populus tremula_), like the alder, is fond of damp situations. It has also a white soft wood, used by the turner and engraver, and for such small articles as clogs, butchers' trays, &c, &c.

The quivering of its leaves is a favourite topic with poets, and there is a curious old Highland superstition that the Cross of Christ was made of aspen-wood, and that thenceforward the tree could never rest.

In "little woods" it may be cut every seven or eight years for faggots, and at fifteen or twenty years old for poles.

The Beech (_Fagus sylvatica_). With this beautiful tree all our young readers must be familiar. There may be those whose minds are not quite clear about wych-elms and sycamores, but the appearance of the beech-tree is too strongly marked to allow of any confusion on the subject.

The beech is spoken of by Greek and Roman writers, and old writers on British agriculture count it among the four timber trees indigenous to England: the beech, the oak, the ash, and the elm.

It is said, however, not to be a native of Scotland or Ireland. It attains its full growth in from sixty to eighty years, but is believed to live to be as old as two hundred. The timber is not so valuable as that of the other three British trees, but it is used for a great variety of purposes. Like the alder, it will bear the action of water well, and has thus been used for piles, flood-gates, mill-wheels, &c. It is largely used by cabinet-makers for house furniture. It is employed also by carriage-makers and turners, and for various small articles, from rolling-pins to croquet-balls. The dried leaves are used in Switzerland to fill beds with, and very nice such beds must be! Long ago they were used for this purpose in England. Evelyn says that they remain sweet and elastic for seven or eight years, by which time a straw mattress would have become hard and musty. They have a pleasant restorative scent, something like that of green tea. When we think how many poor people lie on musty mattresses, or have none at all, whilst the beech-leaves lie in the woods and go very slowly to decay, we see one more of the many instances of people remaining uncomfortable when they need not be so, because of their ignorance. The fact that beech-leaves are very slow to rot makes them useful in the garden for mulching and protecting plants from frost.

In Scotland the beech-chips and branches are burned to smoke herrings, and pyroligneous acid (a form of which is probably known to any of our young readers who suffer from toothache as _creosote_!) is distilled from them. Mr. Loudon tells us that the word "book" comes from the German word _buch_, which, in the first instance, means a beech, and was applied to books because the old German bookbinders used beech-wood instead of paste-board for the sides of thick volumes. Beech-wood is especially good for fuel. Only the sycamore, the Scotch pine, and the ash give out more heat and light when they burn. Beech-nuts--or beech-mast, as it is called--are eaten by many animals. Pigs, deer, poultry, &c., are turned into beech-woods to fatten on the mast. Squirrels and dormice delight in it. In France it is used to make beech-oil. This oil is used both for cooking and burning, and for the latter purpose has the valuable property of having no nasty smell.

Of the beauty of the beech as a forest-tree--let artists rave! Its smooth and shapely bole does not tempt the sketcher's eye alone. To the lover and the school-boy (and, alas! to that inartistic animal the British holiday-maker) it offers an irresistible surface for cutting names and dates. Upon its branches and beneath its shadow grow many _fungi_, several of which are eatable. Truffles are found there; those underground dainties which dogs (and sometimes pigs!) are trained to grub up for our benefit. They discover the whereabouts of the truffle by scent, for there is no sign of it above ground. Nothing else will grow under beech-trees, except holly.

Scarcely less charming than the beech-forests are beech-hedges. They cut and thrive with cutting like yew-hedges.

"Little woods" of beech are common in Buckinghamshire. They are chiefly grown for the charcoal, which is valuable for gunpowder.

"Copper-Beeches"--red-leaved beech-trees, very beautiful for ornamental purposes--all come from one red-leaved beech, a sort of freak of nature, which was found about a century ago in a wood in Germany.

The Birch (_Betula alba_, &c.) is also a tree of very distinctive appearance. The silver-white bark, which peels so delightfully under childish fingers, is not less charming to the sketcher's eye, whether as a near study or as gleaming points of high light against the grey greens and misty purples of a Highland hillside. It is emphatically the tree of the Highlands of the North. It bends and breaks not under the wildest winds, it thrives on poor soil, and defies mist and cold. So varied are its uses that it has been said that the Scotch Highlander makes everything of birch, from houses to candles, and beds to ropes! The North American Indians and the Laplanders apply it almost as universally as the Chinese use paper. The wigwams or huts of the North American Indians are made of birch-bark laid over a framework of birch-poles or trunks, and their canoes or boats are cased in it. The Laplander makes his great-coat of it,--a circular _poncho_ with a hole for his head,--as well as his houses and his boots and shoes. It will be easily believed that birch-bark was used in ancient times for writing on before the invention of paper.

Birch-wood makes good fuel. It is also used by cabinet-makers. Its uses in "little woods" are many. The charcoal is good for gunpowder, and it is that of which _crayons_ are made. Birch-coppices are cut for brooms, hoops, &c., at five to six years old, and at ten to twelve for faggot-wood, poles, fencing, and bark for the tanners. Birch-spray (that is, the twigs and leaves) is used for smoking hams and herrings, and for brooms to sweep grass. It is also used to make birch-rods; but as we think very ill of the discipline of any household in which the children and the pets cannot be kept in order without being beaten, we hope our own young readers are only familiar with birch-rods in picture-books.

The (Sweet or Spanish) Chestnut (_Castanca vesca_) is grown in "little woods" for hop-poles, fence-wood, and hoops. The wood of the full-grown tree is also valuable.

Evelyn says, "A decoction of the rind of the tree tinctures hair of a golden colour, esteemed a beauty in some countries." It would be entertaining to know if this is the foundation of the "auricomous fluids" advertised by hair-dressers!

Amongst "little woods" the dearest of all to the school-boy must surely be the hazel-copse! The Hazel (_Corylus avellana_) is never a large tree. It is, however, long lived, and of luxuriant growth. When cut it "stoles" or throws up shoots very freely, and when treated so will live a hundred years. With a single stem, Mr. Loudon assures us, it would live much longer. Filbert-hazels are a variety with longer nuts. Hazels are cultivated not only for the nuts, but for corf-rods,[1] hoops, fencing, &c., and hazel-charcoal, like beech-charcoal, is used for crayons. Like many other plants, the hazel has two kinds of flowers, which come out before the leaves. The long pale catkins appear first, and a little later tiny crimson flowers come where the nuts are afterwards to be.

Many old superstitions are connected with the hazel. Hazel-rods were used to "divine" for water and minerals by professors of an art which received the crack-jaw title of Rhabdomancy. Having tried our own hand at Rhabdomancy, we are able to say that the freaks of the divining-rod in sensitive fingers are sometimes as curious as those of a table among table-turners; and are probably susceptible of similar explanations.

The Larch (_Larix Europæa_, &c.). Though traceable in England for two hundred years, it is within this century that the larch has been extensively cultivated for profit. The exact date of its introduction from the mountain ranges of some other part of Europe is not known, but there is a popular tradition that it was first brought to Scotland with some orange-trees from Italy, and having begun to wither under hot-house treatment, was thrown outside, where it took root and throve thereafter. The wood of full-grown larch-trees is very valuable. To John, Duke of Athol, Scotland is indebted for the introduction of larch plantations on an enormous scale. He is said to have planted 6500 acres of mountain-ground with these valuable trees, which not only bring in heavy returns as timber, but so enrich the ground on which they grow, by the decayed _spicula_ or spines which fall from them, as to increase its value in the course of some years eight or tenfold. The Duke was buried in a coffin made of larch-wood! This sounds as if the merits of the larch-tree had been indeed a hobby with him, but when one comes to enumerate them one does not wonder that a man should feel his life very usefully devoted to establishing so valuable a tree in his native country, and that the pains and pride it brought him should have awakened sentiment enough to make him desire to make his last cradle from his favourite tree.

Larch-wood is light, strong, and durable. It is used for beams and for ship-building, for railroad-sleepers and mill-axles, for water-pipes, and for panels for pictures. Evelyn says that Raphael, the great painter, painted many of his pictures on larch-wood. It will stand in heat and wet, under water and above ground. It yields good turpentine, but trees that have been tapped to procure this are of no use afterwards for building purposes. The larch is said not to make good masts for ships, but its durability in all varieties of temperature and changes of weather make it valuable for vine-props. When made of larch-poles these are never taken up as hop-poles are. Year after year the vines climb them and fade at their feet, and they are said to have outlasted at least one generation of vine-growers.

In "little woods" the larches are planted very close, so that they may "spindle up" and become tall before they grow thick. They are then used for hop-poles and props of various kinds.

The Oak (_Quercus robur_, &c.) is pre-eminently a British tree. Of its beauty, size, the venerable age it will attain, and its historical associations, we have no space to speak here, and our young readers are probably not ignorant on the subject.

The durability of its wood is proverbial. The bark is also of great value, and though the slow growth of the oak in its earlier years postpones profit to the planter, it does so little harm to other wood grown with it (being in this respect very different from the beech), that profitable coppice-wood and other trees may be grown in the same plantation.

The age at which the oak should be felled for ship-timber, &c., depends on many circumstances, and is fixed by different authorities at from eighty to a hundred and fifty years.

Oaks are said to be more liable than other trees to be struck by lightning.

Oak-coppices or "little woods" are cut over at from twelve to thirty years old. The bark is valuable as well as the wood.

The Pine (_Pinus sylvestris_, &c.), like the larch, will flourish on poor soils. It is valuable as a protection for other trees. The varieties and variations of this tree are very numerous.

It is a very valuable timber-tree, the wood being loosely known as "deal"; but "deals" are, properly speaking, planks of pine-wood of a certain thickness, "boards" being the technical name for a thicker kind. Pine trunks are used for the masts of ships. "In the north of Russia and in Lapland the outer bark is used, like that of the birch, for covering huts, for lining them inside, and as a substitute for cork for floating the nets of fishermen; and the inner bark is woven into mats like those made from the lime-tree. Ropes are also made from the bark, which are said to be very strong and elastic, and are generally used by the fishermen."

In the north of Europe great quantities of tar are procured from the Scotch pine. Torches are made from the roots and trunk.

Varieties of the pine are grown in "little woods" for hop-poles.

_Pinus sylvestris_ (the "Scotch Pine"), though a native of Scotland, has only been planted and cultivated in Great Britain for about a century.

On the subject of "thinning and pruning" in plantations planters--like doctors--differ. An amusing story was sent to Mr. Loudon by the Duke of Bedford, in reference to his grandfather, who was an advocate for vigorous thinning in the pine plantations.

"The Duke perceived that the plantation required thinning, in order to admit a free circulation of air, and give health and vigour to the young trees. He accordingly gave instructions to his gardener, and directed him as to the mode and extent of the thinning required. The gardener paused and hesitated, and at length said: 'Your Grace must pardon me if I humbly remonstrate against your orders, but I cannot possibly do what you desire; it would at once destroy the young plantation; and, moreover, it would be seriously injurious to my reputation as a planter.' My grandfather, who was of an impetuous and decided character, but always just, instantly replied, 'Do as I desire you, and I will take care of your reputation.' The plantation was accordingly thinned according to the instructions of the Duke, who caused a board to be fixed in the plantation, facing the wood, on which was inscribed, '_This plantation has been thinned by John, Duke of Bedford, contrary to the advice and opinion of his gardener._'"

The Willow (_Salix caprea_, &c.). The species of willow are so numerous that we shall not attempt to give a list of them.

Willow-wood wears well in water, and has been used in shipbuilding and carpentery, and especially for small ware, cricket-bats and toys. Full-grown willows of all kinds are picturesque and very graceful trees. The growth of the tree kinds when young is very rapid.

Willows are largely cultivated in "little woods" for basket-making, hoops, &c. Shoots of the _Salix caprea_ of only a year's growth are large enough to be valuable for wicker-work. It appears to be held by cultivators that the poorer the soil in which they are grown the oftener these willows should be cut over. "In a good soil a coppice of this species will produce the greatest return in poles, hoops, and rods every five, six, seven, or eight years; and in middling soil, where it is grown chiefly for faggot-wood, it will produce the greatest return every three, four, or five years."

Horses and cattle are fed on the leaves of the willow in some parts of France.

Willows are often "pollarded." That is, their tops are cut off, which makes a large crop of young shoots spring out, giving a shock-headed effect which in gnarled old pollards by river-banks is picturesque enough.

The "little woods" of willow on the river Thames and the Cam are well known. They are small islands planted entirely with willows, and are called osier-holts.

Osier-beds of all kinds are very attractive "little woods." One always fancies one ought to be able to make something of the long pliable "sally-withys"--as the Wiltshire folk call willow switches. Indeed, as a matter of fact, the making of rough garden-baskets is a very simple art, especially on the Scotch and German system. Let any ingenious little prowler in an osier-bed get two thickish willow-rods and fasten them at the ends with a bit of wire, so as to make two hoops. These hoops are then to intersect each other half-way up, one being perpendicular, to form the handle and the bottom of the basket, the other being placed horizontally, to form the rim. More wire will be needed to fix them in their positions. Much finer willow-wands are used to wattle, or weave, the basket-work; ribs of split osiers are added, and the wattling goes in and out among them, and at once secures them and rests upon them.

This account is not likely to be enough to teach the most intelligent of our readers! But one fancies that a rough sort of basket-making might almost be devised out of one's own head, especially if he had been taught (as we were, by a favourite nursemaid) to plait rushes.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: A corf is a large basket used for carrying coals or other minerals in a mine.]

MAY-DAY,

OLD STYLE AND NEW STYLE.

"Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose."--Milton.

On the whole, perhaps, May is the most beautiful of the English months, especially the latter half of it; and yet I suppose very few May-days come round on which we are not disposed to wonder why our ancestors did not choose a warmer, and indeed a more flowery season for Maypoles and garlands and out-door festivities.

Children who live in the north of England especially must have a painfully large proportion of disappointments out of the few May-days of childhood.

Books and pictures, old stories told by Papa or Mamma of clattering chimney-sweeps and dancing May Queens, such as they saw in their young days, or heard of from their elders, have perhaps roused in us two of the strongest passions of childhood--the love of imitation and the love of flowers. We are determined to have a May-bush round the nursery-window, duly gathered before sunrise. "Pretty Bessy," our nursemaid, can do anything with flowers, from a cowslip ball to a growing forget-me-not garland. The girls are apt pupils, and pride themselves on their birthday wreaths. The boys are admirably adapted for May sweeps. Clatter is melodious in their ears. They would rather be black than white. Burnt cork will disguise them effectually; but they would prefer soot. A pole is forthcoming; ribbons are not wanting; the poodle will dance with the best of us. We have a whole holiday on Saints' Days, and the 1st of May is SS. Philip and James'.

What then hinders our enjoyment, and makes it impossible to keep May-day according to our hopes?

Too often this. It is "too cold to dawdle about." Flowers are by no means plentiful; they are pinched by the east wind. The May Queen would have to dance in her winter clothes, and would probably catch cold even then. It is not improbable that it will rain, and it is possible that it may snow. Worse than all, the hawthorn-trees are behind time, and are as obstinate as the head-nurse in not thinking the weather fit for coming out. The May is not in blossom on May-day.

And yet May-day used to be kept in the north of England as well as in warmer nooks and corners. The truth is that one reason why we find the weather less pleasant, and the flowers fewer than our forefathers did, is that we keep May-day eleven days earlier in the year than they used to do.

To explain how this is, I must try and explain what Old Style and New Style--in reckoning the days of the year--mean.

First let me ask you how you can count the days. Supposing you wish to remain just one day and night in a certain place, how will you know when you have stayed the proper time? In one of two ways. Either you will count twenty-four hours on the clock, or you will stay through all the light of one day, and all the darkness of one night. That is, you will count time either by the Clock or by the Sun.

Now we say that there are 365 days in the year. But there are really a few odd hours and minutes and seconds into the bargain. The reason of this is that the Sun does not go by the Clock in making the days and nights. Sometimes he spends rather more than twenty-four hours by the Clock over a day and night; sometimes he takes less. On the whole, during the year, he uses up more time than the Clock does.

The Clock makes exactly 365 days of 24 hours each. The Sun makes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 49 seconds, and a tiny bit besides.

Now in time these odd hours added together would come to days, and the days to years. About fifteen hundred years of this little difference between the Sun and the Clock would bring it up to a year. So that if you went by the Clock you would say, "It is fifteen hundred years since such a thing happened." And if you went by the Sun you would say, "It is fifteen hundred and one years since it happened."

Men who could think and calculate saw how inconvenient this would be, and what mistakes it would lead to. If the difference did not come to much in their lifetime, they could see that it would come to a serious error for other people some day. So Julius Cæsar thought he would pull the Clock and the Sun together by adding one day every four years to the Clock's year to make up for the odd hours the Sun had been spinning out during the three years before. The odd day was added to the month of February, and that year (in which there are three hundred and sixty-six days) is called Leap Year.

You remember the old saw--

"Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
February hath twenty-eight alone,
All the rest have thirty-one;
_Except in Leap Year, at which time
February's days are twenty-nine_."

This is called the Old Style of reckoning.

Now I dare say you think the matter was quite settled; but it was not, unfortunately--the odd day every four years was just a tiny little bit too much, and now the Clock was spending more time over her years than the Sun. After more than sixteen hundred years the small mistake was becoming serious, and Pope Gregory XIII decided that we must not have so many leap years. For the future, in every four hundred years, three of the Clock's extra days must be given up, and ten days were to be left out of count at once to make up for the mistakes of years past.

This change is what is called the New Style of Reckoning. Pope Gregory began it in the year 1582, but we did not adopt it in England till 1752, and as we had then nearly two hundred years more of the little mistake to correct, _we_ had to leave _eleven_ days out of count. In Russia, where our new Princess comes from, they have not got it yet. The New Style was begun in England on September the 2nd. The next day, instead of being called September the 3rd, was called September the 14th. Since then we have gone on quite steadily, and played no more tricks with either the Sun's year or the Clock's year.

I wonder what happened in the year 1752 to all the children whose birthdays came between September the 2nd and September the 14th! I hope their birthday presents did not drop through because his Majesty George the Second had let eleven birthdays slip out of that year's calendar, to get the Clock and the Sun to work comfortably together.

Now I think you will be able to see that in the next year after this change, May-day was kept eleven days earlier in the Sun's year than the year before; and it has been at an earlier season ever since, and therefore in colder weather. May-day in the Old Style would have come this year about the middle of the month; and as years rolled on it would have been kept later and later in the summer, and thus in warmer and warmer weather, because of that little mistake of Julius Cæsar. At last, instead of complaining that the May is not out by May-day, people would have had to complain that it was over.

Now in the New Style we keep May-day almost in Spring, and, thanks to Pope Gregory's clever arrangement, we shall always keep it at the same season.

It is not always cold on a May-day even in the north of England. I have a vivid remembrance of at least one which was most balmy; and, when they are warm enough for out-door enjoyment, the early days of the year seem, like the early hours of the day, to have an exquisite freshness peculiarly their own. Then the month of May, as a whole, is certainly the month of flowers in the woods and fields. Autumn is the gayest season of the garden, but Spring and early Summer give us the prettiest of the wild-flowers.

"Among the changing months May stands confest
The sweetest, and in fairest colours drest."

That fine weather is not quite to be relied upon for May-day, even in the Old Style, some of the old May-day customs seem to suggest. In the Isle of Man it was the custom not only to have a "Queen of May," but also a "Queen of Winter." The May Queen was, as elsewhere, some pretty and popular damsel, gaily dressed, and with a retinue of maids of honour. The Winter Queen was a man or boy dressed in woman's clothes of the warmest kind--"woollen hood, fur tippet," &c. Fiddles and flutes were played before the May Queen and her followers, whilst the Queen of Winter and her troop marched to the sound of the tongs and cleaver. The rival companies met on a common and had a mock battle, symbolizing the struggle of Winter and Summer for supremacy. If the Queen of Winter's forces contrived to capture the Queen of May, her floral majesty had to be ransomed by payment of the expenses of the day's festivity.

Whether the Queen of Winter conquered in bad weather, and her fairer rival when the season was warm and the flowers abundant, we are not told.

This ceremony was probably learnt from the Danes and Norwegians, who were long masters of the Isle of Man. _Olaus Magnus_, speaking of the May-day customs of the Goths and Southern Swedes, says, "The captain of one band hath the name and appearance of Winter, is clothed in skins of beasts, and he and his band armed with fire-forks. They fling about ashes, by way of prolonging the reign of Winter; while another band, whose captain is called Florro, represents Spring, with green boughs such as the season affords. These parties skirmish in sport, and the mimic contest concludes with a general feast."

A few years ago in the Isle of Man the hillsides blazed with bonfires and resounded to horns on the 11th of May (May-eve, Old Style). "May flowers" were put at the doors of houses and cattle-sheds, and these were not hawthorn blossoms, but the flowers of the kingcup, or marsh marigold. Crosses made of sprays of mountain ash were worn the same night, and they, the bonfires and May flowers, were reckoned charms against "wizards, witches, enchanters, and mountain hags."

At Helston, in Cornwall, May-day seems to have been known by the name of Furry Day. Perhaps a corruption of "Flora's Day." People wore hawthorn in their hats, and danced hand-in-hand through the town to the sound of a fiddle. This particular performance was known as a "faddy."

It is probable that some of our May-day customs came from the Romans, who kept the festival of Flora, the goddess of flowers, at this season. Others, perhaps, have a different, if not an older source. One custom was certainly common to both nations. When the feast of Flora was celebrated, the young Romans went into the woods and brought back green boughs with which they decked the houses.

To "go a-Maying" is in fact the principal ceremony of the day wherever kept, and for whatever reason. In the north of England children and young folk "were wont to rise a little after midnight on the morning of May-day, and walk to some neighbouring wood accompanied with music and the blowing of horns, where they broke down branches from the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This done, they returned homewards with their booty about the time of sunrise, and made their doors and windows triumph in the flowery spoil." Stubbs, in the _Anatomie of Abuses_ (A.D. 1585), speaks of this custom as common to "every parish, town, and village." The churches, as well as the houses, seem in some places to have been dressed with flowers and greenery.

In an old MS. of the sixteenth century it is said that on the feast of SS. Philip and James, the Eton boys were allowed to go out at four o'clock in the morning to gather May to dress their rooms, and sweet herbs to perfume them, "if they can do it without wetting their feet!"

Thirty or forty years ago May-day decorations, in some country places, consisted of strewing the cottage doorsteps with daisies, or other flowers.

In Hertfordshire a curious custom obtained of decking the neighbours' doors with May if they were popular, and with nettles if they were the reverse.

In Lancashire rustic wags put boughs of various trees at the doors of the girls of the neighbourhood. Each tree had a meaning (well known in the district), sometimes complimentary, and sometimes the reverse.

In France it was customary for lovers to deck over-night the houses of the ladies they wished to please, and school-boys paid a like compliment to their masters. They do not seem, however, to have been satisfied with nosegays or even with green branches; they transplanted young trees from the woods to the side of the door they wished to honour, and then decked them with ribbons, &c. There is a curious record that "Henry II., wishing to recompense the clerks of Bazoche for their good services in quelling an insurrection in Guienne, offered them money; but they would only accept the permission granted them by the king, of cutting in the royal woods such trees as they might choose for the planting of the May--a privilege which existed at the commencement of the French Revolution." In Cornwall, too, it seems to have been the custom to plant "stumps of trees" before the houses, as well as to decorate them with boughs and blossoms. And Mr. Aubrey (1686) says, "At Woodstock in Oxon they every May-eve goe into the parke, and fetch away a number of haw-thorne-trees, which they set before their dores; 'tis a pity that they make such a destruction of so fine a tree."

One certainly agrees with Mr. Aubrey. Thorns are slow to grow, hard to transplant, and very lovely when they are old. It is not to be regretted that such ruthless destruction of them has gone out of fashion.

In Ireland "tall slender trees" seem to have been set up before the doors, as well as "a green bush, strewed over with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield plentifully." A writer, speaking of this in 1682, adds, "A stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses," referring to the old custom of a bunch of green as the sign of an inn, which is illustrated by the proverb, "Good wine needs no bush." I have an old etching of a river-side inn, in which the sign is a garland hanging on a pole.

I fancy the yellow flowers must have been cowslips, which the green fields of Erin do indeed "yield plentifully."

Besides these private May-trees, every village had its common Maypole, gaily adorned with wreaths and flags and ribbons, and sometimes painted in spiral lines of colour. The Welsh Maypoles seem to have been made from birch-trees, elms were used in Cornwall, and young oaks in other parts of England. Round these Maypoles the young villagers danced, and green booths were often set up on the grass near them.

In many villages the Maypole was as much a fixture as the parish stocks, but when a new one was required, it was brought home on May-eve in grand procession with songs and instrumental music. I am afraid there is a good deal of evidence to show that the Maypoles were not always honestly come by! However, the Puritan writers (from whose bitter and detailed complaints we learn most of what we know about the early English May-day customs) are certainly prejudiced, and perhaps not quite trustworthy witnesses. One good man groans lamentably: "What adoe make our young men at the time of May? Do they not use night watchings to rob and steale young trees out of other men's grounde, and bring them into their parishe, with minstrels playing before?"

But as the theft must have been committed with all the publicity that a fixed day, a large crowd, and a full band could ensure, and as we seem to have no record of interference at the time, or prosecutions afterwards, I hope we may infer that the owners of the woods did not grudge one tree for the village Maypole. A quainter vengeance seems to have sometimes followed the trespass. Honesty was at a discount. What had been once stolen was liable to be re-stolen. There seems to have been great rivalry among the villages as to which had the best Maypole. The happy parish which could boast the finest was not left at ease in its supremacy, for the lads of the other villages were always on the watch to steal it. A record of this custom amongst the Welsh reminds one that Wales was at once the land of bards and the home of Taffy the Thief. "If successful," says Owen, speaking of these Maypole robbers, they "had their feats recorded in songs."

In old times oxen were commonly used for farmwork, and it seems that they had their share in the May fun. Another Puritan writer says, "They have twentie or fortie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen draw home this Maie poole."

How well one can imagine their slow swinging pace, unmoved by the shouts and music which would stir a horse's more delicate nerves! Their broad moist noses; their large, liquid eyes, and, doubtless, a certain sense of pride in their "sweet nosegaies," like the pride of the Beast of a Regiment in his badge.

Horses, too, came in for their share of May decorations. It was an old custom to give the waggoner a ribbon for his team at every inn he passed on May-day.

In the last century there was a fixed Maypole near Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, to which the boys made a pilgrimage in procession every May-day with May-gads in their hands. May-gads are white willow wands, peeled, and dressed with cowslips.

There was a fixed Maypole in the Strand for many years--or rather a succession of Maypoles. One, when only four years old, was given to Sir Isaac Newton to make a stand for his telescope, and another seems to have had a narrow escape from being handed over to a less celebrated astronomer, some years later.

The wandering Maypole, with its Queen of the May and her chimney-sweeps, is a modern compound of the village Maypole and May Queen with the May games in which (as in the Christmas festivities) morris-dancers played a part. The May-day morris-dancers, like the Christmas mummers, performed sword-dances and sang appropriate doggerels in costume. The characters represented at one time or another were Maid Marian or the May Queen, Robin Hood or Lord of the May, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, Little John Stokesley, Tom the Piper, Mad Moll and her Husband, Mutch, the Fool and the Hobby Horse. Archery was amongst the May-day sports, especially in the company of Robin Hood. The Summer King and Queen were perhaps the oldest characters. They seem to be identical with the Lord and Lady, and sometimes to have been merged in Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

"Maid Marian fair as ivory bone,
Scarlet, and Mutch, and Little John."

The King and Queen of May are spoken of in the thirteenth century, but morris-dancing at May-time does not seem to date earlier than Henry VII., and is not so old a custom as the immemorial one of going a-Maying

"To bring the summer home
The summer and the May-O!"

This was not confined to young people or to country-folk. Chaucer says that on May-day early "fourth goth al the court, both most and lest, to fetche the flowrès fresh, and braunch, and blome," and Henry VIII. kept May-day very orthodoxly in the early years of his reign.

Milkmaids have been connected with May-day customs from an early period. Perhaps because syllabub and cream were the recognized dainties of the festival. In Northumberland a ring used to be dropped into the syllabub and fished for with a ladle. Whoever got it was to be the first married of the party. An odd old custom in Suffolk suggests that the hawthorn was not always ready even for the Old Style May-day. Any farm-servant who could find a branch in full blossom might claim a dish of cream for breakfast. The milkmaids who supplied London and other places used to dress themselves gaily on May-day and go round from house to house performing a dance, and receiving gratuities from their customers. On their heads--instead of a milk-pail--they carried a curious trophy, called the "Milkmaids' Garland," made of silver or pewter jugs, cups, and other pieces of plate, which they borrowed for the occasion, and which shone out of a mass of greenery and flowers. Possibly these were at first the pewter measures with which they served out the milk. The music to which the milkmaids' dance was performed, was the jangling of bells of different tones depending from a round plate of brass mounted upon a Maydecked pole; but a bag-pipe or fiddle was sometimes substituted.

Cream, syllabub, and dainties compounded with milk, belong in England to the May festival. In Germany there is a "May drink" (said to be very nice) made by putting woodruff into white Rhine wine, in the proportion of a handful to a quart. Black currant, balm, or peppermint leaves are sometimes added, and water and sugar.

The milkmaids' place has been completely usurped by the sweeps, who clatter a shovel and broom instead of the old plate and bells, and who seem to have added the popular Jack-in-the-green to the entertainment. Jack-in-the-green's costume is very simple. A wicker-work frame of an extinguisher shape, thickly covered with green, is supported by the man who carries it, and who peeps through a hole left for the purpose. May-day has become the Sweeps' Carnival. Mrs. Montague (whose son is said to have been stolen for a sweep in his childhood, and afterwards found) used to give the sweeps of London a good dinner every May-day, on the lawn before her house in Portman Square.

Another May-day custom is that of the choristers assembling at five o'clock in the morning on the top of the beautiful tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, and ushering in the day with singing. At the same time boys of the city armed with tin trumpets, called "May-horns," assemble beneath the tower, and contribute more sound than harmony to the celebration. Let us hope that it is not strictly a part of the old ceremony, but rather a minor manifestation of "Town and Gown" feeling, that the town boys jeer the choristers, and in return are pelted with rotten eggs. The origin of this special Oxford custom is said to be a requiem which was sung on the tower for the soul of Henry VII., founder of the College. In the villages girls used to carry round May-garlands. The party consisted of four children. Two girls in white dresses and gay ribbons carried the garland, and were followed by a boy and girl called "Lord and Lady," linked together by a white handkerchief, of which each held an end. The Lady carried the purse, and when she received a donation the Lord doffed his cap and kissed her. They sang a doggerel rhyme, and the form in which money was asked was, "Please to handsel the Lord and Lady's purse."

One cannot help thinking that some of our flowers, such as Milkmaids, Lords and Ladies, and Jack-in-the-green Primrose, bear traces of having got their common names at the great flower festival of the year.

In Cornwall boys carried the May-garland, which was adorned with painted birds' eggs. Old custom gave these young rogues the privilege of drenching with water from a bucket any one whom they caught abroad on May-morning without a sprig of May.

Mr. Aubrey says (1686): "At Oxford, the boyes do blow cows' horns all night; and on May-day the young maids of every parish carry about their parish garlands of flowers, which afterwards they hang up in their churches."

A generation or more ago the little boys of Oxford used to blow horns early on May-day--as they said--"to call up the old maids." There was once a custom in Lynn for the workhouse children to be allowed to go out with horns and garlands every May-day, after which a certain worthy gentleman gave them a good dinner.

In Cambridgeshire, within the present century, the children had a doll dressed as the "May Lady," before which they set a table with wine and food on it; they also begged money and garlands for "the poor May Lady."

There are some quaint superstitions connected with May-day and May-blossom. To bathe the face in the dew of a May morning was reckoned an infallible recipe for a good complexion. A bath of May dew was also supposed to strengthen weakly children. Girls divined for dreams of their future husbands with a sprig of hawthorn gathered before dusk on May-eve, and carried home in the mouth without speaking. Hawthorn rods were used at all seasons of the year to divine for water and minerals. Bunches of May fastened against houses were supposed to keep away witches and venomous reptiles, and to bring prosperity in various shapes.

The Irish of the neighbourhood of Killarney have a pretty superstition that on May-day the O'Donoghue, a popular prince of by-gone days, returns from the land of Immortal Youth beneath the water to bless the country over which he once ruled.

Some curious customs among the Scotch Highlanders (who call May 1st _Beltan_ Day) have nothing in common with our Green Festival except as celebrating the Spring. They seem to be the remains of very ancient heathen sacrifices to Baal. They were performed by the herdsmen of the district, and included an open-air feast of cakes and custard, to which every one contributed, and which was cooked upon a fire on a turf left in the centre of a square trench which had been dug for the purpose. Some custard was poured out by way of libation. Every one then took a cake of oatmeal, on which nine knobs had been pinched up before baking, and turning his face to the fire threw the knobs over his shoulder, some as offerings to the supposed guardians of the flock, and the rest in propitiation of beasts and birds of prey, with the form "This to thee, O Fox! spare my lambs! This to thee, O hooded Crow!" &c. In some places the boys of the hamlet met on the moors for a similar feast, but the turf table was round, and the oatcake divided into bits, one of which was blackened with charcoal. These being drawn from a bonnet, the holder of the black bit was held _devoted_ to Baal, and had to leap three times over the bonfire.

I do not know of any children's games that were peculiar to May-day. In France they had a May-day game called _Sans-vert_. Those who played had to wear leaves of the hornbeam-tree, and these were to be kept fresh, under penalty of a fine. The chief object of the players was to surprise each other without the proper leaves, or with faded specimens.

A stupid old English custom of making fools of your friends on the 1st of May as well as on the 1st of April hardly deserves the title of a game. The victims were called "May goslings."

One certainly would not expect to meet with anything like "Aunt Sally" among May-day games, especially with the "May Lady" for butt! But not the least curious part of a very curious account of May-day in Huntingdonshire, which was sent to _Notes and Queries_ some years ago, is the pelting of the May Lady as a final ceremony of the festival. The May-garlands carried round in Huntingdonshire villages appear to have been more like the "milkmaids' garland" than genuine wreaths. They were four to five feet high, extinguisher-shaped, with every kind of spring flower in the apex, and with ribbons and gay kerchiefs hanging down from the base, by the round rim of which the garland was carried; the flower-peak towering above, and the gay streamers depending below. Against this erection (not unlike the "mistletoe boughs" of the North of England) was fastened a gaily-dressed doll. The bearers were two little girls, who acted as maids of honour to the May Queen. Mr. Cuthbert Bede describes her Majesty as he saw her twenty years ago. She wore a white frock, and a bonnet with a white veil. A wreath of real flowers lay on the bonnet. She carried a pocket-handkerchief bag and a parasol (the latter being regarded as a special mark of dignity). An "Odd Fellows'" ribbon and badge completed her costume. The maids of honour bore the garland after her, whose peak was crowned with "tulips, anemones, cowslips, kingcups, meadow-orchis, wall-flower, primrose, crown-imperial, lilac, laburnum," and "other bright flowers." Votive offerings were dropped into the pocket-handkerchief bag, and with these a feast was provided for the children. If the gifts had been liberal, "goodies" were proportionately plentiful. Finally, the May-garland was suspended from a rope hung across the village street, and the children pelted the May-doll with balls provided for the occasion. Their chief aim was to hit her nose.

Another correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ speaks of ropes with dolls suspended from them as being stretched across every village street in Huntingdonshire on May-day, and adds, that not only ribbons and flowers were attached to these swinging May Ladies, but articles of every description, including "candlesticks, snuffers, spoons, and forks."

There are no May carols rivalling those of Christmas, and the verses which children sing with their garlands are very bald as a rule.

A Maypole song of the Gloucestershire children would do very well to dance to--