Old English Sports, Pastimes and Customs

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sweet spring-time. Our forefathers delighted, too, in the advent of the bright month of May, which the old poets used to compar

ooming hawthorn and spring flowers, and laden with their spoils returned when the sun rose, with merry shouts and horn-blowings, and adorned every d

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at Oxford the choristers of Magdalen College assemble at the top of the tower at early dawn, and sing hymns of t

ons. It has been carried here by twenty or thirty yoke of oxen, their horns decorated with sweet flowers, and then, with shouts and laughter

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and last, but not least, comes the hobby-horse-a man with a light wooden framework representing a horse about him, covered with trappings reaching to the ground, so as to prevent the man's feet from being seen. The hobby-horse careered about, pranced and curveted, to the great amusement of the company. The morris-dancers are adorned with bells, which jingle merrily as they dance

merry crew began their sports again. But times change, and we change with them: customs pass away, and with them have long vanished the May-pole and its bright group of light-hearted rustics. An American writer who visited this country thus describes his feeling when he saw an old May-pole still standing at Chester-"I shall never forget my delight. My fancy adorned it with wreaths of flowers, and peopled the green bank with all the dancing revelry of May Day. I value every custom that tends to infuse poetical feeling into the common people, and to sweeten and soften the rudeness of rustic manners without destroying their simplicity. Indeed, it is to the decline of this happy simplicity tha

ace where the city May-pole, or shaft, was erected, and Shaft

h as dancing for men and women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any such harmless recreations; nor from having May games, Whitsun ales, and morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith used, so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine service. And tha

, is not at first quite clear; but it appears that the numerous bowling-alleys in London were, in the sixteenth century, t

ervants, labourers, mechanics, and other vulgar persons, complaining that they were debarred from dancing, playing, church-ales-in a word, from all recreations on Sundays after Divine service." King Ja

ck during the coming year. On this day, too, the Irish kings are supposed to rise from their graves and gather together a ghostly army of rude warriors to fight for their

eration the boundaries of the township or village. The choir sang hymns, and under certain trees, which were called Gospel Trees, the clergyman read the Gospel for the day, with a litany and prayers. Sometimes boys were whipped, or bumped against trees, or thrown in

. A blessing of God for the fruits of the earth. 2. Justice in the preservation of bounds. 3. Charity, in loving, walking, and neighbourly accompanying one another, with reconciling of differences at that time, if there be any. 4. Mercy, in relieving the poor by a liberal distribution and largess,

, and at Oxford the boys may be seen on Ascension Day bearing white w