FABLE AND FOLKLORE 123 



along with the eating of unlimited pancakes, cock-fight- 

 ing and "throwing at cocks" had the most prominent 

 place. The last-mentioned sport consisted in fastening 

 live cocks in a certain position, and letting men compete 

 in throwing clubs at them, the man who killed the bird 

 winning it. This atrocious form of amusement did not 

 shock the populace of a time when bear-baiting, bull-bait- 

 ing, and the pitting of dogs against each other or against 

 badgers and rats were popular; yet a few protested, and 

 even in the 17th century antiquaries were searching for 

 the origin of the custom. Hearne asserted that it was in 

 memory of English victories over the French (symbolized 

 by the Gallic coq) in the time of Henry V; but the sport 

 was customary in France itself long before that time. 

 A writer quoted by Smith 61 records that "the common 

 account of it is that the crowing of a cock prevented our 

 Saxon ancestors from massacring their conquerors, the 

 Danes, on the morning of a Shrove Tuesday while asleep 

 in their beds/' which recalls one of the explanations of 

 the Irish wren-hunting. My own opinion is that the 

 custom had no particular significance, but was just a 

 sportive way of getting without much cost the material 

 for a good dinner, as were the "turkey shoots" of our 

 western frontier ; and that Erasmus was fairly right when 

 he remarked that "the English eat a certain cake on 

 Shrove Tuesday, on which they immediately run mad and 

 kill the poor cocks." 



Lent closes with the joyful celebration of Easter, an 

 occasion in which the eggs of birds, at least, have a per- 

 sistent and prominent part, and doves find a place in 

 several Old World ceremonies of the Church. 



In the matter of the almost universal and everywhere 

 popular custom of playing with colored eggs at Easter, 



