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laws for the rustic sports, and bestowed the prizes upon the victors. 

 After the Norman invasion, the May-day observances continued to be as 

 popular as ever, and down to the time of the Commonwealth, every 

 village had its May pole, where on the first of May in each year, the 

 youths and maidens assembled, and having decorated the pole with 

 garlands of flowers, they chose and crowned the May-queen, after which 

 dancing on the green and various rural "sports were kept up during the 

 remainder of the day. In the time of Cromwell, the Puritans set them- 

 selves against these rustic rejoicings, and, in obedience to an ordinance 

 of the long Parliament, dated April, 1644, all the May poles were taken 

 down by the constables and churchwardens. After the Restoration, the 

 festival was partially resumed, but never again became so popular or 

 general as before. Bourne tells us that, in his time, in the villages in the 

 north of England, the children of both sexes were wont to rise a little 

 after midnight on the morning of the first of May, and, accompanied 

 with music and the blowing of horns, to walk to some neighbouring 

 wood, 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 decorated 

 their doors and windows with the same. Alluding to the Restoration, 

 we may remark in passing, that on the twenty-ninth of May, called 

 Royal Oak day, it was customary to carry about oak branches, in com- ' 

 memoration of Charles the Second's escape in the oak tree, after the 

 battle of Worcester. In the old coaching and carrier cart days, the 

 horses on that day used to be decorated with oaken twigs. 



Coming next to Whitsuntide, if we endeavour to find out the 

 meaning of the name, we become quite bewildered among the various 

 explanations given by different authors. One writer tells us that it was 

 " White Sunday," because in the early days of Christianity the converts 

 who went to be baptised on the day of Pentecost, were all dressed in 

 white. Another tells us that it took its name from a French word 

 pronounced " Huiet," which meant eight, because beginning with Easter, 

 Whit-Sunday was the eighth Sunday. Another quaint old writer on the 

 subject says, that it was not W/ii'f, but f^/-Sunday, because at that time 



