283 



Customs of Mbljforb anlr §;irforir 

 ill iBxokl^ Jfoitst. 



aEitfj iFurtber "Notts on smisfjfortr. 



By the Eev. Chr. Wordsworth. 

 [Read at the Wilton Meeting, 1906.] 



" Be zix a'clock, a motley crowd An up agean ache cottage dooer, 



Av met at Townsend tree, [up Tha woaken bough is tied, 



Bouth woold an young, var ta keep We vlaigs an streamers gay an 



Thease glad vestivity An mottoes too bezide. [bright, 



We axe an hook away thay goo 'Tis ' Groveley ; an ael Groveley,' 



Ta copse at Groveley, Thame shouten ael tha day 



Ta cut tha woaken boughs out vrom Ta keep thic hankshint custom up 



Tha merry greenhood tree. On girt Woak Apple Day. 



***** E. Slow, Wiltshire Bliymes, i. 150. 



In his interesting and suggestive paper on An English Manor in 

 the time of Elizabeth ( Wilts Arch. Maff.,xxxn., 306), Dr. C. E. Straton 

 said, " When in May the villagers of Wishford still cut down young 

 oaks and hold their feast on " Bough Day," it is the repairing of 

 the summer shealing that they commemorate." He thus connects 

 the feast and ceremonies with the custom of repairing bough huts 

 for four months' use in summer as it is found on the hills in 

 Norway and in Scotland. Dr. Straton mentions further the 

 visitation of Wishford and the Forest of Grovely, by Ro. Grove 

 and C. Vanghan in 1566-7 on behalf of William Earl of Pembroke 

 (pp. 291-2). He records, moreover, that the commoners adjoining 

 the forest kept certain cattle there all the year round ; but " during 

 the ' four months ' they took up all their Hocks of sheep and goats 

 and their milk kine. In Grovely there were three hundred fallow 

 deer and a number of wild boars, and in Barford each two com- 

 moners reared one hound for the lord. There were also in Grovely 

 courts of vert and vcn, where all questions of greenwood or game 



