288 Customs of Wishford and Barf or d in Gh-ovely Forest. 



MS.) give June 17th ^ or 20th.2 Whitaker's Almanac gives for the 

 last century June 21st and this century June 22nd, which is the 

 day before St. John^s Eve, otherwise called Midsummer Eve., when 

 bonfire customs, said to be of pagan origin, are traceable.^ 



As to the two points which seem to me most noticeable in the 

 local customs, namely the dance, and the connexion with Whitsun- 

 tide previous to the Civil Wars,* I will offer just a few remarks. 

 From the heathenish dance around the golden calf to the Mid- 

 summer dances in Cornwall, such as the Helstone faddy dance ^ on 

 the 8th of May, or our Jacky John's fair held within living memory 

 in Marlborough High Street round St. Peter's Church — or again 

 from David dancing before the ark (II. Sam., vi., 14), to the dances 

 in Yorkshire Churches after prayers at Yule-tide in the seventeenth 

 century, when they cried or sang " Yole, Yole, Yole,"*^ or to the 

 choristers' stately minuet before the high altar in Seville Cathedral, 

 witnessed in 1850 and more recently'' — to say nothing of Eastern 



' Brit. Mus. Titus, D. 27. 



2 Brit. Mus. Galba, A. 18 (Atlielstan Psalter), and Vitell. E. 18. 



■' Hampson, Medii ^vi Kalendarium, i. 302. 



^ After the Restoration of Church and King, the dance was tranferred to 

 May 29th— "Oak Apple Day." 



■' Wright's Dialect Diet., ii., 275 a. 



'' So Capt. Potter, born in N. Yorks, informed Aubrey, Remaines of 

 Genti/isme, ed. by James Britten for Folk Lore Society, 1881, p. 5, f/p. 213, 

 note by W. J. T. referring to M. C. H. Bromel, Fest Tanzeii cler Ersten 

 Christen, Jena, 1705. I find reference made in N. & Q., 2 S., iv. 35, to 

 J. G. Herder, De Saltationihus JEcclesice. 



'• At Seville two writers about 1850 described the dance of ten choir boys 

 (formerly six .whence they were called " seises,") attired in seventeenth century 

 court dress, tunics, hats, and mantles, (of red and white during Corpus Christi 

 octave, or of blue and white at the festival of the Conception of the Blessed 

 Virgin), a minuet, lasting about halfan-hour, to the Cathedral organ and 

 their ivory castanets, before the high altar and the Reserved Host. Also at 

 Shrovetide on the three last days of carnival. N. & Q., 3 S., xi., 132-3, 175, 

 207, 244, 326, 392. The vernacular Spanish hymn sung on the occasion is 

 given, 4 S., i., 77-8. The like performance has been noted at Echternach and 

 Barjole. E. K. Chambers, Mediaeval Staffe,i.,l&3. (" Clipping the Church" 

 by children joining hands, at Shrovetide, and tennis-play in the churchyard 

 at Bradford-on-Avon (not "Barford," as Andrews's J 7»//(^. and Curiosities, 

 p. 218) is mentioned by Canon Jones, Wilts Arch. Mag., v. 244-5. 



On dancing in Churches : — The Rev. C. V. Goddard tells me that at the 



