^2 pPant "bore, "bege^/, and. Ts^ric/. 



third year, and in this way the parents testified their joy that the Httle 

 ones had passed the age rendered critical by the maladies incident 

 to infants. The Roman Catholic priesthood, always alert at appropri- 

 ating popular pagan customs, and adapting them to the service of 

 their church, have perpetuated this old practice. The little children 

 crowned with flowers and habited as angels, who to this day 

 accompany the procession of the Corpus Domini at the beginning 

 of June, are taught to scatter flowers in the road, to symbolise their 

 own spring-time and the spring-time of nature. On this day, along 

 the entire route of the procession at Rome, the ground is thickly 

 strewn with Bay and other fragrant leaves. In the worship of the 

 Madonna, flowers play an important role, and Roman altars are 

 still piled up with fragrant blossoms, and still smoke with perfumed 

 incense. 



After the feast of Whitsuntide, the young Russian maidens 

 repair to the banks of the Neva, and fling in its waters wreaths of 

 flowers, which are tokens of affection to absent friends. 



In the West of Germany and the greater part of France the 

 ceremony is observed of bringing home on the last harvest wain a 

 tree or bough decorated with flowers and gay ribbons, which is 

 graciously received by the master and planted on or near the house, 

 to remain there till the next harvest brings its successor. Some rite 

 of this sort, Mr. Ralston says, seems to have prevailed all over the 

 North of Europe. "So, in the autumnal harvest thanksgiving feast 

 at Athens, it was customary to carry in sacred procession an Olive- 

 branch wrapped in wool, called Eivesione, to the temple of Apollo, 

 and there to leave it ; and in addition to this a similar bough was 

 solemnly placed beside the house door of every Athenian who was 

 engaged in fruit culture or agriculture, there to remain until 

 replaced by a similar successor twelve months later." 



©^ef f-iJFocoen r^. 



From the earliest days of the Christian era our Lord's ascension 

 into heaven has been commemorated by various ceremonies, one of 

 which was the perambulation of parish boundaries. At Penkridge, in 

 Staffordshire, as well as at Wolverhampton, long after the Reforma- 

 tion, the inhabitants, during the time of processioning, used to adorn 

 their wells with boughs and flowers ; and this ancient custom is 

 still practised every year at Tissington, in Derbyshire, where it is 

 known as " well-flowering." There are five wells so decorated, 

 and the mode of dressing or adorning them is this : — the flowers 

 are inserted in moist clay and put upon boards cut in various forms, 

 surrounded with boughs of Laurel and White Thorn, so as to give 

 the appearance of water issuing from small grottoes. The flowers 

 are arranged in various patterns, to give the effect of mosaic 

 work, and are inscribed with texts of Scripture and suitable 

 mottoes. After church, the congregation walk in procession to 

 the wells and decorate them with these boards, as well as with 



