juncacejE. 23 



TliQS also at a ■wedding — 



" Full many maids, clad in tlieir best array, 

 In honour of the bride, come vnih their flaskets 

 Fiird full with flowers ; others in -wicker baskets 

 Bring from the niarish rushes to o'crspread 

 The ground, whereon to church the lovers tread." 



Browne's Brit. Past. i. 2. 

 They were used green : — 



" Where is this stranger ? Rushes, ladies, rushes ! 

 Rushes as green as summer for this stranger." 



Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian. 



We find the Rush used in Devonshire as a charm, for the thrush, as follows : — 

 " Take three rushes from any running stream, and pass them separately through the 

 mouth of the infant ; then plunge the rushes again into the stream, and as the 

 current bears them away, so will the thrush depart from the child." 



In many old parish accounts we find records of provision for rushes or straw 

 wherewith to strew the churches, according to the season of the year. Brand quotes 

 from the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, London, in 1504: " Paid for 

 two Berden Rysshes for the strewing the newe pews, 3'i. 1493 : For three Berdens 

 of rushes for ye new pews, 3(Z." 



The Rev. G. Sliles Cooper, in his paper on the Abbey of Bayham, in the " Sussex 

 Archceological Collections, 1857," observes: "Though few are ignorant of this 

 ancient custom, it may not be so generally known that the strewing of churches 

 grew into a religious festival, dressed up in all that picturesque circumstance where- 

 with the old Church well knew how to array its ritual. Remains of it linger to this 

 day in remote parts of England. In Westmoreland, Lancashire, and districts of 

 Yorkshire, there is still celebrated, between haymaking and harvest, a village fete 

 called the Rushbearing. Young women dressed in white, and carrying garlands of 

 flowers and rushes, walk in procession to the parish church, accompanied by a crowd 

 of rustics with flags flying and music playing. There they suspend their floral 

 chaplets on the chancel-rails, and the day is concluded with a simple feast. The 

 neighbourhood of Ambleside was until lately, and may be still, one of the chief 

 strongholds of this popular practice, respecting which I will only add as a curious 

 fact, that up to the passing of the recent lilnnicipal Reform Act, the town clerk of 

 Norwich was accustomed to pay to the subsacrist of the cathedral an annual guinea 

 for strewing the floor of the cathedral with rushes on the Mayor's day, from the 

 western door to the entrance into the choir. This is the most recent instance of tlio 

 ancient usage that has come to my knowledge." In Cheshire, at Runcorn, at 

 Warbnrton, the annual Rushbearing wake is carried out in grand style. A large 

 quantity of rushes, sometimes a cartload, is collected, and being bound on the cart, 

 are cut evenly at each end, and on Saturday evening a number of men sit on the top 

 of the rushes, bearing garlands of artificial flowers, tinsel, and such things. The 

 cart is drawn round the parish by three or four spirited horses, decked with bells 

 and ribbons. It is attended by morris dancers, fantastically dressed ; there are men 

 in women's clothes, one of whom, with his face blackened, has a belt, with a largo 

 bell attached, round his waist, and he carries a ladle to collect money. The party 

 stop and dance at the public-house on their way to the church, where the rushes are 

 deposited, and the garlands are hung up to serve for the next year. 



