Old Cuatoms of Morpeth. By Wm. Woodman. 131 



Queen Anne, he refused to pay toll, and the river being 

 flooded, he was detained until the flood abated. 



Feasts and Pastimes. — Waits*. Until the passing of the 

 Municipal Reform Act, the waits perambulated the town between 

 2 and 3 o'clock a.m. They consisted of a piper and fiddler ; 

 earlier, these were preceded by a man carrying a lanteru on a 

 pole. On Christmas day they did not go their rounds until 

 seven o'clock, because no evil thing was then abroad. When 

 the waits came to the house of one of the Bailiffs,! the music 

 stopped a minute, one of them called "a fine frosty morning, 

 good moruing Mr Bailiff," and then on they went again. 



Trade Feasts. — Every tradesman must of necessity have been 

 a member of one of the guilds or companies in Morpeth, each of 

 which had its feast on some Saint's day — the Merchant Tailors' 

 on Corpus Christi, the Tanners' on Trinity Sunday. In the 

 early morning a branch of a tree was planted before the 

 Alderman's! door, then the company met at the Town Hall, 

 whence they walked in procession to church, headed by the 

 waits, each one bearing a branch of the accustomed tree, the 

 tanners the oak, the merchant tailors the birch. After the 

 business of the day was finished, the company feasted, the 

 tanners' company having a pie of veal, ham, and fruit. They 

 were not only entertained by the waits but by ' minstrelles,' and 

 received strangers, upon one occasion Lord William Howard. 

 Carrying branches of trees was customary in former days. At 

 Wiggenhall, in Norfolk, was a Bye-law. "At the general 



daye yat ilke a brother be redy wit a garlond of 



hoke lewes."! 



Bull-baiting: — was usual in Morpeth to the end of the last or 

 the earliest years of the present century, more frequent than 

 elsewhere from the great cattle market here. The Serjeant 

 provided the rope. The shoemakers kept the bull dogs. The 

 bull-ring was taken from its place in the Market-place, when 



* One of the Waits of Morpeth being dead, any Person that can play 

 well upon the Hautboy and Fiddle will, on Application to the 

 Magistrates of Morpeth, meet with encouragement. N.B. — It is a 

 place of considerable Profit. — N. Journal, 5th May 1746. 



t From immemorial times, Morpeth was ruled by two chief officers, 

 chosen annually on Michaelmas Monday, and styled ' Bailiffs.' 



X i.e. the chief officer of the company keeping feast. 



II English Guilds (Early English Text 8oc.) p. 117. 



