22 



Flowers and Festivals 



Westmoreland, Lancashire, and districts of Yorkshire, 

 there is still celebrated, between hay-making and 

 harvest, a village fete called the Rush-bearing. 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 

 bands playing and banners flying. There they sus- 

 pend their floral chaplets on the chancel rails, and 

 the day is concluded with a simple feast. 



The neighbourhood of Ambleside w^as, until 

 lately, and may be still, one of the chief strong- 

 holds of this popular practice ; respecting which I 

 will only add, as a curious fact, that up to the passing 

 of the Municipal Reform Act, the town clerk of 

 Norwich was accustomed to pay to the sub-sacrist 

 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 use of the custom 

 which has come ^thin my knowledge." 



In the " Herball to the Bible," 1587, mention is 



