March 16.]

Lancashire.

A rural celebration used to be held at Poulton-in-the-Fylds on the Monday before Good Friday, by young men, under the name of “Jolly Lads,” who visited such houses as were likely to afford good entertainments, and excited mirth by their grotesque habits and discordant noises. This was evidently borrowed from the practice of the pace or pask eggers, of other parts of the county, merely preceding instead of following Easter.—Baines, Hist. of Lancashire, 1836, vol. iv. p. 436.

Oxfordshire.

Aubrey, in MS. Lansd., 231, gives the following: It is the custom for the boys and girls in country schools in several parts of Oxfordshire, at their breaking up in the week before Easter, to go in a gang from house to house, with little clacks of wood, and when they come to any door, there they fall a-beating their clacks, and singing this song:

They expect from every house some eggs, or a piece of bacon, which they carry baskets to receive, and feast upon at the week’s end. At first coming to the door, they all strike up very loud, “Herrings, herrings,” &c., often repeated. As soon as they receive any largess, they begin the chorus—

But if they lose their expectation and must goe away empty, then, with a full cry,—

And, in further indignation, they commonly cut the latch of the door, or stop the key-hole with dirt, or leave some more nasty token of displeasure.—Thom’s Anecdotes and Traditions, 1839, p. 113.