HEAVING.
"Heaving" or "lifting" at Easter has not long been discontinued at Worcester, the locality where the writer last heard of its performance being in Birdport and Dolday. On Easter Monday the women would surround any man who happened to be passing by, and by their joint efforts lift him up in the air, and on the next day the men did the same to the women. The only mode of escaping this kind of elevation was by "forking out" (as they term it in the classical phraseology of that neighbourhood) a certain sum to be spent in drink. At Hartlebury, a few years back, the farmhouse mistress would give the male servant a treat on Easter Tuesday, to heave the female servant, for she superstitiously believed that it would prevent the female servant from breaking the crocks during the ensuing year. At Kidderminster, on Easter Monday, the women would deck themselves gaily for the occasion, dress a chair with ribbons, and place a rope across the street to prevent the escape of any unfortunate man who chanced to pass that way. He was then seized, placed in the chair, elevated up on high, turned round three times, set down again, and was then kissed by all the women. He was also expected to pay something towards the evening's entertainments of tea and dancing. Next day the women were heaved by the men. This custom was observed in the streets till about a dozen years ago, and even to a later period in the factories and public-houses in Kidderminster. Heaving was no doubt originally designed to represent the resurrection.