British Popular Customs, Present and Past / Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.

by T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

Sept. 14.] HOLY-ROOD DAY.

Sept. 14.]

HOLY-ROOD DAY.

This festival, called also Holy-Cross Day, was instituted by the Romish Church on account of the recovery of a large piece of the cross by the Emperor Heraclius, after it had been taken away on the plundering of Jerusalem by Chosroes, King of Persia.

It appears to have been customary to go a-nutting upon this day, from the following passage in the old play of Grim the Collier of Croydon:

“This day, they say, is called Holy-Rood Day,
And all the youth are now a-nutting gone.”

In the Gent. Mag. is the following:—“Tuesday, September 14th, 1731, being Holy-Rood Day, the king’s huntsmen hunted their free buck in Richmond New Park, with bloodhounds, according to custom.”