Staffordshire.
At Paget’s Bromley a curious custom went out in the seventeenth century. A man came along the village with a mock horse fastened to him, with which he danced, at the same time making a snapping noise with a bow and arrow. He was attended by half a dozen fellow-villagers, wearing mock deers’ heads, and displaying the arms of the several landlords of the town. This party danced the Hays, and other country dances, to music, amidst the sympathy and applause of the multitude. There was also a huge pot of ale with cakes, by general contribution of the village, out of the very surplus of which “they not only repaired their church, but kept their poor too; which charges,” quoth Dr. Plot, “are not now, perhaps, so cheerfully borne.”—Plot’s Nat. Hist. of Staffordshire, 1680, p. 434.