[391] Harris, 7; Hartland, Fairy Tales, 71.
[392] Dyer, 205.
[393] Cf. ch. viii.
[394] Dyer, 275; Ditchfield, III; cf. the phrase ‘in and out the windows’ of the singing game Round and Round the Village (A. B. Gomme, s. v.).
[395] M. Deloche, Le Tour de la Lunade, in Rev. celtique, ix. 425; Bérenger-Féraud, i. 423; iii. 167.
[396] Bower, 13.
[397] Duchesne, 276; Usener, i. 293; Tille, Y. and C. 51; W. W. Fowler, 124; Boissier, La Religion romaine, i. 323. The Rogations or litaniae minores represent in Italy the Ambarvalia on May 29. But they are of Gallican origin, were begun by Mamertus, bishop of Vienne (†470), adapted by the Council of Orleans (511), c. 27 (Mansi, viii. 355), and required by the English Council of Clovesho (747), c. 16 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 368), to be held ‘non admixtis vanitatibus, uti mos est plurimis, vel negligentibus, vel imperitis, id est in ludis et equorum cursibus, et epulis maioribus.’ Jahn, 147, quotes the German abbess Marcsuith (940), who describes them as ‘pro gentilicio Ambarvali,’ and adds, ‘confido autem de Patroni huius misericordia, quod sic ab eo gyrade terrae semina uberius provenient, et variae aeris inclementiae cessent.’ Mediaeval Rogation litanies are in Sarum Processional, 103, and York Processional (York Manual, 182). The more strictly Roman litania major on St. Mark’s day (March 25) takes the place of the Robigalia, but is not of great importance in English folk-custom.
[398] Injunctions, ch. xix, of 1559 (Gee-Hardy, Docts. illustrative of English Church History, 426). Thanks are to be given to God ‘for the increase and abundance of his fruits upon the face of the earth.’ The Book of Homilies contains an exhortation to be used on the occasion. The episcopal injunctions and interrogatories in Ritual Commission, 404, 409, 416, &c., endeavour to preserve the Rogations, and to eliminate ‘superstition’ from them; for the development of the notion of ‘beating of bounds,’ cf. the eighteenth-century notices in Dyer, Old English Social Life, 196.
[399] The image is represented by the doll of the May-garland, which has sometimes, according to Ditchfield, 102, become the Virgin Mary, with a child doll in its arms, and at other times (e. g. Castleton, F. L. xii. 469) has disappeared, leaving the name of ‘queen’ to a particular bunch of flowers; also by the ‘giant’ of the midsummer watch. The Salisbury giant, St. Christopher, with his hobby-horse, Hob-nob, is described in Rev. d. T. P. iv. 601.
[400] Grimm, i. 257; Golther, 463; Mogk, iii. 374; Hahn, Demeter und Baubo, 38; Usener, Die Sintfluthsagen, 115. There are parallels in south European custom, both classical and modern, and Usener even derives the term ‘carnival,’ not from carnem levare, but from the currus navalis used by Roman women. A modern survival at Fréjus is described in F. L. xii. 307.