[461] Certain lands were held of the chapter for which a fat buck was paid on the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25), and a fat doe on the Commemoration of St. Paul (June 30). They were offered, according to one writer, alive, at the high altar; the flesh was baked, the head and horns carried in festal procession. The custom dated from at least 1274 (Dyer, 49; W. Sparrow Simpson, St. Paul’s Cath. and Old City Life, 234).
[462] F. L. iv. 9; x. 355. White bulls are said to have been led to the shrine by women desirous of children. F. C. Conybeare, in R. de l’Hist. des Religions, xliv. 108, describes some survivals of sacrificial rites in the Armenian church which existed primitively in other Greek churches also.
[463] F. L. vii. 346. Bull-baiting often took place on festivals, and in several cases, as at Tutbury, the bull was driven into or over a river. Bear-baiting is possibly a later variant of the sport.
[464] Burton, 165; Suffolk F. L. 71; Ditchfield, 227; Dyer, 387; Pfannenschmidt, 279; cf. the Abbots Bromley Horn-dance (ch. viii).
[465] F. L. iv. 5. The custom of sacrifice at the foundation of a new building has also left traces: cf. Grant Allen, 248; F. L. xi. 322, 437; Speth, Builders’ Rites and Ceremonies.
[466] Douce, 598, gives a cut of a hobby-horse, i. e. a man riding a pasteboard or wicker horse with his legs concealed beneath a foot-cloth. According to Du Méril, Com. i. 79, 421, the device is known throughout Europe. In France it is the chevalet, cheval-mallet, cheval-fol, &c.; in Germany the Schimmel.
[467] Dyer, 182, 266, 271; Ditchfield, 97; Burton, 40; F. L. viii. 309, 313, 317; cf. ch. ix on the ‘fool’ or ‘squire’ in the sword and morris dances, and ch. xvi on his court and literary congener. The folk-fool wears a cow’s tail or fox’s brush, or carries a stick with a tail at one end and a bladder and peas at the other. He often wears a mask or has his face blacked. In Lancashire he is sometimes merged with the ‘woman’ grotesque of the folk-festivals, and called ‘owd Bet.’
[468] W. Gregor, F. L. of N. E. Scotland, 181, says that bread and cheese were actually laid in the field, and in the plough when it was ‘strykit.’
[469] Dyer, 20, 207, 447; Ditchfield, 46; F. L. vi. 93. Pirminius v. Reichenau, Dicta (†753), c. 22, forbids ‘effundere super truncum frugem et vinum.’
[470] F. L. Congress, 449, gives a list of about fifty ‘feasten’ cakes. Some are quite local; others, from the Shrove Tuesday pancake to the Good Friday hot cross bun, widespread.