[621] Stubbes, i. 146; cf. the further quotations and references there given in the notes.
[622] 6 Mary, cap. 61.
[623] Child, v. 45; cf. Representations, s.v. Aberdeen, on the breaches of the statute there in 1562 and 1565.
[624] Dyer, 228; Drake, 85. At Cerne Abbas, Dorset, the May-pole was cut down in 1635 and made into a town ladder (F. L. x. 481).
[625] Grimm, ii. 784; Kleinere Schriften, v. 281; Pearson, ii. 281.
[626] Frazer, ii. 82; Grant Allen, 293, 315; Grimm, ii. 764; Pearson, ii. 283.
[627] Frazer, ii. 86; Martinengo-Cesaresco, 267. Cf. the use of the bladder of blood in the St. Thomas procession at Canterbury (Representations, s. v.).
[628] Frazer, iii. 70. Amongst such customs are the expulsion of Satan on New Year’s day by the Finns, the expulsion of Kore at Easter in Albania, the expulsion of witches on March 1 in Calabria, and on May 1 in the Tyrol, the frightening of the wood-sprites Strudeli and Strätteli on Twelfth night at Brunnen in Switzerland. Such ceremonies are often accompanied with a horrible noise of horns, cleavers and the like. Horns are also used at Oxford (Dyer, 261) and elsewhere on May 1, and I have heard it said that the object of the Oxford custom is to drive away evil spirits. Similar discords are de rigueur at Skimmington Ridings. I very much doubt whether they are anything but a degenerate survival of a barbaric type of music.
[629] Frazer, iii. 121.
[630] Tylor, Anthropology, 382.