Many of the popular customs then in use had their origin in remote antiquity. The well-known custom of making presents upon New-Year's-day in England is as old, for instance, as the period in which the Romans sojourned in Britain, and by whom it was introduced amongst us. Amongst the Saxons the first of the new year was observed with great ceremony and hilarity, and in the reign of Alfred a law was made that the twelve days following Christmas-day should be kept as festivals. This is the original of our twelfth-day feast, and which, in Elizabeth's reign, and long afterwards, was kept with something more of jovial circumstance than is now customary. For what says Herrick—
"For sports, for pagentrie and plays,
Thou hast thy eves and holy days.
Thy wakes, thy quintels, here thou hast:
Thy May-pole, too, with garlands vast.
Thy morrice dance, thy Whitsun ale,
Thy shearing feasts which never fail;
Thy harvest home, thy wassaile bowle
That's tost up after fox-i'th-hole;
Thy mummeries, thy twelfe-tide kings,
And queens; thy Christmas revellings."
When Master Dismal reached Shottery, he found a goodly assemblage collected together enjoying themselves in various ways upon the green. A whole sheep, which had been given to the inhabitants of the hamlet by Sir Thomas Lucy, who possessed property there, was roasting before a huge fire. A company of morris-dancers, dressed in a sort of eastern or Moorish costume, and covered with bells, were capering away, toeing and heeling, and keeping time, their truncheons also bedecked with hawks' bells, and making a tremendous jingling.
Then the May-pole, decked with evergreens and berries, and surmounted with misletoe, had its joyous party dancing, and running, and threading, and laughing, till the green rang again. The lads were all in holiday trim, their short becoming jackets belted tightly round the waist, their trunks and well-fitting hose forming part of their picturesque costume. The lasses were also dressed for the most part in one style—the neat made boddice and the short stuff petticoat, so becoming to the female figure, and in which they looked handsomer even than if bedizened with lace and silk, and tricked out with jewellery. The glow of exercise was in their cheeks, and the forms of many there, as they sported in all the unchecked freedom of innocent enjoyment, would have been worthy studies for the artist's pencil.
The children of the village, who are seldom behindhand when diversions are in full force, had also their part in the performance. Tricked out in all sorts of scraps of frippery, and costumed for the nonce, they revived, in their own way, the Christmas-day pastimes, and bringing out the hobby-horse, the green dragon, and all the paraphernalia which had done service on the former occasion, they renewed (in small) the sports they had then and there beheld. The dragon flapped his wings, the knight engaged him, the merryman and the old pantaloon took equal numbers of adherents, and "fought on part and part." The snow-balls flew fast and furious, and loud and dire were the shouts and hallooing of the combatants. Then came the feast in the open air, for in those days men and women shrank not from the winter blast during their holiday sports, and after that the cup went round, the dance was renewed, and the twelfth-tide kings and queens were introduced in all their grandeur.
The village of Shottery was a lovely specimen of a rural hamlet in the days of Elizabeth. It consisted then but of some half-a-dozen houses or hamlets, which, sequestered amongst the deep woodlands, and each with its little orchard in rear, and its pretty flower-garden, formed a delicious picture.
Except, indeed, that the homesteads were of a more recent build, (having superseded the ruder sort of huts, one or two of which, however, yet remained,) Shottery seemed as sequestered and out of the way of the busy world as when, many hundred years back, Offa, King of the Mercians, granted its meadow to the church of Worcester.
Besides the actors in the different games, there were also many spectators, who stood about and occasionally mingled amongst the lads and lasses of the village; and amongst these visitors were several foresters or keepers belonging to the domains of the gentry around.
These men, as was generally the case when they met together at the different wakes, fairs, and country diversions, got up a shooting-match at the edge of the green. Warwickshire was always famous for its bow-men, and the caliver had not so entirely superseded the cloth-yard shaft but that it was yet a dear diversion amongst the peasantry. The cross-bow, it is true, was mostly in use, but the longbow was still much practised. The remembrance of its destructive powers, and the battles it had won in the "vasty fields of France," was yet ripe in the mouths and memories of the old host, when he told his winter tale; nay, even yet we shall find in this delightful province some remnant of the longbow in almost every hamlet: there are indeed more archery meetings in Warwickshire alone than in all the other counties of England put together.
Amongst the many specimens of rural beauty enjoying themselves in the dance, there was one female who especially attracted the gaze of all assembled.