"Each man upon his back
Shall swallow his sack,
This health will endure no shrinking;
The rest shall dance round
Him that lies on the ground:
'Fore me this is excellent drinking."
MAY-POLES.
The May-pole, it has been already stated, is still in existence at Offenham, Hartlebury, Bayton, &c. Thomas Hall, a puritanical writer (1660), author of the "Downfall of May Games," says—"The most of these May-poles are stollen, yet they give out that the poles are given them. There were two May-poles set up in my parish (Kingsnorton); the one was stollen, and the other was given by a profest Papist. That which was stollen was said to bee given, when 'twas proved to their faces that 'twas stollen, and they were made to acknowledge their offence. This pole that was stolen was rated at five shillings: if all the poles, one with another, were so rated, which was stollen this May, what a considerable sum would it amount to! Fightings and bloodshed are usual at such meetings, insomuch that 'tis a common saying, that 'tis no festival unless there bee some fightings."
HEAVING.
"Heaving" or "lifting" at Easter has not long been discontinued at Worcester, the locality where the writer last heard of its performance being in Birdport and Dolday. On Easter Monday the women would surround any man who happened to be passing by, and by their joint efforts lift him up in the air, and on the next day the men did the same to the women. The only mode of escaping this kind of elevation was by "forking out" (as they term it in the classical phraseology of that neighbourhood) a certain sum to be spent in drink. At Hartlebury, a few years back, the farmhouse mistress would give the male servant a treat on Easter Tuesday, to heave the female servant, for she superstitiously believed that it would prevent the female servant from breaking the crocks during the ensuing year. At Kidderminster, on Easter Monday, the women would deck themselves gaily for the occasion, dress a chair with ribbons, and place a rope across the street to prevent the escape of any unfortunate man who chanced to pass that way. He was then seized, placed in the chair, elevated up on high, turned round three times, set down again, and was then kissed by all the women. He was also expected to pay something towards the evening's entertainments of tea and dancing. Next day the women were heaved by the men. This custom was observed in the streets till about a dozen years ago, and even to a later period in the factories and public-houses in Kidderminster. Heaving was no doubt originally designed to represent the resurrection.
VALENTINE'S DAY
is one of the best preserved customs of the middle ages, and will probably last as long as "young men and maidens" have a tender regard for each other. The first woman seen by a man on the morning of this day, or vice versa, is called their Valentine, though the parties never see each other again. Since the establishment of the penny postage system and the cheapening of paper and print, the custom of sending Valentines has been much on the increase, some of our Worcester booksellers having found the trade sufficiently important to warrant the insertion of advertisements in the newspapers announcing a varied stock of these little missives on hand; while the progress of education and taste among the people is shown by the elegance with which some of the amatory designs are "got up." There is no satisfactory account of the origin of this custom, which has been proved to have existed at least five centuries ago. In the life of St. Valentine there is nothing that could have given rise to it. There was a rural tradition that on this day every bird chose its mate:
"Look how, my dear, the feather'd kind,
By mutual caresses joined,
Bill, and seem to teach us two
What we to love and custom owe.
Shall only you and I forbear
To meet and make a happy pair?
Shall we alone delay to live?
This day an age of bliss may give.
But ah! when I the proffer make,
Still coyly you refuse to take;
My heart I dedicate in vain,
The too mean present you disdain.