The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England / Including the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games, Mummeries, Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pompous Spectacles from the Earliest Period to the Present Time

by Joseph Strutt

134.

Here we see a rope apparently made fast at both ends, and a man laying hold of it with his teeth, by which he seems to support himself. If this be the meaning of the delineator, the trick may properly be classed with those that were exhibited by the minstrels and the joculators.

135

136.

With respect to the two preceding drawings from the frequently mentioned MS. of 1344, in the Bodleian Library, I can hardly venture a conjecture; unless we may suppose them to represent two of the ridiculous ceremonies belonging to the Festival of Fools. I suspect the monks with the nuns in No. 135, are lay people who have assumed the religious habits, for the former have not the tonsure, but their hair is powdered with blue.

XVI.—CREAG—QUEKE-BOARD—HAND IN AND HAND OUT—WHITE AND BLACK, AND MAKING AND MARRING—FIGGUM—MOSEL THE PEG—HOLE ABOUT THE CHURCHYARD—PENNY-PRICK, PICK-POINT, &c.—MOTTOES, SIMILES, AND CROSS-PURPOSES—THE PARSON HAS LOST HIS CLOAK.