——————— "Come, take your flowers:
Methinks, I play as I have seen them do
in Whitsun' pastorals."[181:A]
Soon after Whitsuntide began the season of sheep-shearing, which was generally terminated about midsummer, and either at its commencement or close, was distinguished by the Lamb-ale or Sheep-shearing Feast. At Kidlington in Oxfordshire, it seems to have been ushered in by ceremonies of a peculiar kind, for, according to Blount, "the Monday after the Whitsun week, a fat lamb was provided, and the maidens of the town, having their thumbs tied behind them, were permitted to run after it, and she who with her mouth took hold of the lamb was declared the Lady of the Lamb, which, being killed and cleaned, but with the skin hanging upon it, was carried on a long pole before the lady and her companions to the green, attended with music, and a morisco dance of men, and another of women. The rest of the day was spent in mirth and merry glee. Next day the lamb, partly baked, partly boiled, and partly roasted, was served up for the lady's feast, where she sat, majestically at the upper end of the table, and her companions with her, the music playing during the repast, which, being finished, the solemnity ended."[181:B]
The most usual mode, however, of celebrating this important period was by a dinner, music, with songs, and the election of a Shepherd King, an office always conferred upon the individual
whose flock had produced the earliest lamb. The dinner is thus enjoined by the rustic muse of Tusser:—
"Wife make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corne,
Make wafers and cakes, for our sheepe must be shorne,
At sheep-shearing, neighbours none other things crave,
But good cheare and welcome, like neighbours to have."[182:A]