Then the cake was cut and distributed amid much laughter and merry shouts. The holders of the bean and pea were hailed as king and queen for the night, the band struck up some time-honoured melody, and a country dance followed which was ever carried on with much spirit. The king exercised his royal prerogative by choosing partners for the women, and the queen performed a like office for the men; and so they merrily played their parts till the hours grew late.
But the holidays were nearly over, and the time for resuming work had arrived. However, neither the women nor the men seemed to be in any hurry to begin. The day after Twelfth Day was humorously called St. Distaft's[[3]] Day, which was devoted to "partly work and partly play." Herrick, the recorder of many social customs, tells us that the ploughmen used to set on fire the flax which the maids used for spinning, and received pails of water on their heads for their mischief. The following Monday was called Plough Monday, when the labourers used to draw a plough decked with ribbons round the parish, and receive presents of money, favouring the spectators with sword-dancing and mumming. The rude procession of men, clad in clean smock-frocks, headed by the renowned "Bessy," who sang and rattled the money-box, accompanied by a strangely-dressed character called the Fool, attired in skins of various animals and having a long tail, threw life into the dreary scenery of winter, as the gaily-decked plough was drawn along the quiet country lanes from one village to another. The origin of Plough Monday dates back to pre-Reformation times, when societies of ploughmen called guilds used to keep lights burning upon the shrine of some saint, to invoke a blessing on their labour. The Reformation put out the lights, but it could not extinguish the festival.
In the long winter evenings the country folk amused themselves around their winter's fireside by telling old romantic stories of errant knights and fairies, goblins, witches, and the rest; or by reciting
"Some merry fit
Of Mayde Marran, or els of Robin Hood."
In the Tudor times there were plenty of winter games for those who could play them, amongst which we may mention chess, cards, dice, shovel-board, and many others.
And when the ponds and rivers were frozen, as early as the twelfth century the merry skaters used to glide over the smooth ice. Their skates were of a very primitive construction, and consisted of the leg-bones of animals tied under their feet by means of thongs. Neither were the skaters quite equal to cutting "threes" and "eights" upon the ice; they could only push themselves along by means of a pole with an iron spike at the end. But they used to charge each other after the manner of knights in a tournament, and use their poles for spears. An old writer says that "they pushed themselves along with such speed that they seemed to fly like a bird in the air, or as darts shot out from the engines of war." Some of the less adventurous youths were content with sliding, or driving each other forward on great pieces of ice. "Dancing with swords" was a favourite form of amusement among the young men of Northern nations, and in those parts of England where the Norsemen and Danes settled, this graceful gymnastic custom long lingered.
DANCING ON THE VILLAGE GREEN.
The old country dances which used to delight our fathers seem to be vanishing. I have not seen for many years the village rustics "crossing hands" and going "down the middle," and tripping merrily to the tune of a fiddle; but perhaps they do so still.
In olden days the city maidens of London were often "dancing and tripping till moonlight" in the open air; and later on we read that on holidays, after evening prayer, while the youths exercised their wasters and bucklers, the maidens, "one of them playing on a timbrel, in sight of their masters and dames, used to dance for garlands hanged athwart the streets." Stow, the recorder of this custom, wisely adds, "which open pastimes in my youth, being now suppressed, worser practices within doors are to be feared." In some parts of England they still trip it gaily in the moonlight. A clergyman in Gloucestershire tried to establish a cricket club in his parish, but his efforts were all in vain; the young men preferred to dance together on the village green, and the more manly diversion had no charms for them. Dancing was never absent from our ancestors' festivities, and round the merry May-pole