During the last century it was customary in this county, on Easter Eve, for the boys to form a procession bearing rough torches, and a small black flag, chanting the following lines:
“We fasted in the light,
For this is the night.”
This custom was no doubt a relic of the Popish ceremony formerly in vogue at this season.—Brand, Pop. Antiq., 1849, vol. i. p. 160.
Middlesex.
Brayley in his Londiniana (1829, vol. ii. p. 207) mentions a custom of the sheriffs, attended by the Lord Mayor, going through the streets on Easter Eve, to collect charity for the prisoners in the city prisons.
Yorkshire.
In East Yorkshire young folks go to the nearest market-town to buy some small article of dress or personal ornament, to wear for the first time on Easter Sunday, as otherwise they believe that birds—notably rooks or “crakes”—will spoil their clothes.—N. & Q. 4th S. vol. v. p. 595.
In allusion to the custom of wearing new clothes on Easter Day Poor Robin says:
“At Easter let your clothes be new,
Or else be sure you will it rue.”