On Whitsunday, says a correspondent of N. & Q. (4th S. vol. i. p. 551), I was in the church of King’s Pion, near Hereford, and was struck with what seemed to me a novel style of church decoration. Every pew corner and “point of vantage” was ornamented with a sprig of birch, the light green leaves of which contrasted well with the sombreness of the woodwork. No other flower or foliage was to be seen in the church.
Northamptonshire.
Miss Baker (Glossary of Northamptonshire Words, 1854, vol. ii. p. 433) describes the celebration of a Whitsun-ale early in the present century in a barn at King’s Sutton, fitted up for the entertainment, in which the lord, as the principal, carried a mace made of silk, finely plaited with ribbons, and filled with spices and perfumes for such of the company to smell as desired it; six morris dancers were among the performers.
In a Whitsun-ale, last kept at Greatworth in 1785, the fool, in a motley garb, with a gridiron painted, or worked with a needle, on his back, carried a stick with a bladder, and a calf’s tail. Majordomo and his lady as Queen of May, and my lord’s morris (six in number) were in this procession. They danced round a garlanded maypole. A banquet was served in a barn, and all those who misconducted themselves were obliged to ride a wooden horse, and if still more unruly were put into the stocks, which was termed being my lord’s organist.—Glossary, &c., p. 434.
Northumberland.
An unchartered Whitsun Tryste Fair is still held annually on Whitsunbank Hill, near Wooler.—N. & Q. 5th S. vol. i. p. 402.
Oxfordshire.
A custom formerly prevailed amongst the people of Burford to hunt deer in Wychwood Forest. An original letter, in the possession of the corporation, dated 1593, directs the inhabitants to forbear the hunting for that year, on account of the plague that was then raging, and states an order that should be given to the keepers of the forest, to deliver to the bailiffs two bucks in lieu of the hunting; which privilege, was not, however, to be prejudiced in future by its remittance on that occasion.—Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 284.
Somersetshire.
Collinson, in his History of Somersetshire (vol. iii. p. 620), speaking of Yatton, says that, “John Lane of this parish, gentleman, left half an acre of ground, called the Groves, to the poor for ever, reserving a quantity of the grass for the strewing church on Whitsunday.”