Then Sir Ryalas he drawed his broad-sword with might—
Wind well thy horn, good hunter;
And he fairly cut the boar’s head off quite,
For he was a jovial hunter.”
Matters being thus settled, the neighbourhood rung with the praises of the gallant deed of the lord of Chetwode, and the news thereof soon reached the ears of the king, who “liked him so well of the achievement,” that he forthwith made the knight tenant in capite, and constituted his manor paramount of all the manors within the limits and extent of the royal forest of Rookwoode. Moreover, he granted to him, and to his heirs for ever, among other immunities and privileges, the full right and power to levy every year the “Rhyne Toll,” which has already been described.
Such a custom as the “Rhyne Toll” is not without its use. It is a perpetual memorial, perhaps more convincing than written history, of the dangers which surrounded our ancestors, and from which our country has happily been so long delivered that we can now scarcely believe they ever existed.—The Book of Days, vol. ii. pp. 517-519.
Oct. 31.] HALLOW EVE.
Oct. 31.]
HALLOW EVE.
This eve is so called from being the vigil of All Saints’ Day, and is the season for a variety of superstitious and other customs. In the north of England many of these still linger. One of the most common is that of diving for apples, or of catching at them with the mouth only, the hands being tied behind, and the apples suspended on one end of a long transverse beam, at the other extremity of which is fixed a lighted candle. The fruit and nuts form the most prominent parts of the evening feast, and from this circumstance the night has been termed Nutcrack Night.[79]—Soane’s Book of the Months, 1849, vol. ii. p. 215; see Book of Days, vol. ii. pp. 519-520.
[79] See [Michaelmas Eve], [p. 375].
Sir William Dugdale (Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir W. Dugdale, edited by W. Hamper, 1827, p. 104) tells us that formerly, on Halloween, the master of the family used to carry a bunch of straw, fired, about his corn, saying: