[62] Chester Cathedral Treasurer’s Accounts.
[63] Frodsham Accounts.
[64] Lyson’s Cheshire.
Many rush-bearings, or “rush-buryings,” as they are sometimes called, became riotous festivities, and the Chester Courant for August 6, 1810, says:
“Christleton Rush-Bearing.—We were sorry to learn that the festivities of this annual fête should have been disgraced by that almost universally reprobated amusement, a Bull-bait. After this savage practice has fallen into disrepute and disgrace amongst the most uncultivated parts of the island, it is mortifying for us to record a transaction so disgraceful in the immediate vicinity of the polished city of Chester.”
In Cheshire also rushes are used as a charm for warts. The charmer has a long straight rush, ties three knots in it, makes it into a circle, draws it over the wart downwards nine times, at the same time muttering a spell which he refuses to disclose on the ground that if he did so the charm would not work. In three months the wart will disappear.
The old rush-lights of Cheshire were sold at twenty for sixpence. “They were as thick as the present ‘twelve’ candles (twelve to the pound), but half as long again, and gave a steady but dim light. There were some curious bits of folk-lore connected with them. For instance, if a rush-light in ‘sweating’ curled over, it denoted death; if a bright star appeared in the flame, it portended a letter.”[65]
[65] Burton, Rush-Bearing.
PACE-EGGING
This is still practised in the Wirral peninsula, and the rime sung by the children was as follows:—