Hither, hither, now repair,
Bonny Agnes let me see
The lad who is to marry me.
(See Times Telescope, 1823, p. 15.) Again, the 20th April is not a festival day, but in Worcestershire there is a belief in the county that the cuckoo is never heard till Tenbury Fair day, which is the 20th April (Dyer’s Popular Customs, p. 192); a fact which, when compared to the narrative on page 6, goes far to prove that this Worcestershire belief was known to the author of Mother Bunch. The unlucky days mentioned on pages 11 and 32 are curious, and should be compared with the calendar customs collected in Hampson’s Medii Ævi Kalendarium. Of the nature of the customs performed on the various days it will not be necessary to say much. They are all connected with divination for a wife or a husband. But they are curious in preserving the rhyming words of an incantation which may be of considerable archaic importance if we could arrive, by a comparison of all the extant rhymes on this subject, at something like the original form. Coupled with this are two significant customs, namely, the journey to the church-door on St. Agnes Eve (p. 30), which may be considered with the perambulation of the church recorded on page 18. These may be compared with the Derbyshire custom recorded in the Jour. Arch. Assoc. vol. vii. p. 209. And the gathering of flowers in a silent grove on Midsummer Eve (p. 31) should also be noted.
Of customs incidentally mentioned there are divinations connected with apple (p. 8), cakes (18), cuckoo (20), flowers (19), hemp-seed (18), lemon (30), new moon (19), nuts (30), peascod (29). Horn Fair day is mentioned on p. 24. On page 16 in the rhymes there given the game of tick-tack is mentioned. This is a game at tables similar to backgammon, and is sometimes called trick-track. Mr. Wheatley, in his Dictionary of Reduplicated Words, has collected the instances of its mention in the early writers.
The following are the proverbs:—
(1) An ill bird befoules it own nest (6).
(2) Kiss and tell is base play (6).
(3) If you will not when you may, when you will you shall have nay (13).
(4) Look before you leap (13) (see Paradise of Daynty Deuyses, 1578; Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557).