His pains to fill their rural merriment."
WHITSUNTIDE.
Whitsuntide, the season of Pentecost, or the week following Whitsunday (the seventh Sunday after Easter), was another period of festivity in old English times.
The morris-dance was commonly one of its features, as of the May-day sports. In Henry V. (ii. 4. 25) the Dauphin alludes to it:—
" 'I say 't is meet we all go forth
To view the sick and feeble parts of France;
And let us do it with no show of fear,
No, with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance."
Another custom connected with the festival was the "Whitsun-ale." Ale was so common a drink in England that it became a part of the name of various festal meetings. A "leet-ale" was a feast at the holding of a court-leet; a "lamb-ale" was a sheep-shearing merry-making; a "bride-ale" was a bridal, as we now call it—always a festive occasion; and a "church-ale" was connected with some ecclesiastical holiday.