But I love oone which excellith alle.”
Shrove Tuesday brought a very madness of revelry: the people dressed up like wild beasts and ran about the streets; they danced; they made shows; they feasted and drank. The street processions did not end with Shrove Tuesday, they were carried over to Ash Wednesday, when every one paraded the streets carrying a herring on a pole and singing doggerel. And the approach of spring was celebrated by the following rough sport, evidently an ancient custom:—
“In some place all the youthful flocke with minstrels doe repaire,
And out of every house they pluck the girles and maidens faire;
And them to plough they straitway put, with whip one doth them hit:
Another holds the plough in hand: the Minstrel here doth sit
Amid the same and drunken songs with gaping mouth he sings
Whom foloweth one that sows out sande, or ashes fondly flings.
When thus they through the streets have plaied, the man that gardeth all
Doth drive both plough and maidens through some pond or river small: