The first Monday after Twelfth-day is so denominated, and it is the ploughman’s holyday.
Of late years at this season, in the islands of Scilly, the young people exercise a sort of gallantry called “goose-dancing.” The maidens are dressed up for young men, and the young men for maidens; and, thus disguised, they visit their neighbours in companies, where they dance, and make jokes upon what has happened in the island; and every one is humorously “told their own,” without offence being taken. By this sort of sport, according to yearly custom and toleration, there is a spirit of wit and drollery kept up among the people. The music and dancing done, they are treated with liquor, and then they go to the next house of entertainment.[30]
[29] Monthly Magazine, January, 1827.
[30] Strutt’s Sports, 307.
Topography.
Willy-Howe, Yorkshire.
For the Table Book.
There is an artificial mount, by the side of the road leading from North Burton to Wold Newton, near Bridlington, in Yorkshire, called “Willy-howe,” much exceeding in size the generality of our “hows,” of which I have often heard the most preposterous stories related. A cavity or division on the summit is pointed out as owing its origin to the following circumstance:—