place upon the sun entering Taurus, to celebrate nature's renewed fertility. paλos in Greek signifies a pole, in addition to its more important meaning, of which this is the type: and in the precession of the equinoxes and the changes of the calendar we shall find an easy solution of any apparent inconsistencies arising from the difference of seasons. For obvious reasons, I can do no more than hint at these mysteries, which besides would require a volume for their full discussion.

That the May festival has come down to us from the Druids, who themselves had it from India, is proved by many striking facts and coincidences, and by none more than the vestiges of the God, Bel, the Apollo or Orus of other nations. The Druids celebrated his worship on the first of May, by lighting immense fires in honour of him upon the various carns, and hence the day is called by the aboriginal Irish and the Scotch Highlanders-both remnants of the Celtic stock-"la Bealtine," "Bealtaine," or "Beltine," that is, the day of Belen's fire; for, in the Cornish, which is a Celtic dialect, we find that "tan" is fire, and to tine, signifies to light the fire. The Irish still retain the Phoenician custom of lighting fires at short distances, and making the cattle pass between them. Fathers too, taking their children in their arms, jump or run through them, thus passing the latter, as it were, through the flames, the very practice so expressly condemned in Scripture.* But even this custom appears to have been only a substitute for the atrocious sacrifice of children, as practised by the elder Phoenicians. The God, Saturn-that is, Moloch-was represented by a statue bent slightly forward, and so placed that the least weight was sufficient to alter its position. Into the arms of this idol the priest gave the child to be sacrificed, when, its balance being thus destroyed, it flung, or rather dropt, the victim into a fiery furnace that blazed below. If other proof were wanting of Eastern origin, we might find them in the fact that Britain was called by the earlier inhabitants the "Island of Beli,"† and that Bel had

"And made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abomination of the heathen," 2 Kings xvi. 3.

Thus in one of the Welsh Triads, a collection of aphorisms, supposed to be of great antiquity, we read: "sincerely I worship thee, Beli, giver of good,

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also the name of Hu, a word which we see again occurring in the Huli festival of India.

"In the moneth of May," says Stow, "namely, on Mayday in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweete meadows and greene woods, there to rejoyce their spirites with the beauty and savour of sweete flowers, and with the harmony of birds praysing God in their kind; and for example hereof Edward Hall hath noted that K. Henry the Eight, as in the 3 of his reigne and divers other years, so namely on the seventh of his reigne on May-day in the morning, with Queene Katheren his wife, accompanied with many Lords and Ladies, rode a Maying from Greenwitch to the high ground of Shooter's hill, where, as they passed by the way, they espied a company of tall yeomen clothed all in Greene, with greene whoodes and with bowes and arrowes to the number of 100. One being their chieftaine was called Robin Hoode, who required the king and his companie to stay and see his men shoote, whereunto the king graunting, Robin Hoode whistled, and all the 200 archers shot off losing all at once; and when he whistled againe, they likewise shot againe; their arrowes whistled by craft of the head, so that the noyse was strange and loude, which greatly delighted the king, queene, and their companie."

The next class of May-day festivals to be considered is the Morris-dance, of which Robin Hood and his companions often, but not always, nor of necessity, formed the principal characters. It is generally supposed to be of Moorish origin, and to be derived to us from Spain. Hence its name. And in confirmation of this opinion we are told by Junius, that at one time the dancers blackened their faces to resemble Moors. The principal characters of it generally, though not always, were Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Scarlet, Stokesley, Little John, the Hobby Horse, the Bavian or Fool, Tom the Piper, with his pipe and tabor, the Dragon, of which last we have no mention before the time of the fanatic Stubbes-that is, not before 1585. But it must be distinctly understood that the number of characters

and Manhogan the king, who preserves the honours of Bel, the island of Beli." Davies' "Celtic Researches," p. 191, 8vo, London, 1806.

varied much at different times and places-so much so indeed that it is impossible to give anything like an accurate account of all the changes.

The May-pole was made sometimes of oak, at others of elm, and at others again of birch, painted yellow and black in spiral lines, and ornamented at the top with a flag. In some parts of the country it was suffered to stand untouched the whole year round.

At Oxford, and the custom does not seem to have been

confined to that place, Aubrey tells us, "the boys doe blow

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cowshorns and hollow canes all night; and on May-day the young maids of every parish carry about their parish garlands of flowers, which afterwards they hang up in their churches." Hearne derives this blowing of horns from a custom they had amongst the Greeks and Romans, as well as amongst the Jews, of using the horn for a drinking cup, and in proof thereof gives sundry quotations from Homer, Nonnus, and the scholiasts on Nicander. All this learning is wasted to very little purpose; the mere fact of its being a cheap instrument of noise, to be procured with very little trouble, would sufficiently account for the use of it without going to the Greeks and Romans.

Some classes, such as the milkmaids and the chimneysweepers, have in particular assumed this day for a distinctive festival; or, what is more likely, they continued to celebrate it long after it fell into disuse with their neighbours. The first of these have in most parts discontinued their peculiar Mayings, though Strutt, who wrote little more than seventy years ago, says, "the Mayings are in some sorte yet kept up by the milk-maids at London, who go about the streets with their garlands and music, dancing." Misson, too, but he is of yet earlier date, has described the same thing, and more minutely-"On the first of May," he observes," and the five and six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of silver plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribands and flowers, and carry upon their heads instead of common milk-pails. In this equipage, accompany'd by some of their fellow milk-maids and a bagpipe, or fiddle, they go from door to door, dancing before the houses of their customers, in the midst of boys and girls, that follow them in troops, and everybody gives them something."

The plate here alluded to, was in many, I believe, in most-instances borrowed from some pawnbroker at so much per hour, and always under bond from responsible housekeepers for its safe return. In this way the same plate and garland would be let out to different parties in the course of the day, one set hiring them from ten till one, and another from one o'clock to six. Those who could not afford this display, had recourse to a custom much more

simple and beautiful. A cow, selected no doubt for the superiority of her personal attractions, was tricked out for the occasion, as fine as flowers and ribbons of all colours could make her; they were twined about her horns, her neck, her tail, and even garlanded the rope by which she was led, while a net, with similar ornaments interwoven, was flung across her back, as though she had been a lady's palfrey. In this state the cow was paraded along in triumph by a pretty country girl, quite as gay as herself, with flowers and ribbons, the mistress marching at her side in like fashion. Nor is it many years since this primitive and pleasing show might have been witnessed within the sound of the old abbey-bells.

Many superstitions belong to May-day in practice that do not appear to have any necessary, or natural connection with it. Thus, the month itself is held to be unlucky for the solemnisation of marriage, an idea probably derived to us through Popish times from the ancient Romans. To bathe the face in dew that lies upon the morning grass will on this particular day be as beneficial as the bath of beauty in the fairy tales. Divinations also of various kinds are practised. In Northumberland they fish with a ladle for a wedding-ring, that has been dropped into a bowl of syllabub, the object being to prognosticate who shall first be married. It would seem, too, that a species of divination was practised with snails. This was done by strewing the hearth with white embers, placing a snail upon them, and from the lines traced by the creature in its progress, imagining some letter which was to correspond with the initials of the "secret love."