by papists in many parts of the kingdom,"
of illuminating some of their grounds upon
the eve of All Souls, by bearing round them
straw and other fit materials kindled into a
blaze. He adds that the ceremony is called
a Tinley, and that according to the vulgar
opinion it is emblematical of a lighting of
souls out of purgatory. Careful consideration
of the subject shows that the custom is only
one of the many which Christianity borrowed
and modified from old British paganism. The
Tindles on All Souls' Eve are vestiges of the
great Druidical fires of the winter solstice.
The early Christian priesthood of Britain
found that it was easier to adapt than to
abrogate a festival to which the people had
been attached from remotest times. Rude
Day, or the Invention of the Cross, has in
some parts of Scotland observances
unquestionably pagan. The proximity of dates
enabled the Christian and the pagan festival
to be conveniently blended. Jamieson, in his
Scottish Dictionary, points out that the
superstitions peculiar to Rude Day, the third
of May, are in some parts of Scotland similar
to those of Beltane, the first of May, in other
parts.

The chronicle changes which have
gradually come over May Day is a social history
which curiously illustrates times and
manners long gone by, but which have left
their marks impressed upon current usages.
We have, first, a dim vision of the horrid
rites of Druidical times, when, upon the fires
of Beltane, and the other festivals of the Sun,
human beings were immolated in sacrifice.
The Druidical epoch of May Day solemnities
may be regarded as expiring Anno Domini
one hundred and seventy-seven. The Druids
practised their rites with great pomp and
exactness in Britain till the reign of King
Lucius, when Christianity was embraced by
that sovereign and other princes of the island.
Being deprived of the countenance of the
civil government, they disappeared at the
date referred to, though a semblance of their
ceremonies and sacrifices were long
afterwards clung to by the mass of the people,
and were at last only got rid of, as distinct
religious observances, either by being
incorporated with ceremonies sanctioned by the
Christian Church, or by being winked at, if
they were not at variance with its doctrine
and rules. Till about the close of the fifteenth
century, May Day customs in the south had
much more in them than afterwards, of the
old Druidical leaven, which was visible at a
later date in the less civilised regions to the
north of the Humber. Towards the close of
the fifteenth century, May Day observances
became greatly altered in character. They
were then, in a great measure, merged into
the popular honours enthusiastically paid
to the famous outlaw, Robin Hood. The
pageantry was at that period very elaborate,
and the orgies as licentious as at any previous
or subsequent time. Maying was first a
gay pastime, and then a scandal. Strutt
quotes the following curious passage from an
old romance called The Death of Arthur,
which was translated from the French, and
first printed in English by Caxton, in
fourteen hundred and eighty-one: "Now it
befell in the moneth of lusty May that Queen
Guenever called unto her the Knyghtes of
the Round Table, and gave them warning
that early in the morning she should ride on
Maying into the woods and fields beside
Westminster." Each knight was to be well
horsed, to carry a lady behind him, and to be
attended by an esquire and two metropolitan
yeomen. Maypoles lost their grandeur when
Westminster and other suburban woods
failed to furnish boughs and garlands. In
London, as well as in every part of the
country, the erection of houses and enclosures
have been the chief eradicators of rural
saturnalia. In Chaucer's day, the Maypole
at Cornhill was a social feature of the first
mark. Stow, who describes this "great
shaft" of Cornhill, calls it "a stinking idol
erected in every parish." He describes in a
very graphic manner the excursions from
town and village on May eve, or rather
during the night preceding the dawn of May
Day, in search of boughs wherewith to
decorate this idol. He says: "I have heard
it crediblie reported by men of great creditie,
and reputation, that of fourtie, threescore, or
a hundred maidens going to the wood, there
have scarcely the third part of them returned
as they went." The feasting, leaping, and
dancing round the pole, he speaks of as
resembling that of the heathens at the
dedication of their idols. Cromwell and the
Puritans, during their supremacy, entirely
suppressed Maydayism; and it never
recovered the shock which it thus received.

There are on record some choice specimens
of Anti-May Day sermons, and tracts.
Thomas Hall, the parish minister of King's
Norton, in sixteen hundred and sixty,
published a quaint pamphlet, called Funebria
Floræ, or the Downfall of May Games. He
thus addresses the Roman goddess, in whose
name he fancied all the gambols and iniquities
of May Day were perpetrated. "Flora,
hold up thy hand! Thou art here indicted
by the name of Flora, of the city of Rome,
in the county of Babylon, for that thou,
contrary to the peace of her sovereign lord,
his crown and dignity, hast brought in a
pack of practical fanatics; viz., ignorants,
atheists, papists, drunkards, swearers,
swashbucklers, maid-marrions, morrice-dancers,
maskers, mummers, Maypole stealers, health-
drinkers, gamesters, lewd men, light women,
contemners of magistrates, affronters of
ministers, rebellious to masters, and disobedient
to parents."

In the present day, it is neither a sin nor
a scandal to go a-Maying. Pity it is that
Mr. Hall cannot look up from his resting-
place to congratulate his countrymen upon