Geoelin's etymon of the word will hereafter be considered under Yule as formerly used to signify Christmas.

In the ancient Calendar of the Romish Church which I have had occasion so frequently to cite, I find the subsequent remark on the first of August :

"Chains are worshipped, &c.

"Catena coluntur ad Aram in Exquiliis

Ad Vicum Cyprium juxta Titi thermas."

Antiquaries are divided also in their opinions concerning the origin of the word Lam, or Lamb-mass. We have an old proverb, "At latter Lammass," which is synonymous with the "ad Græcas Calendas" of the Latins, and the vulgar saying, "When two Sundays come together," i. e. never. It was in this phrase tnat Queen Elizabeth exerted her genius in an extempore reply to the ambassador of Philip II.: "Ad Græcas, bone Rex, fient mandata Kalendas."

"Lammass day, in the Salisbury Manuals, is called 'Benedictio novorum fructuum;' in the Red Book of Derby, hlar mærre dæʊ; see also Oros. Interp. 1. 6. c. 19. But in the Sax. Chron. p. 138, A.D. 1009, it is halam-mærre. Mass was a word for festival: hence our way of naming the festivals of Christmass, Candlemass, Martinmass, &c. Instead therefore of Lammass quasi Lamb-masse, from the offering of the tenants at York, may we not rather suppose the F to have been left out in course of time from general use, and La-mass or hlamærre will appear." Gent. Mag. Jan. 1799, p. 33.

Some suppose it is called Lammass Day, quasi Lamb-masse, because, on that day, the tenants who held lands of the Cathedral Church in York, which is dedicated to St. Peter ad Vincula, were bound by their tenure to bring a live lamb into the church at high mass. Others, according to Blount, suppose it to have been derived from the Saxon Hlar Mærre, i. e. loaf masse, or bread masse, so named as a feast of thanksgiving to God for the first-fruits of the corn. It seems to have been observed with bread of new wheat; and accordingly it is a usage in some places for tenants to be bound to bring in wheat of that year to their lord, on or before the 1st of August.

Vallancey, in his Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, x. 464,

cites Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel in the tenth century, in his Irish Glossary, as telling us that," in his time, four great fires were lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids; viz. in February, May, August, and November." Vallancey also tells us, p. 472, that this day (the Gule of August) was dedicated to the sacrifice of the fruits of the soil. La-ith-mas was the day of the oblation of grain. It is pronounced La-ee-mas, a word readily corrupted to Lammas. Ith is all kinds of grain, particularly wheat: and mas, fruit of all kinds, especially the acorn, whence mast. Cul and Gul in the Irish implies a complete circle, a belt, a wheel, an anniversary."

ST. SIXTUS, AUG. 6.

[The following lines are quoted by Cole in vol. 44 of his MS. collections:

"In Sixti festo venti validi memor esto;

Si sit nulla quies, farra valere scies."]

ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY.

AUGUST 15.

BARNABE GOOGE has the following lines upon this day in the English version of Naogeorgus:

The blessed Virgin Maries feast hath here his place and time,
Wherein, departing from the earth, she did the heavens clime;
Great bundels then of hearbes to church the people fast doe beare,
The which against all hurtfull things the priest doth hallow theare.
Thus kindle they and nourish still the peoples wickednesse,
And vainly make them to believe whatsoever they expresse :

For sundrie witchcrafts by these hearbs are wrought, and divers charmes,
And cast into the fire, are thought to drive away all harmes,
And every painefull griefe from man, or beast, for to expell,
Far otherwise than nature or the worde of God doth tell."

Popish Kingdome, p. 55.

Bishop Hall also tells us, in the Triumphs of Rome, p. 58, "that upon this day it was customary to implore blessings upon herbs, plants, roots, and fruits."

ST. ROCH'S DAY.

AUGUST 16.

AMONG the Extracts from the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Michael Spurrier-Gate, in the city of York, printed in Nichols's Illustrations of Ancient Manners, I find-“ 1518. Paid for writing of St. Royke Masse, 9d."1

Dr. Whitaker thinks that St. Roche or Rockes Day was celebrated as a general harvest-home.

In Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, 1630, under that of the Franklin, he says: "He allowes of honest pastime, and thinkes not the bones of the dead any thing bruised, or the worse for it, though the country lasses dance in the churchyard after even-song. Rock Monday, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wakefull ketches on Christmas Eve, the hoky, or seed cake, these he yeerely keepes, yet holds them no reliques of Popery."

I have sometimes suspected that "Rocke Monday" is a misprint for "Hock Monday;" but there is a passage in Warner's Albions England, ed. 1597 and 1602, p. 121, as follows:

"Rock and Plow Monday gams sal gang with saint feasts and kirk sights." And again, ed. 1602, p. 407,

"I'le duly keepe for thy delight Rock Monday and the wake,

Have shrovings, Christmas gambols, with the hokie and seed cake."

On this passage, Pegge, by whom the extracts were communicated, remarks, "St. Royk, St. Roche (Aug. 16). Q. why commemorated in particular? There is Roche Abbey, in the West Riding of the county of York, which does not take its name from the Saint, but from its situation on a rock, and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.-Tanner. The writing probably means making a new copy of the music appropriated to the day."

ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

AUGUST 24.

IN New Essayes and Characters, by John Stephens the younger, of Lincolnes Inne, Gent. 1631, p. 297, we read :"Like a bookseller's shoppe on Bartholomew Day at London, the stalls of which are so adorn'd with Bibles and Prayerbookes, that almost nothing is left within, but heathen knowledge."

Mr. Gough, in his History of Croyland Aboey, p. 73, mentions an ancient custom there of giving little knives to all comers on St. Bartholomew's Day. This abuse, he says, was abolished by Abbot John de Wisbech, in the time of Edward the Fourth, exempting both the abbot and convent from a great and needless expense. This custom originated in allusion to the knife wherewith St. Bartholomew was flead. Three of these knives were quartered with three of the whips so much used by St. Guthlac, in one coat borne by this house. Mr. Hunter had great numbers of them, of different sizes, found at different times in the ruins of the abbey and in the river. We have engraved three from drawings in the Minute Books of the Spalding Society, in whose drawers one is still preserved. These are adopted as the device of a town-piece, called the Poore's Halfe-peny of Croyland, 1670." [In allusion, says Mr. Hampson, to the forty days of rain which were supposed to depend upon the state of St. Swithin's Day, there is a proverb,

"All the tears that St. Swithin can cry,

St. Bartholomew's dusty mantle wipes dry."]

HOLY-ROOD DAY.

SEPTEMBER 14.

THIS festival, called also Holy Cross Day, was instituted on account of the recovery of a large piece of the Cross by the emperor Heraclius, after it had been taken away, on the plundering of Jerusalem by Chosroes, king of Persia, about the year of Christ 615.

Rood and cross are synonymous. From the Anglo-Saxon pod. "The rood," as Fuller observes, "when perfectly made, and with all the appurtenances thereof, had not only the image of our Saviour extended upon it, but the figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John, one on each side: in allusion to John xix. 26, Christ on the Cross saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by.'" See Fuller's Hist. Waltham Abbey, pp. 16, 17.

Such was the representation denominated the rood, usually placed over the screen which divided the nave from the chancel of our churches. To our ancestors, we are told, it conveyed a full type of the Christian church: the nave representing the church militant, and the chancel the church triumphant; denoting that all who would go from the one to the other must pass under the rood, that is, carry the Cross and suffer affliction. Churchwardens' accounts, previous to the Reformation, are usually full of entries relating to the rood-loft. The following extracts belong to that formerly in the church. of St. Mary-at-Hill, 5 Hen. VI.: "Also for makynge of a peire endentors betwene William Serle, carpenter, and us, for the rode lofte and the under clerks chambre, ijs. viijd." The second leaf, he observes, of the churchwardens' accounts contains the names (it should seem) of those who contributed to the erection of the rood-loft.1 "Also ress. of serteyn men for the rod loft; fyrst of Ric. Goslyn 107.; also of Thomas Raynwall 107.; also of Rook 26s. 7d.; and eighteen others. Summa totalis 957. 11s. 9d." The carpenters on this occasion appear to have had what in modern language is called "their drinks" allowed them over and above their wages. "Also the day after St. Dunston the 19 day of May, two carpenters with her Nonsiens.”2

Other entries respecting the rood-loft occur, ibid. "Also payd for a rolle and 2 gojons of iron and a rope xiiijd. Also payd to 3 carpenters removing the stallis of the quer xxd. Also payd for 6 peny nail and 5 peny nail xjd. Also for crochats, and three iron pynnes and a staple xiijd. Also for 5 yardis and a halfe of grene bokeram iijs. d. ob. Also for lengthyng of 2 cheynes and 6 zerdes of gret wyer xiiijd. Also payd for eleven dozen pavyng tyles, iijs. iiijd.”

2 Nunchion (s. a colloquial word), a piece of victuals eaten between meals. The word occurs in Cotgrave's Dictionary: "A nuncions or nuncheon (or afternoones repast), gouber, gouster, reciné, ressie. To take an afternoone's nuncheon, reciner, ressiner."