I to thee a simnel bring, 'Gainst thou goest a mothering. In Warwickshire, the practice of children's assembling at the house of their parents, at this time, is very general; furmety is the most customary repast, and a great quantity of prepared wheat is brought to the markets, and provided at the cooks' shops for the occasion. The Fifth Sunday in Lent is called, in the Roman Catholic Church, Passion Sunday, anticipating its true station by a week, because they had other ceremonies for the Sunday immediately preceding Easter, appropriate to its other name of Palm Sunday. In Durham, and some of the adjoining counties, this (Passion) is also called Carl or Carling Sunday, and the people eat grey peas, or carlings, first softened in water, and then parched or fried in butter: we find in the Expenses of the Household of King Edward I., "Pro pisis jd." (for pease one penny). In Sussex, the Daffodil is called the Lent Lily, from the period of its coming into flower. Jack o' Lents were puppets formerly thrown at, in Lent, like the Shrove Cocks on Shrove Tuesday. Ben Jonson has, in his Tale of a Tub :— On an Ash Wednesday, When thou did'st stand six weeks the Jack a' Lent, For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee. The last six Sundays in Lent are, in Northamptonshire, called Tid, Mid, Mizzeray, Carling, Palm, Paste-egg-day. Brockett observes :"Three of these are obviously from the Latin service: Te Deum, Mi Deus, Miserere mei. The rest elucidate themselves." St. David's Day. March, named from Mars, the god of war, was the commencement of the Roman year, and was, in fact, so considered in England before the alteration of the style; the legal year commencing on the 25th of March. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called it Length-monath, "because the days did then begin to exceed the nights in length." St. David, whose festival is on the 1st of March, was of British parentage, being uncle to King Arthur; he was regularly educated for the priesthood, in the then famous monastery of Bangor; and about the year 577, succeeded to the archbishopric of Caerleon, the seat of which he removed to Menevia, a city in Pembrokeshire, where he had already founded twelve convents, and which was afterwards called St. David'sa name it still retains. He died A.D. 642, having reached the advanced age of 140 years. He was buried in the church of St. Andrew; but his remains were afterwards removed to Glastonbury, where, amidst the picturesque ruins of that famous abbey, his burial-place is pointed out. Besides founding monasteries and religious houses, he built a hermitage and chapel in the vale of Llanthony, near the Black Mountains. St. David is the tutelar or patron saint of Wales. The custom of D Welshmen wearing leeks on St. David's Day, has been traditionally referred to the Britons, under their general, St. David, gaining a victory over the Saxons, and transferring from their caps to their own, leeks, as signals of triumph. Sir Samuel Meyrick discredits this story; and infers from some lines of the time of James I., that the leek was assumed upon, or immediately after, the battle of Bosworth Field, which was won by Henry VII., who had many Welshmen (his countrymen) in his army, and whose yeomen-guard was composed of Welshmen; and this inference is strengthened by the fact, that the Tudor colours were white and green, the colours of the leek. Still, this explanation is shaken by the fact of the leek being a native of Switzerland, and, according to the Hortus Kewensis, not introduced into England till about the year 1562. Churchill thus satirizes the custom : March, various, fierce, and wild, with wind-cracked cheeks, In Narcissus Luttrell's Diary we find the following entry of the leek presented to William III., in 1695:-"Yesterday, being St. David's Day, the King, according to custom, wore a leek presented to him by his serjeant-porter, who hath as perquisites all the wearing apparel his Majestie had on that day, even to his sword.” Gadbury, the astrologer, writes in his almanack for 1695:-March, in the West of England, is vulgarly called Lide; whence the proverb: : Eate leekes in Lide, and ramsins in May, And all the yeare after physitians may play. On this day is held the annual festival of the Society of Ancient Britons, established for succouring the distressed, March 1st, 1715, when they dined in Haberdashers' Hall, and enjoyed a song from the celebrated Tom d'Urfey. The Society clothe and educate two hundred boys and girls, who, on March 1st, walk in procession from their schoolhouse in Gray's Inn-lane, to St. George's Church, Hanover-square; each of the children wearing a leek, and the officers of the charity a triple plume and a leek. In the evening the Society dine together, when the music is characteristically Welsh. On this day Welshmen (but chiefly members of clubs) still wear the leek. St. Chad's Day. St. Ceadda, or St. Chad, whose feast is kept on March 2nd, lived in the seventh century, and is handed down to us as the missionary of the East Saxons. He was educated at the Monastery of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, of which he became the bishop, exercising at the same time the like jurisdiction over part of Mercia around Lichfield, where he dwelt. Tradition described him as peculiarly impressed by storms, especially of thunder and lightning, which he called the voice of God, who had raised his hand, threatening though "forbearing to strike,” to call men to repentance, and lower their self-sufficiency. On these Occasions he would go into the church, and continue in prayer until the storm had abated. Seven days before his death, a monk, named Orvinus, who was outside the building in which he lay, heard a sound as of heavenly music attendant upon a company of angels, who visited the saint to forewarn him of his end. Upon the canonization of Ceadda, he became the patron saint of medicinal springs; his bones were removed from Stow to Lichfield Cathedral about the year 700, and were inclosed in a rich shrine, resorted to by multitudes of pilgrims, to which may be attributed the rise of Lichfield from a small village. Here is a small church dedicated to St. Chad. His tomb had a hole in it, through which pilgrims used to take out portions of the dust, which, mixed with water, they gave to men and animals to drink. On the east of the town is St. Chad's Well. "A spring of pure water," says Leland, 66 where is seen a stone in the bottom of it, on which, some say, St. Chad was wont, naked, to stand in the water and pray; at this stone St. Chad had his oratory in the time of Wulfere, King of the Mercians." A small temple has been erected over the well. At the siege of Lichfield, in 1643, Lord Brooke, on his approach to the city, prayed that if his cause was unjust, he might presently be cut off; having placed his artillery, as he entered the city he was killed by a brace of bullets from a musket or wall-piece, discharged by a deaf and dumb gentleman named Dyott, who, from the battlements of the cathedral, had observed his entrance; and this occurring on the 2nd of March, the anniversary of St. Chad, was looked upon by the Royalists as a signal interference of Providence, and an answer to the prayer of the general for their protection. Near Battle-bridge, London, is a well dedicated to St. Chad, the aperient water of which is stated to have performed miraculous cures when mineral springs were held in high repute. The source of the New River, about midway between Hertford and Ware, is named Chad Well Springs, which Sir Hugh Myddelton brought to London, where it gives name to Chadwell-street. St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, was born at the close of the fourth century, at Kilpatrick, between Dumbarton and Glasgow. At the age of sixteen he was carried away, with many of his father's vassals, into slavery; and, it is said, compelled to keep cattle for six months in the mountains. Having visited France and Italy, he received a mission from Pope Celestine to his native land; and he assiduously engaged in the work to which he was dedicated, of spreading the views of the Roman Catholic Church in its remote districts. The people still entertain a high veneration for him, and attribute to him an endless catalogue of miracles. It is affirmed, that "after the death of St. Patrick, there was no night for twelve days!" Several spots and objects are dedicated to his memory. Among them is a rock, having the appear ance of a chair, on which, it is affirmed, he was accustomed to sit; but the most celebrated and most visited on St. Patrick's Day, is Croagh Patrick; the "sacred hill" is situated on the south of Westport, in the county of Mayo, and is said to be the highest mountain in the kingdom. It was from this spot that St Patrick is declared to have thrown all the venomous serpents, and other noxious animals of the island, into the sea; and here the bare feet of his votaries have excavated a path on the rocky face, to do penance on its top by fasting, prayer, and perambulations on their bare knees, as they stain the earth with the blood which issues from the wounds thus inflicted. The shamrock or trefoil, as a distinguishing mark, is probably of great antiquity; not, perhaps, as an heraldic badge, but as peculiar to Ireland in connexion with its patron saint, who is represented in the habit of a bishop holding a trefoil. This emblem formed one of the earliest ornaments in the architecture of the twelfth or thirteenth century, and continued throughout the successive changes and beauties of all that is resplendent in the Gothic style. Its intimate allusion to the fundamental doctrines of the Church would naturally have introduced it into ecclesiastical architecture; but, as it is said that St. Patrick taught his early converts to Christianity the existence of the Holy Trinity by referring to the trefoil, it has the highest claim upon our veneration, and every devout Irishman instinctively cherishes it as an emblem of his country and of his faith. The Order of St. Patrick was founded by George III. in 1783; and in 1801 the shamrock was introduced as a badge for Ireland, and with the rose and thistle, all springing from one stalk, composes the badge for the United Kingdom. The diadem worn by our Queen is a circle, on the rim of which the united badge, composed as above-mentioned, is placed between the crosses patées in lieu of the fleur-de-lis, which, however, is still retained in the crown itself, between the four Maltese crosses.-(See Professor Tennant's accurate description of the Imperial State Crown.) An ingenious naturalist (in the Philosophical Magazine, June, 1830), has attempted to prove that the original plant was not the white clover which is now employed as the shamrock of Ireland. He conceives that it should be something familiar to the people, and familiar, too, when the national feast is celebrated. Thus, the Welsh have given the leek to St. David, being a favourite oleraceous herb, and the only green thing they could find in March. The Scotch, on the other hand, whose feast is in autumn, have adopted the thistle. The white clover is not fully expanded on St. Patrick's Day, and wild specimens of it could hardly be obtained at this season. Besides, it was certainly a plant of uncommon occurrence in Ireland during its early history, having been introduced into that country in the middle of the seventeenth century, and made common by cultivation. Reference to old authors also proves that the shamrock was eaten by the Irish, and one who went over to Ireland in the sixteenth century, says it was eaten, and was a sour plant. The name, also, of shamrock is common to several trefoils, both in the Irish and Gaelic languages. Now, clover could not have been eaten, and it is not sour. Taking, therefore, all the conditions requisite, they are only found in the wood-sorrel, which is an early spring plant, is abundant in Ireland, and is a trefoil; it is called shamrog by the old herbalists, and it is sour; while its beauty might entitle it to the distinction of being the national emblem.* The substitution of one for the other has been occasioned by cultivation, which made the woodsorrel less plentiful, and the Dutch clover abundant. With March we may expect "many weathers;" and there is a very old proverb, "March hackham, comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb." "A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom," is a proverb meaning that the "peck of dust" in this month is worth as much as was paid for the redemption of a man's life on occasion of the killing of a king, which was the highest mulet or compensation our Anglo-Saxon ancestors knew of, and which, in those days, amounted to a very great sum. This extreme worth of March dust is explained by the difficulty of getting in the seed-corn unless we have dry and fine weather after February, a month proverbially wet. There is another proverb which charges March with borrowing certain days from April; and these, being generally stormy, our forefathers endeavoured to account for this circumstance by pretending that March borrowed them from April, that he might extend his power so much longer. Those," says Dr. Jamieson, "who are much addicted to superstition, will neither borrow nor lend on any of these days. If any one would propose to borrow of them, they would consider it as an evidence that the person wished to employ the article borrowed for the purpose of witchcraft against the lenders." Lady Day. This day, March 25th, the great Festival of the Annunciation of Our Lady, takes its name from the glad tidings brought by the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, concerning the incarnation of the Son of God: the Angel beginning his message with " Hail, Mary, full of Grace! the Lord is with thee." (St. Luke i. 28.) This Festival is kept with great pomp at Rome, when the dome of St. Peter's Church, as on St. Peter's Day and other great festivals, is illuminated. In the representation of the Annunciation, the Virgin is seated at a table, reading; Gabriel is clothed, but winged; upon his inantle a cross, in one hand a sceptre surmounted by a fleur-de-lis. Mr. Forster, the meteorologist, in his ingenious work, the Circle of the Seasons, thus introduces the Marigold, in connexion with this day: : This plant received the Latin name of Calendula, because it was in flower on the calends of nearly every month. It has been called Marygold for a similar reason, being more or less in blow at the times of all festivals of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the word gold having reference to its golden rays, likened to the rays of light around the head of the Blessed Virgin. At Candlemas, in warm climates, the old last year's plants will show a few flowers. Even in our climate a few flowers * Mr. Ruskin notes:-"The triple leaf of this plant, and its white flower, stained purple, probably gave it strange typical interest among the Christian painters. Angelico, in using its leaves mixed with daisies, in the foreground of his Crucifixion, had, I imagine, a view also to its chemical property.". |