Speaking of the Christmas festivities at Lincoln's Inn, Dugdale[85] says: "Moreover, that the _King of Cockneys_, on _Childermass_ Day, should sit and have due service; and that he and all his officers should use honest manner and good Order, without any wast or destruction making, in Wine, Brawn, Chely, or other Vitaills." [Footnote 85: _Orig. Jur._, p. 246.] In Chambers's _Book of Days_ we find that, "In consequence probably of the feeling of horror attached to such an act of atrocity, Innocents' Day used to be reckoned about the most unlucky throughout the year, and in former times no one who could possibly avoid it began any work, or entered on any undertaking on this anniversary. To marry on Childermas Day was specially inauspicious. It is said of the equally superstitious and unprincipled monarch, Louis XV., that he would never perform any business or enter into any discussion about his affairs on this day, and to make to him then any proposal of the kind was certain to exasperate him to the utmost. We are informed, too, that in England, on the occasion of the coronation of King Edward IV., that solemnity, which had been originally intended to take place on a Sunday, was postponed till the Monday, owing to the former day being, in that year, the festival of Childermas. The idea of the inauspicious nature of the day was long prevalent, and is even not yet wholly extinct. To the present hour, we understand, the housewives in Cornwall, and probably also in other parts of the country, refrain scrupulously from scouring or scrubbing on Innocents' Day." At the churches in several parts of the country muffled peals are rung on this day, and with the Irish it is called "La crosta na bliana," or "the cross day of the year," and also, "Diar daoin darg," or "Bloody Thursday," and on that day the Irish housewife will not warp thread, nor permit it to be warped; and the Irish say that anything begun upon that day must have an unlucky ending. A writer in _Notes and Queries_ (4 ser. xii. 185) says: "The following legend regarding the day is current in the county of Clare. Between the parishes of Quin and Tulla, in that county, is a lake called Turlough. In the lake is a little island; and among a heap of loose stones in the middle of the island rises a white thorn bush, which is called 'Scagh an Earla' (the Earl's bush). A suit of clothes made for a child on the 'Cross day' was put on the child; the child died. The clothes were put on a second and on a third child; they also died. The parents of the children at length put out the clothes on the 'Scag an Earla,' and when the waters fell the clothes were found to be full of dead eels." Here is a good carol for Innocents' day, published in the middle of the sixteenth century:-- A CAROL OF THE INNOCENTS. Mark this song, for it is true, For it is true, as clerks tell: In old time strange things came to pass, Great wonder and great marvel was In Israel.