Easter is marked by some striking customs. It is deemed essential for one's well-being that some new article of dress shall be donned at this time, though it be nothing more than a new ribbon. This is also a Hampshire superstition. A servant of mine, born in Hampshire, used always to say, 'If you don't have on something new Easter Sunday the dogs will spit at you.' This custom is associated with Easter baptism, when a new life was assumed by the baptized, clothed in righteousness as a garment. A ceremony called 'lifting' is peculiar to North Wales on Easter Monday and Tuesday. On the Monday bands of men go about with a chair, and meeting a woman in the street compel her to sit, and be lifted three times in the air amidst their cheers: she is then invited to bestow a small compliment on her entertainers. This performance is kept up till twelve o'clock, when it ceases. On Easter Tuesday the women take their turn, and go about in like manner lifting the men. It has been conjectured that in this custom an allusion to the resurrection is intended. [Illustration: LIFTING. (_From an old drawing._)] A custom, the name of which is now lost, was that the village belle should on Easter Eve and Easter Tuesday carry on her head a piece of chinaware of curious shape, made expressly for this purpose, and useless for any other. It may be described as a circular crown of porcelain, the points whereof were cups and candles. The cups were solid details of the crown: the candles were stuck with clay upon the spaces between the cups. The cups were filled with a native beverage called bragawd, and the candles were lighted. To drink the liquor without burning yourself or the damsel at the candle was the difficulty involved in this performance. A stanza was sung by the young woman's companions, the last line of which was, Rhag i'r feinwen losgi ei thalcen. (Lest the maiden burn her forehead.[122])