“One a penny, buns, Two a penny, buns, One a penny, two a penny, Hot Cross buns!” _Book of Days_, vol. i. p. 418. The following lines are taken from _Poor Robin’s Almanac_ for 1733: “Good Friday comes this month, the old woman runs With one or two a penny _hot cross buns_, Whose virtue is, if you believe what’s said, They’ll not grow mouldy like the common bread.” It seems more than probable that the cross upon the Good Friday bun is intended to remind the devout of a Saviour’s sufferings. The following extract in illustration of the ancient name and use of the bun is from Bryant’s _Analysis of Ancient Mythology_, 1807, vol. i. pp. 371-373: “The offerings which people in ancient times used to present to the gods were generally purchased at the entrance of the Temple, especially every species of consecrated bread, which was denominated accordingly. One species of sacred bread which used to be offered to the gods was of great antiquity, and called _Boun_. Hesychius speaks of the _Boun_, and describes it as a ‘kind of cake with a representation of two horns.’” Julius Pollux mentions it after the same manner, “a sort of cake with horns.” It must be observed, however, as Dr. Jamieson remarks, that the term occurs in Hesychius in the form of βους, and that for the support of the etymon Bryant finds it necessary to state that “the Greeks, who changed the nu final into a sigma, expressed it in the nominative βους, but in the accusative more truly βουν.” Winckelman relates this remarkable fact, that at Herculaneum were found two entire loaves of the same size, a palm and a half, or five inches in diameter; they were marked by a _cross_, within which were four other lines, and so the bread of the Greeks was marked from the earliest period.--_Med. Ævi Kalend._ vol. i. p. 187. The Romans divided their sacred cakes with lines intersecting each other in the centre at right angles, and called the quarters _Quadra_. “Et violare manu malisque audacibus orbem Fatalis crusti, patulis nec parcere quadris.” Virg. _Æn._ lib. vii. 114, 115. “Nec te liba juvant, nec sectæ quadra placentæ.” Mart. lib. iii. _Epig._ 77. In the North of England a herb-pudding, in which the leaves of the _passion-dock_ (_Polygonum Bistorta_) are a principal ingredient, is an indispensable dish on this day. The custom is of ancient date, and it is not improbable that this plant, and the pudding chiefly composed of it, were intended to excite a grateful reminiscence of the Passion, with a suitable acknowledgment of the inestimable blessings of the Redemption.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 150. BEDFORDSHIRE.