Easter Day is generally kept in Wales as the Sunday, that is, with much and becoming respect to the sacredness of the day. It is also marked by somewhat better cheer, as a festival, of which lamb is considered as a proper constitutional part. In some places, however, after morning prayer, vestiges of the sundry sports and pastimes remain. It is thought necessary to put on some new portion of dress at Easter and unlucky to omit doing so, were it but a new pair of gloves or a ribbon. This idea is evidently derived from the custom of former times, of baptizing at Easter, when the new dress was in some degree symbolical of the new character assumed by baptism. IRELAND. The solemnity of Easter (says Bishop Kennett) was anciently observed in Ireland with so great superstition that they thought it lawful to steal all the year, to hoard up provisions against this festival time.--Kennett _MS_. In some parts of Ireland at Easter a cake, with a garland of meadow flowers, is elevated upon a circular board upon a pike, apples being stuck upon pegs around the garland. Men and women then dance round, and they who hold out longest win the prize.[33]--_Time’s Telescope_, 1826, p. 37. [33] Plutarch mentions a trial for dancing: a cake the prize. MARCH 23.] EASTER MONDAY. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. In the Parliamentary Returns of 1786 a donor of the name of Randell is stated to have given by deed, in 1597, five quarters of wheat and money to the poor of Edlesborough. Forty-nine bushels of wheat were yearly sent by Lady Bridgewater to the mill to be ground in respect of this charity. They were ground, and the flour baked at her expense; the bread was made up in four-pound loaves, which were given away by the parish officers on Easter Monday to all the poor of the parish, in shares varying according to the size of the families, a loaf being given to each individual.--_Old English Customs and Charities_, p. 18. CHESHIRE. Pasch eggs are begged at the farmhouses; the children sing a short song, asking for-- “Eggs, bacon, apples, or cheese, Bread or corn, if you please, Or any good thing that will make us merry.” These eggs are in some parts of the county boiled in vinegar, and otherwise ornamented, and hung up in the houses until another year. In some cottages as many as a score may be seen hanging. The custom of lifting is also observed.--_Jour. of Arch. Assoc._, 1850, vol. v. p. 253.