Formerly, at Lichfield, the clergyman of the parish, accompanied by the churchwardens and sidesmen and followed by a concourse of children bearing green boughs, repaired to different reservoirs of water and there read the gospel for the day, after which they were regaled with cakes and ale; during the ceremony the door of every house was decorated with an elm bough. This custom was founded on one of the early institutions of Christianity, that of blessing the springs and wells.--_Account of Lichfield_, 1818-19, p. 133. SUFFOLK. By his will, proved in December 1527, John Cole of Thelnetham, directed that a certain farm-rent should be applied yearly to the purpose of providing “a bushell and halffe of malte to be browne, and a bushell of whete to be baked to _fynde a drinkinge upon Ascension Even everlastinge for ye parishe of Thelnetham to drinke at the Cross of Trappetes_.” WORCESTERSHIRE. At Evesham it is customary for the master-gardeners to give their work-people a treat of baked peas, both white and grey (and pork), every year on Holy Thursday.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 208. MAY EVE. An old Roman kalendar, cited by Brand (_Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 216), says that on the 30th of April boys go to seek the May-trees (Maii arbores a pueris exquiruntur), and in Dryden’s time this early observance of May seems to have been customary; one of his heroines “Wak’d, as her custom was, before the day, To do th’ observaunce due to sprightly May; For sprightly May commands our youth to keep The vigils of her night, and breaks their rugged sleep.”-- _Med. Ævi Kalend._ vol. i. p. 229. CORNWALL.