British Popular Customs, Present and Past: Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
British Popular Customs, Present and Past: Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Folklore -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Social life and customs
Lynton revel begins on the first Sunday after Midsummer Day. It formerly
lasted a week. As in the days before the Reformation, revels until
lately began on a Sunday in Lynton and Lynmouth, a barrel of beer having
been placed near the church gate in readiness for the people coming out
of church, who partook of a glass and a cake, called revel cake, made
with dark flour, currants, and carraway seeds. Wrestling formed a chief
feature in the amusements, and large sums were raised by subscription to
purchase prizes. However odd it may appear, it is not more than twenty
years since the silver spoons, bought as prizes to be wrestled for, were
exhibited hung in front of the gallery in Countisbury Church during
divine service on Revel Sunday. Of late years, however, owing to the
prevalence of drunkenness, especially on the Sunday afternoon, the
respectable inhabitants have set their faces against these revels, which
have now dwindled into insignificance. The collusion which sprang up
among the wrestlers to share the prizes, without their being won by a
real trial of skill and strength, hastened also greatly to abate the
enthusiasm of the subscribers, so that of late the prizes have not been
beyond a few shillings collected from the people on the ground. This of
itself has given a death-blow to the revel.--Cooper, _Guide to Lynton
and Lynmouth_, 1853, p. 38.
ISLE OF MAN.
On this day a tent is erected on the summit of the Tynwald Hill (called
also Cronk-y-Keeillown, i.e., St. John’s Church Hill, a mound said to
have been originally brought from each of the seventeen parishes of the
island), and preparations are made for the reception of the officers of
state, according to ancient custom. Early in the morning the Governor
proceeds from Castletown under a military escort to St. John’s Chapel,
situated a few hundred yards to the eastward of the Tynwald Hill. Here
he is received by the Bishop, the Council, the clergy, and the keys, and
all attend Divine service in the chapel, the Government chaplain
officiating. This ended, they march in a procession from the chapel to
the mount, the military formed in line on each side of the green turf
walk. The clergy take the lead, next comes the Vicar-General, and the
two Deemsters, then the bearer of the sword of state in front of the
Governor, who is succeeded by the Clerk of the Rolls, the twenty-four
keys, and the captains of the different parishes.
The ceremony of the Tynwald Hill is thus stated in the _Lex Scripta_ of
the Isle of Man, as given for law to Sir John Stanley, in 1417:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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