Feasts of this description were not much in vogue in England, though they were introduced, as we find them prohibited at Lincoln, by Bishop Grosthead, in the time of Henry the Third; but towards the end of the following century they were probably abolished. There are traces of the fool’s dance, where the dancers were clad in fool’s habits, in the reign of Edward the Third. A full account of these strange observances may be found in Ducange, and in Du Tilliot’s Mémoires de la Fête des Foux. Christianity was introduced among the Britons at a very early period, but there are no records, that can be considered authentic, of their mode of keeping the feast of the Nativity, though it was doubtless observed as one of their highest festivals. Some of the druidical ceremonies might have been embodied, and even the use of the mysterious misletoe then adopted, the aid of the bards called in, and ale and mead quaffed in abundance. The great and veritable King Arthur, according to the ballad of the “Marriage of Sir Gawaine,”— “......a royale Christmasse kept, With mirth and princelye cheare; To him repaired many a knighte, That came both farre and neare.” This, though ancient, is certainly of a date long subsequent to the far-famed hero; but it ought to be taken as authority, for, according to the modern progress of antiquarianism, the farther off we live from any given time or history, the more we know about it; the old Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and Mediævals, knowing nothing respecting themselves and their next door neighbours, while we are as familiar as if we had been born and bred with them. By the same rule of remoteness, the modern chronicler, Whistlecraft (Frere), should be taken as authority, for the particulars of the ancient Christmas feast, on which he humorously thus dilates:— “They served up salmon, venison, and wild boars, By hundreds, and by dozens, and by scores, Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard, Muttons, and fatted beeves, and bacon swine, Herons and bitterns, peacocks, swan, and bustard, Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeons, and, in fine, Plum-puddings, pancakes, apple-pies, and custard, And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine, With mead, and ale, and cider of our own, For porter, punch, and negus were not known.”