But while bartering and the purchase and sale of these varied household commodities occupied no small amount of attention, such a sober mode of passing the fairtide was very far from being the intention of the younger and gayer portion of the assemblage; nor was there, indeed, any lack of that which could feed or give zest to their relish for amusement, though it was not always of the most innocent nature. Our ‘Champions’ and ‘Campions’ are but relics of the old ‘William le Champion,’[304] or ‘Katerine le Chaumpion,’ a sobriquet which would easily affix itself to some sturdy and swarthy rustic who had thrown his adversary in the wrestling ground. This has ever been a popular sport amid our more rural communities. The Miller, Chaucer says:— Was a stout carl for the nones, Ful bigge he was of braun, and eke of bones, That proved wel, for over all ther he came, At wrestling he would bear away the ram. In an old poem I have already quoted, the mother warns her daughter:— Go not to the wrestling, nor shooting the cock, As it were a strumpet or a giglot.[305] Doubtless such a sobriquet as ‘Richard le Fytur,’ that is ‘Fighter,’ would be but representative of the same. The country folks were not slow, too, to copy their masters, and in the friendly joust the former, ‘Thomas le Justere’ or ‘Robert le Justure,’ would brace himself amid the excited ring to unseat his fellow-swain, affording much sport to the on-looking wags. By the maypole you may see the conjuror, or ‘Wiseman,’ as he was generally termed, battening himself upon the superstitious minds of the assembled hinds. In the Hundred Rolls he figures as ‘Wysman’ and ‘Wyseman.’ A little further on our ‘Players’ would be enacting their mummery. The great crowd there in the corner are watching the showman with his dancing bear, a yearly treat the younger holiday-seekers always appreciated. What a change has come over our English habits with regard to this animal. Dancing was the least cruel of the sports connected with it. Time was when every noble of position had his bears and his bearward, when even royalty could boast a master of the king’s bears, and when as a pastime the bear-baiting took an easy pre-eminence in the eyes of all holiday folk. A skit on the Earl of Warwick, banished to the Isle of Man, written 1399, says:— A bereward found a rag: Of this rag he made a bag: He dude in gode entent. Thorwe the bag the bereward is taken; All his beres have hym forsaken. Thus is the berewarde schent.[306]