encouraging their favourites, as sportsmen do their dogs, with voice and clapping of hands. Such was-- "The dancing pair that simply sought renown, By holding out, to tire each other down." On Good Friday a jorum of _browis_ and roasted wheat or _frumenty_ was the treat for dinner; white _jannocks_, introduced by the Flemish refugees, and _throdkins_[165] were also then eaten with great zest by the hungry labourer.[166] MAY-DAY CUSTOMS. The Romans commenced the festival of Flora on the 28th April, and continued it through several days in May, with various ceremonies and rejoicings, and offerings of spring flowers and the branches of trees in bloom, which, through the accommodation of the Romish church to the pagan usages, remain to us as May-day celebrations to the present time. It was formerly a custom in Cheshire [and Lancashire] for young men to place birchen boughs on May-day over the doors of their mistresses, and mark the residence of a scold by an alder bough. There is an old rhyme which mentions peculiar boughs for various tempers, as an owler (alder) for a scolder, a nut for a slut, &c. Ormerod thinks the practice is disused; but he mentions that in the main street of Weverham are two May-poles, which are decorated on May-day with all due attention to the ancient solemnity; the sides are hung with garlands, and the top terminated by a birch, or other tall slender tree with its leaves on; the bark being peeled off and the stem spliced to the pole, so as to give the appearance of one tree from the summit.[167] The principal characteristics of May-day celebrations and festivities are of rejoicing that the reign of winter is at an end, and that of early summer with its floral beauties, has come. The hawthorn furnishes its white blossoms in profusion; and the tall May-poles, gaily decorated with garlands of leaves and flowers, and festoons of ribbons of the brightest colours, are centres of attraction on the village green, for the youth of both sexes to dance the May-pole dance, hand-in-hand, in a ring. MAY SONGS. Amongst the old customs of rural Lancashire and Cheshire is that of a small party of minstrels or carollers going round from house to house during the last few evenings of April, and singing a number of verses, expressive of rejoicing that "cold winter is driven away," and that the season is "drawing near to the merry month of May." The singers are generally accompanied by one or two musical instruments, a violin and clarionet for instance, and the tunes are very quaint and peculiar. Of course for their good wishes for the master of the house, with his "chain of gold," for the mistress, with "gold along her breast," and the children "in rich attire," a trifling gift in money is made.[168] MAY-DAY EVE.