The people of these townships for centuries celebrated May-day (a relic of the ancient heathen festival of the goddess Flora) by the May-pole, to which the watchful care of Charles I. and his royal progenitor extended, when they printed in their proclamation and "Book of Sports," that after the end of divine service on Sundays, their "good people be not disturbed, letted, nor discharged from the having of May-games, and the setting up of the May-poles," &c. The ancient practice was to erect the pole on May-day, and to surround it with a number of verdant boughs, brought from "Blakeley Forest," which were decked usually with garlands and flowers, and around which the people assembled to dance and celebrate their May-games. "Pendleton Pole" is of much higher antiquity than the Reformation; for in the will of Thomas del Bothe, who died 47 Edw. III. (1373) the sum of 30_s._ is bequeathed towards making the causeway at Pendleton near "le Poll." In the time of the Commonwealth the Pendleton Pole was taken down, in virtue of an ordinance of Parliament against May-poles, and such other "heathenish vanities;" but it was re-erected at the Restoration, and still presents its lofty head, surmounted by a Royal Crown; though much of the spacious field of the ancient May-games is now occupied by buildings [in 1780 the township was little more than a fold of cottages, with its May-pole and green], and much of the spirit of the rural sports of our ancestors has subsided. In Pasquil's "_Palinodia_," (published in 1654) the decay of May-games two centuries ago, is recorded and lamented:-- "Happy the age, and harmless were the days (For then true love and amity was found); When every village did a May-pole raise, And Whitsun ales and May-games did abound, And all the lusty younkers in a rout, With merry lasses, danced the rod about; Then friendship to their banquets bid the guests, And poor men fared the better for their feasts. The lords of castles, manors, towns, and towers, Rejoiced when they beheld the farmers flourish, And would come down unto the summer bowers, To see the country gallants dance the Morice. . . . . . But since the summer poles were overthrown, And all good sports and merriments decay'd, How times and men are changed, so well is known, It were but labour lost if more were said." MAY CUSTOM IN SPOTLAND. A custom of high antiquity and of primitive simplicity prevails in the district of Spotland, in the parish of Rochdale. On the first Sunday in May the young people of the surrounding country assemble at Knott Hill yearly, for the purpose of presenting to each other their mutual greetings and congratulations on the arrival of this cheering season, and of pledging each other in the pure beverage which flows from the mountain springs.[170] MAY-DAY CUSTOMS IN THE FYLDE.