du Lake, and his conquest of the giant Tarquin, at the castle of Manchester; Ranulph of Chester, and his wars in the Holy Land; or the warlike feats and amorous prowess of the renowned Cheshire hero, Roger de Calverley. In order to preserve, as much as possible, the degree of decorum that was necessary at such meetings, there was firstly introduced a diminutive pair of stone stocks, of about eighteen inches in length, for confining within them the fingers of the unruly. This instrument was entrusted to the general prefect of manorial festivities named the King of Misrule, whose office it was to punish all who exceeded his royal notions of decency. Accordingly such a character appears among the list of Sir John of Assheton's tenants, under the name of Hobbe the king. From these entertainments being supported by the contributions of the tenants, they were derisively called _Drink-leans_. [_Læn_, A.-S. a loan, a gift, a reward; _Læne_, adj., lean, slender, fragile.][213] RIDING THE BLACK LAD AT ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE. In the rental of Sir John Assheton, knight, of his Manor of Ashton-under-Lyne, A.D. 1422, it is stated that two of his sons, Rauf of Assheton, and Robyn of Assheton, by grants to them, "have the sour carr guld rode and stane rynges for the term of their lives." This donation (says Dr. Hibbert-Ware) evidently alludes to the privilege of _Guld-riding_, a custom that in Scotland at least is of great antiquity, having been intended to prevent lands from being over-run with the weeds, which, from their yellow colour, were named _gools_ or _gulds_, _i.e._, the corn-marigold, or _Chrysanthemum Segetum_ of Linn. Boethius (lib. 10) mentions a law of king Kenneth (probably rather of Alexander II.) to prevent the growth of _manaleta_ or _guld_, and to impose a fine of oxen on proof of its infraction. The Rev. J. P. Bannerman, in a statistical account of the parish of Cargill, in Perthshire, states that with a view of extirpating this weed, "after allowing a reasonable time for procuring clean seed from other grounds, an act of the Baron Court was passed, enforcing an old Act of Parliament to the same effect, imposing a fine of 3_s._ 4_d._, or a wether sheep, on the tenants for every stock of _gool_ that should be found growing in their corn at a particular day; and certain persons styled _gool-riders_ were appointed to ride through the fields, search for _gool_, and carry the law into execution when they discovered it. Though the fine of a wether sheep is now commuted and reduced to a penny, the practice of _gool-riding_ is still kept up, and the fine rigidly exacted." To this origin Dr. Hibbert-Ware attributes the custom peculiar to Ashton-under-Lyne of "Riding the Black Lad." He states that in the days of Sir John of Assheton (A.D. 1422) a large portion of low wet land in the vicinity of Assheton was named the Sour Carr (carr being synonymous with the Scotch word _carse_, and the well-known term _sour_ implying an impoverished