CHAPTER X
EASTER.
The term Easter is derived, as some suppose, from the Saxon "Oster," to rise; this being the day of Christ's rising from the dead. Others, however, maintain that this Queen of Christian festivals, takes its name from Eoster, or Easter, a Saxon goddess whose religious rites were celebrated in the beginning of Spring. Soane suggests that the Saxon Easter or Eoster, the Greek Áστήþ, the English Star, and the Hebrew Ashtaroth, have all come from the same long-forgotten original, perhaps Phoenician, word signifying "Fire."
It was anciently the custom in England to put out all the fires and relight them on EasterEven, from consecrated flints preserved in churches specially for that purpose. The popular belief was that holy fire, obtained in this manner, would prevent the effect of storms, etc. Fosbrooke, quoting Rupert, says, "The flint signified Christ, and the fire the Holy Ghost."
The custom of putting out the fire in the hall also at this season, appears to have been connected with this ecclesiastical observance. The "Festival" (1511), referring to this domestic usage, says: —
"This day (Easter) is called, in many places, Goddes Sondaye; ye know well that it is the maner at this daye to do the fyre out of thp hall, and the black Wynter brandes, and all thynges that is foule with fume and smoke shall be done awaye, and there the fyre was, shall be gayly arayed with fayre flowres, and strewed with grene rysshes all aboute."
Dr. Drake in his work, "Shakespeare and his Times," says that, "Easter was formerly a season of great social festivities;" and also that, "it was customary for the common people — even as they do still in Ireland — to rise early on Easter morning to see the sun dance." Metaphorically considered, that thought may be termed both just and beautiful; for as "the earth and her valleys standing thick with corn" are said to "laugh and sing," so, on account of the glory of the Resurrection, the sun may be said to "dance" for joy — the natural rising of the sun being, as it were, typical of the rising of the Sun of Righteousness from the darkness of the grave. The earth also, awaking at this season from its death-like wintry slumber, seems to make an appropriate response to this celestial demonstration of joy by its own most beautiful Easter offering of Spring flowers.
This idea has been happily expressed by Paulinus, Bishop of Nola (431): —
"Sing praises to your God, ye youths, and pay your holy vows.
The floor with many flowers strew, the threshold bind with boughs;
Let Winter breathe a fragrance forth, like as the purple Spring;
Let the young year, before the time, its floral treasures bring,
And Nature yield, to this Great Day, herself an offering."
The use of these flowers at the Easter festival has of late gradually become more and more popular. Our forefathers, in addition to this pious use of flowers, had besides, even in their holiday recreations, an allusion to this fundamental doctrine of Christianity.
Some of the sports and pastimes referred to appear to us childish and absurd, but in other times, before the world had become so very wise as at present, they may have been, to simple-minded people, very edifying. One of the most curious of these popular observances is that of "lifting" or "heaving," as it was called, a custom which still lingers in some counties in England. The ceremony has been thus described: —
"On Easter-Monday the men lift the women; and on Easter-Tuesday the women lift, or heave, the men. The process is performed by two lusty men, or women, joining their hands across each other's wrists; then, making the person to be heaved, sit down on their arms, they lift him up aloft three times, and often carry him several yards along a street. At the end of the ceremony the person lifted is duly kissed by the lifters, and a forfeit claimed. Sometimes, instead of crossed hands, a chair or bed is used."
The custom is supposed to be a vulgar representation of the Resurrection. Perhaps also the Lesson for Easter Even might have suggested this singular species of merriment, for there we find that, "Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids." Indeed the Church services seem often to have suggested to the people similar jocular ideas. Mr. Ellis inserts in his edition of Brand's "Popular Antiquities," a letter from Mr. Thomas Loggan, of Basinghall Street, London, in which he says: —
"I was sitting alone last Easter-Tuesday at breakfast, at the Talbot Inn, Shrewsbury, when I was surprised by the entrance of all the female servants of the house handing in an arm-chair, lined with white, and decorated with ribbons and favors of different colors. I asked them what they wanted: their answer was, they came to heave me; it was the custom of the place on that morning, and they hoped I would take a seat in their chair. It was impossible not to comply with a request very modestly made, and by a set of nymphs in their best apparel, and several of them under twenty. I wished to see all the ceremony, and seated myself accordingly. The group then lifted me from the ground, turned the chair about, and I had the felicity of a salute from each. I told them I supposed there was a fee on the occasion, and was answered in the affirmative, and having satisfied the damsels in this respect, they withdrew to heave others. At this time I had never heard of such a custom; but on inquiry I found that on Easter-Monday, between nine and twelve, the men heave the women, in the same manner as on the Tuesday, between the same hours, the women heave the men."
This custom, it appears, is of undoubted antiquity, for we find from a roll in the custody of the Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London, that certain ladies and maids of honor received payment for taking King Edward I. in his bed at Easter: —
"To the ladies of the Queen's chamber 15th of May; seven ladies and damsels of the Queen, because they took (or lifted) the King in his bed, on the morrow of Easter, and made him pay fine for the peace of the King, which he made of his gift by the hand of Hugh de Cerr (or Kerr), Esq., to the Lady of Weston, £14."
Perhaps the nursery pastime of "making a chair," still in vogue among children, is a relic of this ancient custom.
The game of hand-ball, however, another of the Easter sports, appears to have had a very different fortune, and to have developed itself into those most manly of athletic sports, the modern base-ball and cricket.
In ancient times, say the Ritualists Belethus and Durandus —
"The bishops and archbishops on the Continent used to recreate themselves in the game of hand-ball with their inferior clergy; and in England, also, the game appears to have been made a part of the regular Church service at Chester. Bishops and deans took the ball into the Cathedral, and at the commencement of the antiphon, began to dance, throwing the ball to the choristers, who handed it to each other during the time of the dancing and antiphon."*
Nor was it uncommon in England for corporate bodies to amuse themselves at this game, with their burgesses and young people. Such was once the custom, says Mr. Brand, at Newcastle, at the Feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide, when the mayor, aldermen, and sheriff, accompanied by great numbers of the burgesses, used to go yearly at these seasons to the Forth or little mall of the town, with mace, sword, and cap of maintenance carried before them, and not only countenance, but frequently join in, the' diversions of hand-ball, dancing, etc. There was also in the ancient city of Chester a similar Custom, when at the great Festival of Easter, "The mayor and corporation, with the twenty guilds established in Chester, with their wardens at their heads, set forth in all their pageantry to the Rood-eye (an open meadow by the river side), to play at foot-ball. The mayor with his mace, sword, and cap of maintenance, stood before the Cross, whilst the guild of shoemakers, to whom the right had belonged from time immemorial, presented him with the ball of the value of 'three and four-pence or above,' and all set to work right merrily." But as too often falls out in this game, "great strife did arise among the younge persons of the same cittie," and hence, in the time of Henry VIII., this piece of homage to the mayor was converted into a present from the shoe-makers to the drapers, of six gleaves or hand-darts of silver, to be given for the best foot-race; whilst the saddlers, who went in procession on horseback, attired in all their bravery, each carrying a spear with a wooden ball, decorated with flowers and arms, exchanged their offering for a silver bell, which should be a "'reward for that horse which with speedy runninge should run before all others." These silver bells were in the seventeenth century converted into cups, or other pieces of plate, which still continue to be the "trophies of victory" at horse-races.
But the ordinary prize at games of ball during Easter, was the Tansy-cake: —
"At stool-ball, Lucia, let us play
For sugar cakes and wine;
Or for a tansy let us play.
The loss be thine or mine.
"If thou, my dear, a winner be,
At trundling of the ball,
The wager thou shalt have and me,
And my misfortunes all."
These cakes were made of flour, butter, sugar, sherry, cream, and tansies; whence they derived the name of "tansays," or "tansy-cakes." The tansy having reference, says Selden, to the bitter herbs used by the Jews at the Passover, though at the same time, "'twas always the fashion, for a man to have a gammon of bacon to show himself to be no Jew." The Jews themselves, however, says Brady, in his "Clavis Calendaria," "long since contrived to diminish the bitter flavor of the tansy, by making it into a pickle for their Paschal Lamb, from whence we borrowed the custom of taking mint and sugar as a general sauce for that description of food."
Another custom which prevailed, in the olden time, and which is still kept up both in England and Ireland, and even in this country, is that of presenting children with eggs, stained with various colors in boiling, and curiously ornamented with devices and mottoes; they are termed "paste," or more properly "Pasche Eggs." In the Greek Church likewise, says Brady, "Eggs still continue to form a part of the ceremonies of the day; and there also, presents of eggs, from one individual to another, are considered as pious attentions." This observance appears to have arisen from a belief that eggs were an emblem of the Resurrection. On this custom Mr. Brand has well observed that —
"The ancient Egyptians, if the resurrection of the body had been a tenet of their faith, would perhaps have thought an egg no improper hieroglyphical representation of it. The exclusion of a living creature by incubation, after the vital principle has lain so long dormant or extinct, is a process so truly marvelous, that if it could be disbelieved, would be thought by some a thing as incredible, as that the Author of Life should be able to reanimate the dead."
In the "Ritual" of Pope Paul V., which was composed for the use of the British Isles, there is this prayer for the consecration of eggs: —
"Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance to thy faithful servants, eating it in thankfulness to thee, on account of the Resurrection of our Lord."
In Lancashire and Cheshire, children still go round the village and beg eggs for the Easter dinner, accompanying their solicitation by a short song, the burden of which is addressed to the farmer's dame, asking for "an egg, bacon, cheese, or an apple, or any good thing that will make us merry; " and ending with, "And I pray you good dame an Easter egg."
The observance in Lancashire of "Pace-egging," as it is there called, is a custom limited to the week preceding Easter Day, commencing on the Monday and finishing on the Thursday before Easter Day.
"Young men in groups, varying in number from three to twenty, dressed in various fantastic garbs, and wearing masks, some of the groups accompanied by a player or two on the violin, go from house to house singing, dancing, and capering. At most places they are liberally treated with wine, punch, or ale, dealt out to them by the host or hostess."
The origin of this custom of collecting "Pasche eggs," may have been the resumption on the part of our forefathers of eggs and of animal food at Easter, on the termination of Lent. It seems, moreover, that at this season extreme caution was to be used in partaking of food of all kinds, and nothing was to be eaten which had not been previously blessed, or had not at least the sign of the Cross made over it; for the faithful were thought just then to be particularly subject to the attacks of evil spirits. Durandus gives a lamentable instance of the fatal consequences arising from a neglect of this precaution, and of which he was himself an eye-witness: "Two devils got possession of a young girl, and tormented her for three years," a miracle which, says Mr. Soane, "is often renewed in our own days, but with this especial difference, that when the devil now possesses a woman, he does not torment herself but others." "However, on this occasion, a cunning exorcist drove the fiends out at last, having previously made them confess that they had been lying perdu in a melon, which the girl had incautiously eaten without first making the sign of the Cross."
There has been a revival in modern times, even in this country, of the old Easter custom of "pace-egging." We refer to the usage of presenting one's friends on the morning of Easter Day, with a basket of pace-eggs. A dozen of these, of various colors, with mottoes and emblematic devices, artistically arranged in a fancy basket, make indeed a very appropriate Easter decoration for the drawing-room table, seeming to greet us with that most ancient of Easter salutations (still retained in the Greek Church), "Christ is risen!"
* Dancing was at first, and indeed during some thousands of years, a religious ceremony. In the Temples of Jerusalem, Samaria, and Alexandria, a stage for these exercises was erected in one part, thence called the choir, the name of which has been preserved in our churches, and the custom too, it seems, till within a few centuries. The Cardinal Ximenes revived in his time the practice of Mosarabic Masses in the Cathedral of Toledo, when the people danced, both in the choir and in the nave, with great decorum and devotion.
