Monday games, coupled with the obvious references to trees or bushes, is more significant when one remembers that the supposed connection between human reproduction and the plant world is not forgotten in Gloucestershire. One day in 1908, while a young lady at Eastington was digging up plants in a garden, I overheard a group of rough lads trying to put her out of countenance by sly allusions to "parsley bed" (laughter) and "tree of life" (more laughter). Perhaps in this connection one may add that at Randwick a rosemary bush will not flourish except in a garden where the woman is master of the house.
Low Sunday.—Randwick, formerly a hamlet in the parish of Standish, is a village lying under a hill-camp. Local tradition says that the custom of electing and ducking[1] a "mayor" originated at the building of the church, some six or seven hundred years ago, in this way. At the supper given to the workmen, the "hod" man ate and drank to such an excess that he became noticeable to the other workmen, who there and then took him to the pool and washed him in its waters.[2] Festivities began on the eve of Low Sunday, when the mayor was cried round the principal parts of the village. Three names were always submitted, and this was the form used:—"Oize [sic] and another Oize. This is to give notice to all gentlemen freeholders, belonging to the parish of Randwick; and if anyone should know any cause why ——— ——— of ——— shouldn't stand mayor for this year ensuing, they must appear at the High Cross on Monday next, in the forenoon, or otherwise hold their peace. God save the Queen." On Wap Sunday the village was always crowded with visitors. Several people laid in stores of cider to sell at the Wap, and hung out a green bough by way of a sign. Many also made "wiput" or whitepot, a kind of pudding or porridge peculiar to the occasion. It was a standing joke that fleas were supposed to be put into the "wiput" (cf. Folk-Lore, vol. viii.,
- ↑ On drenching people as a rain-charm, see J. G. Fraser, The Golden Bough (2nd ed.), vol. i., pp. 94 et seq., vol. ii., pp. 121 et seq.
- ↑ E. P. Fennemore, A History of Randwick, pp. 53-60. I owe all the other Randwick details to Miss Fennemore, whose family has been at Randwick for generations. Notes on the Wap, by the late Mr. C. A. Witchell of Stroud, an eye-witness, do not contain any details unrecorded by Miss Fennemore.
