202 Collectanea.
number seated on the ground, or between three trees. " Crooked Mustard " was always the last game played before the people went into the street for Thread the Needle. ^^
1 1. Nassifxgton. — On May Day, garlands were carried about and afterwards fastened from chimney to chimney across the street. Married women then played " Thread the Needle," (here called "Duck under the AA'ater "), down the street. Here there was a meadow with right of pasture, where cows were turned out on May Day. Lads watched through the night and the dawning; a rail was put across the entrance to the meadow, and the first cow to go in was led round the village crowned with ribbons ; the last cow was crowned with nettles, elder, and thistles, and the milk- maid w^as jeered at.^-'
12. Helpstojie}^ — "Duck under the \\'ater" was here, too, played on May Day, under the garland suspended across the street. Balls v/ere also thrown through the framework of the garland.
13. Tibberoughny. — "The long dance ... was in times past performed ... at the celebrated moat of Tibberoughny, near Piltown. The assemblage — consisting of the bearers of the May bush, the dancers, musicians, and spectators — entered the moat at the south-western gap, circumambulated the outer entrenchment several times, ascended the lofty mound . . . placed the emblem of summer on the summit, and commenced the revels. The May bush, or May pole, was here adorned with those golden balls provided by the beauties married in the neighbourhood at the preceding Shrovetide. . . . The great summer bonfire was after- wards lighted in the centre of this fort or rath."^"
14. Evesha7n. — "Thread the Needle" was played through the streets at sunset on Easter Monday, to the words : —
" Open the gates as high as the sky, And let Mctoria's troops pass by."^^
^■^ Information gathered from oral sources.
^^A. E. Baker, Glossary of Northaiiiptonshii-e Words etc. (1854), s.v. Duck under the Water.
16 Ibid.
i"Sir W. R. W, Wilde, Irish Popular Superstitions {circ. 1850), pp. 69-70.
1^ Lady Gomme, The Traditional Games etc. vol. ii. , p. 231, quoting May, History of Evesham, p. 319.
