Excerpt from Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, Vol. 2 of 2: Faiths and Folklore; A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular Customs, Past and Current, With Their Classical and Foreign Analogues, Described and Illustrated Return given liy the great Lord Bacon to such as prmd him to drink the lung's Health namely that he would drink for his own health, and pra for the King's. In Ireland, on t Patron Be in most arishes, as also on the feat; of aster an Whitsuntide, the more or dinary sort of people meet near the ale house in the afternoon, on some courses ent spot of ground, and dance for the cake: here to be sure the Th? Fails not of diligent attendance. Cake to In den for is provided at the charge of the ale-wife, and is advanced on a board on the to of a pike, about ten feet hi this board is round, and from it riset a kind of garland, hwt and tied round with meadow flowers, if it be early in the sum mer: if later, the tland has the addition of ap les, set rou on peg, fastened unto it. He whole number of dancers b 'n all at once in a large ring, a man an a woman and dance round about the bush (so is t is arland called), and the pm. As long as t ey are able to hold out. Y that hold out longest at the exercise, win the cake and apples, and then the ale wife's trade goes on.' Piers, Description of Westmeat 1682, ap. Vallancey i. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.