Collectanea. 167
one described on the preceding pages. About ten o'clock a lighted tar-barrel was thrown into the Ouse. A few minutes before midnight a procession came up from Schoolhill, and, forming four abreast, danced round the bonfire in front of the Town Hall many times; presently one man broke from the ranks and ran through the flames; after a while others did the same. This continued until the town clock struck twelve, when fire-men with a hand-engine came up and totally extinguished the bonfire. The Gunpowder Plot song was then sung, the band then played "God save the Queen," many cheers were given, and attempts were made to prolong the revelry, but the crowd melted, though very slowly, and, as I lay in bed in an upper room of the " White Hart" Hotel, I could hear, when it was nearly one o'clock, distant cheering, with a brass band playing "God save the Queen."[1]
Wiltshire. — At Wilton, on the first of May (1896), I saw many parties of little girls carrying short sticks, at the top of which were garlands or bunches of flowers. The girls stood at doors singing a song, the last line of which was "Please give a penny for the garland." I was told that the pence which they collect are spent at Wilton Fair, which is held on the first Monday in May.
On the same day (May ist, 1896) at Salisbury I saw little girls in parties of two, each of the two holding the end of one stick from whose centre hung a model of a crown worked in flowers.
[Compare the celebration at King's Lynn, Folk-Lore, vol. x. (1899), p. 443 sqq.]
Bulford Water Stone, near Amesbury, is a stone in the middle of the River Avon. On its north side is an iron ring, fixed in it, and which always lies upon it in a direction which is opposed to the current of the river. It has frequently been turned over so as to lie in the same direction as the current of the river, but it has always returned to its original position by going against the current of the river.
I was enquiring for the Sarsen Stones or Grey Wethers, when only about a furlong from them, but an old man and his niece did not know either name; at last they suggested that what I was seeking was what they called the Thousand Stones. The man
- ↑ See art. on "Guy Fawkes " in Folk-Lore, Dec. 1912.
