Notts). A hole about one and a half inches in diameter and some four or five inches deep had apparently been drilled into it at some time. . . , There was another even larger stone in the next parish — Kinoulton. It lay close by the ruins of the old parish-church on the edge of the wolds, and the tradition was that the devil on Lincoln Minster (forty miles away) had flung it at the church. The new church stood in the village at the foot of the hill."
The stone lying "close by the ruins of the old parish church" gives rise to the thought that the place may possibly have been sacred to religious rites before the introduction of Christianity ; for such blocks were anciently made use of in the heathen cults, as it is needless to remark. Does the association of the devil with Lincoln also point to Pagan worship ? Is there any reason to think that the height now crowned by the stately towers of the cathedral was ever occupied by a heathen god-house, and that the adversary here, as in so many other instances, is in reality the dispossessed deity of some old creed ? The site is certainly appropriate enough for the fane of some ruler of sky and wind.
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May-Day in Lincolnshire.
A friend has just described to me the "May garland" made in his part of Lincolnshire. Possibly it is quite a well-known thing among folklorists, but in case it may be unusual I think I had better send it to you.
He says the children line a clothes basket with moss and primroses and decorate it the best way they can, putting a gay canopy over it, and in it they lay the best doll they own or can borrow, and the great point is to hang a string of bird's eggs round the doll's neck. I believe the eggs are afterwards hung up in the house.
The doll seems part of May-day customs in Oxfordshire and Herts, but are not the bird's eggs something new ? Can they be connected with the Easter-egg belief ? or be the firstfruits of the egg season ?
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