use chiefly prevails throughout countries in communion with the Eastern church. The egg is an obvious symbol of the resurrection of life in apparent death. Throughout Yorkshire it is customary to hide the coloured eggs in little nests out of doors, and set the children to hunt after them, and see what eggs the “hares” have been laying. Another Eastern custom, and one, perhaps, better honoured in the breach than the observance, still lingers in Durham. In a Sunday-school there, a scanty attendance of girls on Easter Day was recently accounted for by their being “terrified” lest the boys should pull off their shoes. “To-morrow,” it was added, “they may pull off the boys’ caps.” This frolic, whatever be its origin, seems to have extended into Yorkshire. At least, a friend tells me that she remembers, when a little girl, having her shoes pulled off one Easter on the sands at Redcar; and I have heard of a stout-hearted Yorkshire curate who used to go round his parish on Easter Sunday afternoon to collect the girls, and pioneer them safely to church and school. That was the time of danger, for the young men had no right to take their shoes till after Morning Service. I may add that in the West Riding “luking” (playing at knor and spell) begins at Easter,[1] and that near York tansy pudding used to be eaten on this festival in allusion to the bitter herbs at the Passover.
- ↑ In Lancashire it is customary for the lasses on Easter Monday to “heave” the lads, i. e. to lift them up from the ground in their arms. On Tuesday the lads heave the lasses.
A friend of mine, a native of Warrington, tells me that her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools took it into his head to visit Warrington on Monday in Easter week. The lasses, seeing a timorous spectacled parson walking down the street, with one accord heaved him, and carried him in their arms through the town. My informant declares that the terror and agony of the poor inspector were something awful. The more he struggled the closer he was hugged, while an occasional smack from the lips of a vigorous mill-girl blanched his cheek, and made his rumpled hair stand on end. He firmly believed that his character and position were irretrievably ruined. On another Easter Monday one of my friends was lifted and kissed till he was black in the face by a party of leather-breeched coalpit women at, I think, Wednesbury. The same custom prevails in the Pyrenees, where I have been lifted by a party of stout Basque damsels. Another instance of this observance has been related to me. A number of convict women on their way to Australia were allowed one Easter Monday to come on deck for a little fresh air and change. The decks had previously been cleared,
