Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/373

 Collectanea. 351

Gloucestershire. On Whitmonday, 27th May, 1912, the custom of "Cheese- bowling " was, as usual, carried out at the Wake held on Cooper's Hill, not far from the city of Gloucester. The custom, it is said, must be performed annually in order to preserve to the people the rights of common. According to the Gloucestershire Echo of May 28th, the master of the ceremonies, Mr. W. Brookes, Avho has officiated in this capacity for thirty years, appeared wearing, as usual, a brown top-hat which his parents won in a dancing contest many years ago, and with a chemise over his coat. He stood by the maypole and repeatedly called to the crowd to form " the alley " down the slope. " The course being clear, the Vicar opened the ball by sending the first 'cheese' (a disc of wood wrapped in pink paper) rolling down the hill. Helter-skelter ran nine young men after it, and most of them pitch-poled.'^ The first to secure the disc, stopped at the bottom by a hedge, had to trudge uphill again, and there exchange it for the prize cheese. . . . The 'Cheese-bowling' was. varied by some rural sports on a stretch of flat ground near the maypole. These included"running, jumping in sacks, and a tug-of-war, in which the lady contestants once more pulled stronger than the mere men."

W. Crooke.

Herefordshire.

At Whitney-on-the-Wye there was formerly a stile called the " Cock-stile," because at nightfall a cock used to stand upon it, and crow as people passed. Probably the stile was in a wayside hedgerow, for the crowing of the cock frightened the horses of those who drove by. As the bird was supposed to be super- natural, one man, a miller, spoke to it in the name of the Trinity. The cock immediately led him to a spot where he found a hidden treasure ; he took it and threw it into water, and after this the spirit-bird appeared on the stile no more. (From Mr. C. G. Portman, of Hay.)

At Weobley it is still believed that horses and cattle do not eat on Saints' Days. An old man said lately to his master : " Be it a

■*A dialectic term for turning head-over-heels; cf. The Oxford Dic- tionary, s.v.