Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/433

 The Folklore of Shakespeare. 405

fellow, is it not?" When he is answered he says, "Why, then, All Soul's day is my body's doomsday."

November ii. St. Martin'' s Day, Martinuias, Martlciiias. Joan of Arc says, " Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days " ( I Henry VI. i. 2. 131).

Poins (2 Henry IV. ii. 2. iio) catches Prince Henry's idea respecting Falstaff referred to above, and slightly alters the form, " How doth the Martlemas, your master?"

December.

Rosalind says, "Men are April when they woo, December when they wed " {As You Like It, iv. i. 147).

" He makes a July's day short as December."

JVi/iiers Tale, i. 2. 169.

6. St. Nicholas, the patron of boy scholars and also of parish clerks. Launce affirms that Speed was illiterate and could not read, which charge he denies, and asks to be tried. Launce answers this: "There; and Saint Nicholas be thy speed ! " {Tivo Gentlemen, iii. i. 301).

Highwaymen, called St. Nicholas' clerks, are alluded to in I Henry IV. ii. I. It is supposed that this name is taken from Old Nick, the name of Satan, rather than the Christian saint.

25. Christmas Day. There is little reference to the festival in Shakespeare, but wassail is mentioned in connec- tion with Christmas customs. How beautiful, however, are the words of Marcellus {Hamlet, i. 2) respecting the freedom from evil spirits on Christmas night :

"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singelh all night long : And, then, they say no spirit dares stir abroad ; The nights are wholesome; then no ])lanets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."