Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/435

Rh Whitsuntide. Mrs. Quickly alludes to Wednesday in Whitsun week when she tells Falstafif that "upon Wednesday in Wheeson week … thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady, thy wife?" (1 Henry IV. ii. i. 96).

The Dauphin (Henry V. ii. 4. 25) refers to "a Whitsun morris dance," and Perdita says:

I cannot, after some search, find the date of St. Withold's Day, mentioned in Edgar's song:

The name is also spelled Swithald and Swithold, and it has been suggested that it is latinised as Vitalis, but this does not help us, as there are several saints named Vitalis, and each of these has his own particular day appointed to his memory.