Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/312

 302 Folklore and History in Ireland.

There are many verses descriptive of the fortunes of the fight, and one tells how " their daughters, wives and elders like poisoned Salamanders " joined in the fray ! The finale is typical :

" Now Clothiers sit ye merry, drink brandy, wine, and sherry, Malaga and canary, fill bumper, do not spare ! "

At Drogheda again we find annual battle waged between north and south, the part of the city on opposite sides of the Boyne. This took place on Shrove Tuesday. One side was led by the " Mayor of Flea Lane," an obscure lane in the suburbs behind Millmount (which is an earth- work " connected by a raised causeway or bridge " with a bank abutting on the Boyne, says the Dublin Penny Journal). The " Mayor of Flea Lane " crossed the bridge over the river and entered the northern part of the town " mounted on an ass, in mock procession, attended by his sheriffs, bailiffs, and other officers, all fantastically dressed with straw, and each bearing the insignia of his dignity, together with several ragamuffins disguised in petticoats and masks and armed with blown bladders on poles " to clear a way. The cavalcade was " proceeded by a ' bough ' or garland," and - music. The principal streets were traversed and contributions levied. Meanwhile another party entered by Lawrence's Gate, " the Mayor of the Chord " and his followers " generally dressed in cast-soldiers' clothes." They marched " in another direction until evening, or they conceive they have enough collected, when they meet and after a mock encounter between the ' bladder- men ' ... all adjourn to the ' chord field ' outside Lawrence's Gate and spend the evening in mirth and jolhty."

The "Mayor of the Chord" and the "chord field" certainly suggest the Mayor of the Bull-ring and " A rope, a rope 1 " But so far as the sham fight is concerned history gives an explanation, without which guidance the folklorist might stray to many a false premise. Drogheda originally