Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/58

 MAY-DAY IN CHELTENHAM.

GIVE a short account of the May-Day revels in Cheltenham, as I saw them on the 2nd of May last year. The 1st being Sunday, they had been put off till the next day. Some few facts which I gained by inquiry I put in their place, with my informant's name.



The dancers are the chimney-sweeps of the town, two of whom, dressed in ordinary clothes, but with faces blacked, play on a fiddle and a tin-whistle for the dancing. The centre of the group is formed by a large bush: on a framework of wood leaves are fastened, so as to make a thick cone of them, about six feet high, topped with a crown