Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/156

 Christianity into this country, recommended to Melletus, the coadjutor of St Augustine, that on the anniversary of the dedication of the Christian churches wrested from the pagans, the converts to Christianity should "build themselves huts of the boughs of trees about their churches, and celebrate the solemnities with religious feastings." On a fixed day in every year—in Rochdale on the 19th August—a kind of obtuse pyramid of rushes, erected on a cart, is highly ornamented in front, and surmounted by a splendid garland. To the vehicle so laden, from thirty to forty young men, wearing white jackets and ornamented with ribbons and flowers, are harnessed in pairs. A band of music is always in attendance, which strikes up on the cart moving on, and thousands of spectators, attracted from a distance of ten or even twenty miles around, hail with repeated cheers the showy pageant. The procession then advances to the town, and, on arriving in front of each of the inns, a kind of morrice-dance is performed by the men in harness, who jingle copper bells, and beat or rather stamp tune with their wooden shoes—the clown, who is dressed in female attire, all the while collecting money to refresh the actors in the grotesque exhibition. From the town, the procession passes to the neighbouring mansions, where the dance is again repeated, and where the performers are presented by the ladies with garlands and money. Till about the early part of the nineteenth century the rush-bearing usually terminated at the church, and the rushes were spread on the clay floor under the benches used as seats by the congregation, to serve as a winter carpet; while the garlands were hung up in the chancel and over the pews of the families by whom they had been presented, where they remained till their beauty had faded. But within the last half century