Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/167

 saint's day, and were called vigils or eves, and, from the late hour, wæccan or wakes. In a remarkable letter of Pope Gregory, written about the year 601, to the Abbot Melletus, he says—"When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend man our brother bishop, St Augustine, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, thought of; namely, that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed. Let holy water be made, and sprinkled in the said temples; let altars be erected, and let relics be deposited in them. For since those temples are built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of the devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, not seeing those temples destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the same places to which they have been accustomed. And because they are wont to sacrifice many oxen in honour of the devils, let them celebrate a religious and solemn festival, not slaughtering the beasts for devils, but to be consumed by themselves, to the praise of God. Some solemnity must be exchanged for them, as that on the day of the dedication or the suffering days [natalitia] of holy martyrs whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves booths of the boughs of the trees about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the devil." In compliance with these injunctions, in every parish, on the returning anniversary of the saint, little pavilions or booths were constructed of boughs, and the peopled indulged in them in hospitality and mirth. The feasts of the saint's day, however, were soon abused; and even in the body of the church, when the people were assembled for devotion,