Mythology

12 observe too, that on that day they also washed the Altars: so that the term in question may allude to that business. Here again one feels there is no other course open than to accept the word of the earlier authority. As to the events of the day, I cannot do better than transcribe a section from The Gentleman s Magazine for 1731: Thursday, April 15, beind Maunday Thursday, there was distributed at the Banquetting House, Whitehall, to forty-eight poor men, and forty-eight poorwomen (the king s age forty- eight) boiled beef and shoulders of mutton, and small bowls of ale, which is called dinner; after that, large wooden platters of fish and loaves, viz. undressed, one large old ling, and one large dried cod; twelve red herrings, and twelve white herrings, and four half quarter loaves. Each person had one platter of this provision after which was distributed to them shoes, stockings, linen and woollen cloth, and leathern bags, with one penny, two penny, three penny, and four penny pieces of silver, and shillings; to each about four pounds in value. His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Lord High Almoner, performed the annual ceremony of washing the feet of a certain number of poor in the Royal Chapel, Whitehall, which was formerly done by the kings themselves, in imitation of our Saviour s pattern of humility, etc. James the Second was the last king who performed this in person. But some Catholic monarchs still persevere in this pious act, even to the washing of beggars feet. In England, the king s Maundy is given at Westminster Abbey at a specially convened service, and those who receive it are carefully chosen from London parishes. (5) SHROVE TUESDAY. Shrove Tuesday, or as we know it to-day, Pancake Tuesday seems in the olden times to have been a season of merriment, horseplay, and cruelty, as if the participants were determined to have their fling ere Lent set in with its sombre feelings and proscription of joy. Prostitutes were hounded out of their dwellings with a view to segregation during the Lenten term; cock-throwing was indulged in, a cock being tied to a stake and pelted by the onlookers; and all kinds of rough games were played, the women and the men joining in the fun. The frying and eating of pancakes is apparently the only item left to us of this rather choice list of festivities. Taylor in his Jack-a-Lent (1630) gives the following curious account of the custom: Shrove-Tuesday, at whose entrance in the morning all the whole kingdom is inquiet, but by that time the clocke strikes eleven, which (by the help of a knavish sexton) is commonly before nine, then there is a bell rung, cal d the Pancake-bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful either of manners or humanitie; then there is a thing called wheaten floure, which the cookes do mingle with water, eggs, spice, and other tragical, magical inchantments, and then they put it by little and little into a frying pan of boiling suet, where it makes a confused dismal hissing, (like the Lernean Snakes in the reeds of Acheron, Stix, or Phlegeton) until at last, by the skill of the Cooke, it is transformed into the forme of a Flip-Jack, cal d a Pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very greedily. The piety of such people would seem to have gone sadly astray, for Shrove is a word derived from shrive which means, to confess; and there was apparently little of that element in the

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