Rood and cross are synonymous. From the Anglo-Saxon pod. "The rood," as Fuller observes, "when perfectly made, and with all the appurtenances thereof, had not only the image of our Saviour extended upon it, but the figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John, one on each side: in allusion to John xix. 26, Christ on the Cross saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by.'" See Fuller's Hist. Waltham Abbey, pp. 16, 17.

Such was the representation denominated the rood, usually placed over the screen which divided the nave from the chancel of our churches. To our ancestors, we are told, it conveyed a full type of the Christian church: the nave representing the church militant, and the chancel the church triumphant ; denoting that all who would go from the one to the other must pass under the rood, that is, carry the Cross and suffer affliction. Churchwardens' accounts, previous to the Reformation, are usually full of entries relating to the rood-loft. The following extracts belong to that formerly in the church of St. Mary-at-Hill, 5 Hen. VI.: "Also for makynge of a peire endentors betwene William Serle, carpenter, and us, for the rode lofte and the under clerks chambre, ijs. viijd." The second leaf, he observes, of the churchwardens' accounts contains the names (it should seem) of those who contributed to the erection of the rood-loft.1 "Also ress. of serteyn men for the rod loft; fyrst of Ric. Goslyn 107.; also of Thomas Raynwall 107.; also of Rook 268. 7d.; and eighteen others. Summa totalis 957. 11s. 9d." The carpenters on this occasion appear to have had what in modern language is called "their drinks" allowed them over and above their wages. "Also the day after St. Dunston the 19 day of May, two carpenters with her Nonsiens."2

1 Other entries respecting the rood-loft occur, ibid. "Also payd for a rolle and 2 gojons of iron and a rope xiiijd. Also payd to 3 carpenters removing the stallis of the quer xxd. Also payd for 6 peny nail and 5 peny nail xjd. Also for crochats, and three iron pynnes and a staple xiijd. Also for 5 yardis and a halfe of grene bokeram iijs. d. ob. Also for lengthyng of 2 cheynes and 6 zerdes of gret wyer xiiijd. Also payd for eleven dozen pavyng tyles, iijs. iiijd."

2 Nunchion (s. a colloquial word), a piece of victuals eaten between meals. The word occurs in Cotgrave's Dictionary: "A nuncions or nuncheon (or afternoones repast), gouber, gouster, reciné, ressie. To take an afternoone's nuncheon, reciner, ressiner."

In Howe's edition of Stow's Chronicle, 2 Edw. VI. 1547, we read: "The 17 of Nov. was begun to be pulled downe the roode in Paules Church, with Mary and John, and all other images in the church, and then the like was done in all the churches in London, and so throughout England, and texts of Scripture were written upon the walls of those churches against images, &c." Many of our rood-lofts, however, were not taken down till late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

It appears to have been the custom to go a nutting upon this day, from the following passage in the old play of Grim the Collier of Croydon :"

"This day, they say, is called Holy-rood Day,

And all the youth are now a nutting gone."

[The following occurs in Poor Robin, 1709:

"The devil, as the common people say,

Doth go a nutting on Holy-rood day;
And sure such leachery in some doth lurk,
Going a nutting do the devil's work."]

It appears from the curious MS. Status Scholæ Etonensis, 1560, that in the month of September, on a certain day," most probably on the 14th, the boys of Eton school were to have a play-day, in order to go out and gather nuts, with a portion of which, when they returned, they were to make presents to the different masters of that seminary. It is ordered, however, that before this leave be granted them, they should write verses on the fruitfulness of autumn, the deadly colds, &c. of advancing winter.

MICHAELMAS.

SEPTEMBER 29.

MICHAELMAS," says Bailey, "is a festival appointed by the church to be observed in honour of St. Michael the Arch angel, who is supposed to be the chief of the Host of Heaven, as Lucifer is of the infernal; and as he was supposed to be

the protector of the Jewish, so is he now esteemed the guardian and defender of the Christian Church."

It has long been and still continues the custom at this time of the year, or thereabouts, to elect the governors of towns and cities, the civil guardians of the peace of men, perhaps, as Bourne supposes, because the feast of angels naturally enough brings to our minds the old opinion of tutelar spirits, who have, or are thought to have, the particular charge of certain bodies of men, or districts of country, as also that every man has his guardian angel, who attends him from the cradle to the grave, from the moment of his coming in, to his going out of life. The following account is taken from the Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1804, p. 965:

:

Monday, October 1st, 1804. This day the lord mayor and aldermen proceeded from Guildhall, and the two sheriffs with their respective companies from Stationer's Hall and having embarked on the Thames, his lordship in the city. barge, and the sheriffs in the stationers' barge, went in aquatic state to Palace-yard. They proceeded to the Court of Exchequer, where, after the usual salutations to the bench (the cursitor baron, Francis Maseres, Esq., presiding), the recorder presented the two sheriffs; the several writs were then read, and the sheriffs and the senior undersheriff took the usual oaths. The ceremony, on this occasion, in the Court of Ex chequer, which vulgar error supposed to be an unmeaning farce, is solemn and impressive; nor have the new sheriffs the least connexion either with chopping of sticks or counting of hobnails. The tenants of a manor in Shropshire are directed

The following extract from a very rare book entitled Curiosities, or the Cabinet of Nature, by R. B. Gent. (Ro. Basset), 1637, p. 228, informs us of a very singular office assigned by ancient superstition to the good genii of infants. The book is by way of question and answer. "Q. Wherefore is it that the childe cryes when the absent nurse's brests doe pricke and ake? An. That by dayly experience is found to be so, so that by that the nurse is hastened home to the infant to supply the defect; and the reason is that either at that very instant that the infant hath finished its concoction, the breasts are replenished, and, for want of drawing, the milke paines the breast, as it is seen likewise in milch cattell; or rather the good genius of the infant seemeth by that means to sollicite or trouble the nurse in the infant's behalfe: which reason seemeth the more firm and probable, because sometimes sooner, sometimes later, the child cryeth, neither is the state of the nurse and infant alwayes the same."

to come forth to do their suit and service; on which the senior alderman below the chair steps forward, and chops a single stick, in token of its having been customary for the tenants of that manor to supply their lord with fuel. The owners of a forge in the parish of St. Clement (which formerly belonged to the city, and stood in the high road from the Temple to Westminster, but now no longer exists) are then called forth to do their suit and service; when an officer of the court, in the presence of the senior alderman, produces six horseshoes and sixty-one hob-nails, which he counts over in form before the cursitor baron, who, on this particular occasion, is the immediate representative of the sovereign. The whole of the numerous company then again embarked in their barges, and returned to Blackfriars-bridge, where the state carriages were in waiting. Thence they proceeded to Stationers' Hall, where a most elegant entertainment was given by Mr. Sheriff Domville.'

For a custom after the election of a mayor at Abingdon, in Berkshire, see the Gent. Mag. for Dec. 1782, p. 558. The following occurs in the same periodical for 1790, p. 1191: "At Kidderminster is a singular custom. On the election of a bailiff the inhabitants assemble in the principal streets to throw cabbage-stalks at each other. The town-house bell gives signal for the affray. This is called lawless hour. This done (for it lasts an hour), the bailiff elect and corporation, in their robes, preceded by drums and fifes (for they have no waits), visit the old and new bailiff, constables, &c. &c., attended by the mob. In the mean time the most respectable families in the neighbourhood are invited to meet and fling apples at them on their entrance. I have known forty pots of apples expended at one house."

In the ancient Romish Calendar, the following entry occurs on Michaelmas Day: "Arx tonat in gratiam tutelaris numinis." Bishop Hall, in his Triumphs of Rome, ridicules the superstitions of Romish sailors, who, in passing by St. Michael's Grecian promontory Malla, used to ply him with their best devotions, that he would hold still his wings from resting too hard upon their sails. A red velvet buckler is said by the bishop to be still preserved in a castle of Normandy, and was believed to have been that which the archangel made use of when he combated the dragon.

Stevenson, in his Twelve Moneths, 1661, p. 44, says: They say so many dayes old the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods after."

[The following lines are proverbial in Suffolk:

"At Michaelmas time, or a little before,

Half an apple goes to the core;

At Christmas time, or a little after,

A crab in the hedge, and thanks to the grafter."

At this season village maidens in the west of England go up and down the hedges gathering crab-apples, which they carry home, putting them into a loft, and forming with them the initials of their supposed suitors' names. The initials which are found on examination to be most perfect on Old Michaelmas day, are considered to represent the strongest attachments, and the best for the choice of husbands.]

ALL THE HOLY ANGELS.

THE following saints are invoked against various diseases: St Agatha against sore breasts; St. Anthony against inflammations; St. Apollonia and St. Lucy against the toothache; St. Benedict against the stone and poison; St. Blaise against bones sticking in the throat, fire, and inflammations; St. Christopher2 and St. Mark against sudden death; St. Clara against sore eyes; St. Genow against the gout; St. Job and St. Fiage against the venereal disease; St. John against epilepsy and poison;3 St. Liberius against the stone and fistula;

He had cured a boy that had got a fish-bone in his throat. (See the Golden Legend.) And was particularly invoked by the Papists in the Squinnancy or Quinsy. Fabric. Biblio. Antiq. p. 267. Gent. Mag. vol. xliii. p. 384.

2 "A cock is offered (at least was wont to be) to St. Christopher in Touraine for a certaine sore which useth to be in the end of mens fingers, the white-flaw." World of Wonders, p. 308. The cock was to be a white one.

3 Apollini et Esculapio ejus filio datur morbo medicinam facere, apud nos Cosmæ et Damiano: at pestis in partem cedit Rocho: oculorum lippitudo Claræ. Antonius suibus medendis sufficit: et Apollo noster den