British Popular Customs, Present and Past, 1876, Vol. 1 of 5: Illustrating the Social Anddomestic Manners of the People; Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Excerpt from British Popular Customs, Present and Past, 1876, Vol. 1 of 5: Illustrating the Social Anddomestic Manners of the People; Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year

N EW Year's Day has always been a time of general rejoicing and festivity, its observance being characterised by many a curious custom and superstitious practice. Story tells us how on this day the Druids were accustomed, with much pomp and ceremony. To distribute branches of the sacred mistletoe amongst the pe0p1e; those precious gifts having the night before been cut from the oak-tree in a. Forest dedicated to the gods. Among the Saxons of the northern nations the new year was ushered in by friendly gifts, and celebrated with such extraordinary festivity that people actually used to reckon their age by the numbers of annual merry-makings in which they had participated. Fosbroke, in his Encyclopedia of Antiquities, notices the continua tion of the Roman practice of interchanging gifts during the middle and later ages; a custom Which prevailed especially amongst our kings, queens, and the nobility. According to Matthew Paris, Henry III., following the discreditable example of some of the Roman emperors, even extorted them from his subjects.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.