The Old Observances

How was Christmas kept before it became a season for shopping? This volume gathers eleven accounts of the old observances in Wales, Guernsey, Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and Lancashire, along with a chapter on the Norse Yule behind them. Here are the Plygain service at three in the morning, the Mari Lwyd, the St George play, the guise-dancers of St Ives, the New-Year's shinty match, the dinner a Lancashire lord owed his tenants in 1422, and a Cornish calendar of feasts from October to May. Each text comes with short notes on the words and a note on the sources. A gift edition, illustrated throughout with original paintings made for this edition and set with ornamental chapter openings.