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Athenian Oracle
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Why does the sun at his rising play more on Easter-day than Whitsunday? The matter of fact is an old weak, superstitious error, and the sun neither plays nor works on Easter-day more than any other. It's true, it may sometimes happen to shine brighter that morning than any other; but, if it does, 'tis purely accidental. In some parts of England they call it the lamb-playing, which they look for, as soon as the sun rises, in some clear spring or water, and is nothing but the pretty reflection it makes from the water, which they may find at any time, if the sun rises clear and they themselves early, and unprejudiced with fancy.
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We shall not, I hope, disparage the Resurrection of our Redeemer if we say that the sun doth not dance on Easter-day; and though we would willingly assent to any sympathetical exultation, yet we cannot conceive therein any more than a tropical expression.
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of the traditionary belief, and that its probable origin is of an earlier date than the Christian festivities of Easter. Some derive the term Easter from the Saxon Oster, to rise; others
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Others, again, prefer the Anglo-Saxon root, signifying a storm,
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from flint and steel at this season, has been previously referred to. At Reading, in 1559, it appears by the churchwardens' account, yet extant, that 5s. 8d. was
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The Festival, published in 1511, referring to these
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says:--
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This day is called, in many places, Godde's Sondaye: ye knowe well that it is the maner at this day to do the fyre out of the hall, and the blacke wynter brandes, and all thyngs that is foule with fume and smoke shall be done awaye, and there the fyre was shall be gayly arayed with fayre floures, and strewed with grene rysshes all aboute.
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Religious History of the Calendar, traces this Easter custom to the ancient Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Greeks, Romans, and others,
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In the nursery tale of
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Jack and the Bean-stalk, evidently descended from an Aryan source, one of the hero's feats is the abduction from the giant's castle in
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Belithus, a ritualist of ancient times, tells us that it was customary in some churches for the bishops and archbishops themselves to play with the inferior clergy at _hand-ball_, and this, as Durand asserts, even on Easter-day itself. Why they should play at hand-ball at this time, rather than any other game, Bourne tells us he has not been able to discover; certain it is, however, that the present custom of playing at that game on Easter holidays for a tansy-cake has been derived from thence. Erasmus, speaking of the proverb, _Mea est pila_, that is, 'I got the ball,' tells us that it signifies 'I've obtained the victory; I am master of my wishes.'
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It would, perhaps, be indulging fancy too far to suppose that the bishops and governors of the churches, who used to play at hand-ball at this season, did it _in a mystical way_, and with reference to the _triumphal joy of the season_.
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Sleaford-Gild Account Book there is an entry, under the date 1480, as follows:--
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Payd for the Ryitiuall of ye play for the Ascencion, and the wrytyng of spechys, and payntyng of a garment for God, iij. _s._ viij. _d._