ir immature arms.

In those days men worked when they liked, and played when it suited them;
they generally played the earlier days of the week, even if at the end
they worked night and day in the attempt to average the weekly earnings.
In this connection it has been suggested that in pre-Reformation times
Willenhall folk duly honoured St. Sunday and well as St. Monday,
consecrating both days to the sacred cause of weekly idleness. Or was
Willenhall's Holy Well dedicated to St. Dominic, and came by grammatical
error to be called St. Sunday? As thus--Sanctus Dominicus abbreviated
first to Sanc. Dominic, and then extended in the wrong gender to Sancta
Dominica, otherwise Saint Sunday? Who shall say? It may have been so.

It is perhaps in their pleasures, more than in their pursuits, that the
character of a people is to be best seen. Allusion has been made to the
obsolete Trinity Fair in Chapter XII.; but the Wake has remained to this
day, less loyally observed perhaps, but rich in traditions of past
glories.

Willenhall Wake falls on the first Sunday after September 11th, the Feast
of St. Giles, to whom the old church is dedicated.

Among the wakes of the Black Country none are richer in reminiscence of
the old time forms of festivity than that of Willenhall. Although in
later times the outward and visible sign of its celebration has dwindled
down to an assemblage of shows and roundabouts, shooting galleries, and
ginger-bread stalls, it was once accompanied by bull-baitings and
cock-fighting, and all the other coarse and brutal sports in which our
forefathers so much delighted.

At Wednesfield at one village wake
The cockers all did meet
At Billy Lane's, the cock-fighter's,
To have a sporting treat.

For Charley Marson's spangled cock
Was matched to fight a red
That came from Will'n'all o'er the fields,
And belonged to "Cheeky Ned."

Two finer birds in any cock-pit
Two never yet was seen.
Though the Wednesfield men declared
Their cock was sure to win.

The cocks fought well, and feathers fled
All round about the pit,
While blood from both of 'em did flow
Yet ne'er un would submit.

At last the spangled Wedgefield bird
Began to show defeat,
When Billy Lane, he up and swore
The bird shouldn't be beat;

For he would fight the biggest mon
That came from Will'n'all town,
When on