ear corresponding to Easter, "the Feast of nooroose, or of the
waters," is held, and seems to have had its origin prior to
Mahometanism. It lasts for _six_ days, and is supposed to be kept in
commemoration of the Creation and the Deluge--events constantly
synchronised and confounded in pagan cosmogonies. At this feast eggs are
presented to friends, in obvious allusion to the Mundane egg, for which
Ormuzd and Ahriman were to contend till the consummation of all things.

When the many identities which existed between Druidism and Magianism
are considered, we can hardly doubt that this Persian commemoration of
the Creation originated our Easter-eggs.

G.J.

_Buns_.--It has been suggested by Bryant, though, I believe, not noticed
by any writer on popular customs, that the Good Friday cakes, called
_Buns_, may have originated in the cakes used in idolatrous worship, and
impressed with the figure of an ox, whence they were called [Greek:
boun]. The cow or bull was likewise, as Coleridge (_Lit. Rem_. vol. ii.
p. 252.) has justly remarked, the {245} symbol of the _Cosmos_, the
prolific or generative powers of nature.

G.J.

_Gloucestershire Custom_.--It is a custom in Gloucestershire, and may be
so in other counties, to place loose _straw_ before the door of any man
who beats his wife. Is this a general custom?--and if so, what is its
origin and meaning?

B.

_Curious Custom_.--The custom spoken of by "PWCCA" (No. 11 p. 173.) was
also commonly practised in one or two places in Lancashire some ten or
twelve years back, but is now, I believe, obsolete. The horse was played
in a similar way, but the performer was then called "Old Balls." It is
no doubt a vestige of the old "hobby-horse,"--as the Norwich "Snap," who
kept his place in the procession of the mayor of that good city till the
days of municipal reform, was the last representative of his companion
the dragon.

J.T.

[Nathan also informs us "that it is very common in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, where a ram's head often takes the place of the horse's
skull. Has it not an obvious connection with the 'hobby-horse' of the
middle ages, and such mock pageants as the one described in Scott's
_Abbot_, vol. i. chap. 14.; the whole being a remnant of the Saturnalia
of the ancients?"]

* * * * *

QUERIES.

WHITE HART INN, SCOLE.

In _Songs and other Poems_, by Alex. Brome, Gent. Lond. 12mo. 1661,
there is (at p. 123.) a ballad