mportance to the opinion of Gregory of Tours. You may
remember that he admired one Chlodovech, King of all the Franks, who
outdid any other Teuton founder of kingdoms by his record of crime, of
murder and treachery, and generally speaking he had a tough lot to
compete against. Londoners have probably forgotten that they also have a
famous febrifuge in their city's patron saint, St. Erkenwald, to whose
shrine came many pilgrims for relief from pain. Modern pilgrims to
London come in their thousands to watch football matches--there is
little of healing in this. Other relics collected by Charles were the
spear, a bit of the cross and a nail, and the tablecloth used at the
Last Supper. All these precious relics, together with the crown jewels,
were kept in a strong castle built by Charles for the purpose. You may
catch a glimpse of this castle, Karlov Tyn, Karlstein, as you pass down
the valley of the winding Berounka of a summer's evening, coming to
Prague from Paris via Cheb. A day was set apart for the Feast of Relics,
the _Allatio Reliquiarum_. On this day the relics were conveyed to the
cathedral and exhibited to the people, and Charles had arranged that all
who attended this solemn function should be granted indulgence. I take
it there was no work done that day in Prague; as it happens this feast
coincided with that set apart for several saints, Macarius and Abel,
besides being the octave of St. Stephen, a further reason for
holiday-making.

Talking of holidays in Prague, I came across one such fixed for August
9th, and seriously described by a sound old writer on the manners and
customs of Bohemia. This feast was observed, I cannot say religiously,
but with great enthusiasm, by the students of the University. It was
called quite simply _Beano_. This will sound familiar to you, and you
will probably pronounce it as if derived from the bean, the common or
garden bean and the feast thereof. Not so. This _Beano_ should be
pronounced with due stress on each particular vowel, as if it were an
Italian word; indeed, it is derived from the Latin. Attempts have been
made to trace this word to early French influence at Prague University,
and to derive it from _bec-jaune_, pronounced with a certain abandon.
This, again, is wrong. _Beano_ is, or was, the great day on which the
new students, the "freshers," were initiated into the mysteries of
scholastic life with all manner of weird ceremony and horrible
observances. There was us