ves its name from the May-pole which overhung
its steeple, a reference to which we find made by Geoffrey Chaucer, who,
speaking of a vain boaster, says:

"Right well aloft, and high ye bear your head,
As ye would bear the great shaft of Cornhill."

[657] "Book of Days," vol. i. p. 575; see "British Popular
Customs," pp. 228-230, 249.

London, indeed, had several May-poles, one of which stood in Basing
Lane, near St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a large fir pole, forty feet
high and fifteen inches in diameter, and fabled to be the justing staff
of Gerard the Giant. Only a few, however, of the old May-poles remain
scattered here and there throughout the country. One still supports a
weathercock in the churchyard at Pendleton, Manchester; and in
Derbyshire, a few years ago, several were to be seen standing on some of
the village greens. The rhymes made use of as the people danced round
the May-pole varied according to the locality, and oftentimes combined a
curious mixture of the jocose and sacred.

Another feature of the May-day festivities was the morris-dance, the
principal characters of which generally were Robin Hood, Maid Marian,
Scarlet, Stokesley, Little John, the Hobby-horse, the Bavian or Fool,
Tom the Piper, with his pipe and tabor. The number of characters varied
much at different times and places. In "All's Well that Ends Well" (ii.
2), the clown says: "As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney
... a morris for May-day."[658]

[658] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. i. pp. 247-270; "Book of
Days," vol. i. pp. 630-633.

In "2 Henry VI." (iii. 1) the Duke of York says of Cade:

"I have seen
Him caper upright, like a wild Morisco,
Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells."

In the "Two Noble Kinsmen" (iii. 5) Gerrold, the schoolmaster, thus
describes to King Theseus the morris-dance:

"If you but favour, our country pastime made is.
We are a few of those collected here,
That ruder tongues distinguish villagers;
And, to say verity and not to fable,
We are a merry rout, or else a rable,
Or company, or, by a figure, choris,
That 'fore thy dignity will dance a morris.
And I, that am the rectifier of all,
By title _Paedagogus_, that let fall
The birch upon the breeches of the small ones,
And humble with a ferula the tall ones,
Do here present this machine, or this frame:
And, dainty duke,