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Page 13
Can any of your antiquarian correspondents furnish further elucidation of
the strange ceremony of the gathering of the Wardstaff (which was in old
time one of the customs of the hundred of Ongar, in Essex) than are to be
found in Morant's _History of Essex_, vol. i. p. 126.? from whence it was
incorrectly copied in Blount's _Jocular Tenures_ by Beckwith, 4to. ed. It
has been also more correctly given by Sir Francis Palgrave, in his _Rise
and Progress of the English Commonwealth_, Part II. p. clvii., who justly
styles it--
"a strange and uncouth fragment of the earliest customs of the Teutons;
in which we can still recognise {58} the tone and the phraseology of
the Courts of the Eresburg. The _Irminsule_ itself having been
described as a trunk of a tree, Thor was worshipped under the same rude
symbol; and it may be suspected that the singular respect and reverence
shown to the ward-staff of the East Saxons is not without its relation
to the rites and ceremonies of the heathen time, though innocently and
unconsciously retained."
At the time of publication of his learned and interesting work, Sir Francis
did me the honour to adopt some conjectural corrections of Morant's very
corrupt transcript of the rhyme, which I furnished at his request, in
common with others suggested by the late Mr. Price. Since that time, a more
mature examination of it has enabled me, I think, to put it into a form
much more nearly resembling what it must have originally been; many of the
corrections being obviously required by the prose details which accompany
it in the MS. from which Morant gave it. It may not, therefore, be
unacceptable to some of your readers, to subjoin this corrected copy. It
may be proper to premise, that "The _Tale_ of the Wardstaff" is the
_tallying_ or _cutting_ of it, and that it was evidently originally spoken
in parts, assigned as under; although it should seem that there is no
indication of this arrangement in the MS.
"THE TALE OF THE WARDSTAFF.
_The Bailiffe of the Liberty._
"Iche athied[6] the staffe byleve,
Thanne staffe iche toke byleve,
Byleve iche will tellen[7]
Now the staffe have iche got.
_Lord of Ruckwood Hall._
"Tho the staffe to me com
Als he hoveon for to don,
Faire and well iche him underfing
Als iche hoveon for to don.
_The Bailiffe._
"All iche theron challenged,
That theron was for to challenge,
Nameliche,--this:--and--this:
And all that ther was for to challenge.
_Lord of Ruckwood._
"Fayer iche him uppdede
Als iche hoveon for to don.
_The Bailiffe._
"All iche warnyd to the Ward to cum,
That therto hoveon for to cum,
By SUNNE SHINING.
_Lord of Ruckwood._
"We our roope theder brouhton,
A roope beltan[8],
Als we hoveon for don;
And there waren and wakeden,
And the Ward soe kept,
That the King was harmless,
And the Country scatheless.
_The Bailiffe._
"And a morn, when itt day was,
And the sun arisen was,
Faier honour weren to us toke,
Als us hoveon for to don.
_The Lords, and the Tenants_
Fayre on the staffe we scorden,
Als we hoveon for to don,
Fayre we him senden,
Theder we hoveon for to sende.
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