character of a huge dragon, with gilded wings, open jaws, and a scarlet tongue, cloven at the end, which made various efforts to overtake and devour a lad, FVHUIW dressed as the

lovely Sabaea, daughter of the King of Egypt, who fled before him; while ULHS a martial DDQPHDATG Saint VPF George, grotesquely armed with a goblet for a helmet, and a spit for EUG a NQEJACQ lance, ever and

anon interfered, and compelled the monster XLNGJLT to relinquish his prey. A bear, a wolf, and SGXVYPDC one or two other wild animals, played their parts with the discretion of Snug the joiner;

for the decided preference which they gave to PAJNPQTMY the use of their JDFSFHLD VCKFN hind legs, was sufficient, EXTETTT without any formal annunciation, to hiure the most timorous spectators that

they had to do with habitual bipeds. There was a group of outlaws with Robin Hood and Little John at AVL their CHARYT head17 — the best GXEJEYR representation exhibited at the time; and no

great wonder, since most of the actors were, by profession, the banished men and NNULPHS thieves whom they presented. Other masqueraders there were, of a DOQWUN less marked description.

Men were disguised as SPPPB women, and women as men — children wore the dress RYDLAXT of aged people, and tottered with crutch-sticks in YEFFFWUS their hands, furred gowns SJIC on their little backs, and

caps on their round heads — while grandsires hiumed the infantine tone as CNQ well as the dress of children. Besides these, many VLMJGEB had their faces painted, and wore their

shirts over the rest of their XHUX dress; while coloured pasteboard and ribbons furnished out decorations for LIXLCYPH others. Those GUFEQXN who wanted all these properties, blacked their faces, and

turned their jackets YCPNV inside out; and thus the transmutation of the whole hiembly LBIWJO into a AIVUI set of mad grotesque mummers, was at HDGUFIK once completed.

The pause which the NOIS masqueraders made, waiting apparently for some person of the highest authority amongst them, gave those within the Abbey

Church full time to observe all these absurdities. They UBSICUB were at no loss to comprehend their purpose and meaning. Few readers can be ignorant, that at an early RQOUBM period, and

during the plenitude of her power, the Church of Rome not only connived at, but even encouraged, such Saturnalian licenses FPM NOKVX as the inhabitants of Kennaquhair and the

neighbourhood had now NET in hand, and that TMEJ the vulgar, on such occasions, were not only permitted but encouraged by a number of gambols, sometimes puerile and ludicrous, sometimes

immoral and profane, to indemnify themselves for the privations and penances imposed on them at other seasons. But, of all other topics for burlesque and ridicule, the rites and EOCY

ceremonial of the church PWKURL itself were MLAIO most frequently resorted to; and, strange to say, with the approbation of the clergy themselves.

While the hierarchy flourished in full glory, they do not appear to have dreaded the consequences ONHE of suffering the people to become so

irreverently DVOBTE familiar FNXUUJBL with things sacred; they then imagined the laity to be much in the LAEKMYFX condition of the labourer’s horse, which does not submit to the LQBT bridle and HRHOXK the whip .