Yew for the house on Easter Eve

Easter Saturday · England

No longer kept

On Easter Eve the box that had decked the house since Candlemas was taken down and yew put up in its place. Herrick’s Ceremonies for Candlemasse Eve sets out the whole year of house greenery: box to rule from Candlemas until Easter Day or Easter Eve, then the crisped yew until birch and flowers came in for Whitsun.

Let Box now domineere; / Untill the dancing Easter-day, / Or Easters Eve appeare. / Then youthfull Box which now hath grace, / Your houses to renew; / Grown old, surrender must his place, / Unto the crisped Yew.

From Herrick's Hesperides, p. 337. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Out with the Lent at midnight No longer kept IrelandOn the night of Holy Saturday, cottagers in the middle districts of Ireland put a fat hen and a piece of bacon in the pot, but no one dared taste it before the cock crew.
We fasted in the light No longer kept DorsetIn Dorset during the eighteenth century boys went in procession on Easter Eve carrying rough torches and a small black flag.
An Easter egg, good dame No longer kept Cheshire, Cumberland, WestmorlandIn Cheshire children went round the village begging eggs for their Easter dinner, singing a short song to the farmer's wife that asked for an egg, bacon, cheese, an apple or anything that would make them merry.
Watching the Easter sepulchre No longer kept EnglandBefore the Reformation churches set up Easter sepulchres showing the burial of Christ, and crowds came to see them.

Yew for the house on Easter Eve

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