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The observance of Hock-tide seems to have been particularly popular in the ancient town of Reading.
She made no answer, but asked me what were my mother's plans. And when I said that she would fly to Ethelred the king, the old nurse laughed strangely to herself. "Then you go to the very cause of all this trouble," she said. "Truly the king's name should be 'the Unredy', for rede he has none. It is his ill counsel that has brought Swein the Dane on us. We have to pay for the Hock-tide slayings ."
An arbour of boughs was erected in the churchyard, called Robin Hood's Bower, where the maidens collected money for the "ales" in the same way which they employed at Hock-tide, and which was called "Hocking." The old books of St. Received of the maidens' gathering at Whitsuntide by the tree at the church door, ij^s. vi^d."
The Biddenham cakes are distributed, and the Hallaton hare-scramble and bottle-kicking provide a rough scramble and a curious festival for Easter Monday. On St. Mark's Day the ghosts of all who will die during the year in the villages of Yorkshire pass at midnight before the waiting people, and Hock-tide brings its quaint diversions to the little Berkshire town of Hungerford.
It is to be noted that the women always extracted the most money, and in the old churchwardens' accounts we find frequent records of this strange method of collecting subscriptions e.g., St. Item, received of Hoc money gaderyd of men iiijs." We also find that the women had a supper given to them as a reward for their exertions, for there is the "item for wives' supper at Hock-tide xxiijd."
But Easter sports are almost finished: however, we have not long to wait for another popular anniversary; for the famous Hock-tide sports always took place a fortnight after Easter, and much amusement, and profit also, were derived from the quaint observances of Hock Monday and Tuesday.
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