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Updated: June 21, 2025
The milkmaids' place has been completely usurped by the sweeps, who clatter a shovel and broom instead of the old plate and bells, and who seem to have added the popular Jack-in-the-green to the entertainment. Jack-in-the-green's costume is very simple.
It was not easy to catch the monkey off his guard, and the rabbit waited long before an opportunity arrived. But one day Jack-in-the-Green was sitting on a stone, wondering what he should do next, when the rabbit crept softly behind him, and gave his tail a sharp pull.
Chiefs of influence and women of high birth, who in their native dress would look, and do look, the ladies and gentlemen they are, are, by their Sunday finery, given the appearance of attendants upon Jack-in-the-Green.
They sang a doggerel rhyme, and the form in which money was asked was, "Please to handsel the Lord and Lady's purse." One cannot help thinking that some of our flowers, such as Milkmaids, Lords and Ladies, and Jack-in-the-green Primrose, bear traces of having got their common names at the great flower festival of the year.
An osteopath, I suppose, would be agreeably painted so as to resemble a skeleton, while a botanist would enliven the street with the appearance of a Jack-in-the-Green. And then came another turn of the wheel of topsy-turvydom, and all the logic was scattered to the wind.
The last survivor of these perambulating English giants lingered at Salisbury, where an antiquary found him mouldering to decay in the neglected hall of the Tailors' Company about the year 1844. His bodily framework was a lath and hoop, like the one which used to be worn by Jack-in-the-Green on May Day. In these cases the giants merely figured in the processions.
My Dear Honeyman, It is May-day, when even the chimney-sweeper, developing the pleasant unconscious poetry of his nature, forgets the flues, wreathes the flowers, and persuades himself that he is Jack-in-the-Green. Jack who? Was he Jack Sprat, or the young swain who mated with Jill! Who knows?
"Or the heathery knoll where poor little mother got into a scrape for singing profane songs by moonlight," laughed Jock. "Ah! that was when hearts were light," she said; "but at any rate we'll make a holiday of it, for Jock's sake." "Ha! what do I see?" exclaimed Jock, who was opposite the open window. "Is that Armine, or a Jack-in-the-Green?" "Oh!" half sighed Barbara.
In the midst of them was the "dendrological man," enclosed in a framework of green boughs, like that borne by a modern Jack-in-the-green. A ring was formed by the mummers, and the round commenced to lively music. While the mazy measure was proceeding, Nance Redferne, who had quitted the stage with Nicholas, and now stood close to him among the spectators, said in a low tone, "Look there!"
A lady, of the time of Elizabeth, gorgeous in ruffles, follows on horseback. Then knights in armour, one of them with a stuffed 'possum snarling on the top of his helmet. Another band. Then the solemn brethren of the Order of Druids, in white gowns, bald heads, and grey beards. A company of sweeps comes next, attended by an active Jack-in-the-Green.
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