The same spot gives an instance of the persistence of tradition. The knowledge of the old pilgrim route, of which there is documentary record, is also preserved traditionally, and pilgrimages are still made. The route leaves Glastonbury Abbey by the road towards Street, crosses the Brue by a bridge, and turns round to the south of Wearyall Hill, Thence it leads up to the top of Glastonbury Tor, and so down and back to the Abbey. There are certain hawthorns on the way on which white rags are tied, and from the bridge over the Brue the pilgrims throw a piece of lead or small coin into the river in order that their sins may be removed. Tradition says that this spot is the place where Arthur threw away Excalibur. (Whether this is a variant of the story of the "bold Sir Bedivere" or a lapse on the part of tradition is not quite clear.) There may very well have been a mere in the neighbourhood in Arthurian times. There are features about this pilgrimage which suggest that it may preserve pre-Christian elements.
Albany F. Major.
Virgins' Garlands.
(Ante, p. 321.)
May I add to Miss Moutray Read's note that one of the seven garlands at Minsterley was exhibited at the Church Congress at Stoke-upon-Trent in October last (1911). Garlands are also recorded as having formerly existed at Shrawardine, Little Ness, and Hanwood, in Shropshire. That at Astley Abbots in the same county, to the memory of Hannah Phillips, 1747, was there in 1884, and probably still remains.[1]
C. S. Burne.
- ↑ The Book of Days (1864), vol. i. , p. 274, states that a number of garlands had been removed from the church at Heanor (Derbyshire) "not many years ago," and writes of the custom as still existing at Llandovery.
