In a lamentably lost hallowed halcyon age before the scurrilous scourge of invading immigrants known as yuppies, the noble neighborhoods of the fabulous Five Boroughs were, ofttimes intrepidly indeed in spite of the infernal interfering
The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday preceding Ascension Thursday form a special triduum known as the Rogation Days wherein the Faithful are commanded to fast and the Litany of the Saints is chanted “to ask God’s mercy, appease His anger, avert His chastisements manifest through natural disasters, and ask for His blessings, particularly with regard to farming, gardening, and other agricultural pursuits.”
The marvelously merry medieval English had a quaint custom on these days known as beating the bounds. “In former times when maps were rare it was usual to make a formal perambulation of the parish boundaries during Rogation Week. Knowledge of the limits of each parish needed to be handed down so that such matters as liability to contribute to the repair of the church building, and the right to be buried within the churchyard were not disputed. The priest of the parish with the churchwardens and the parochial officials headed a crowd of boys who, armed with green boughs, usually birch or willow, beat the parish boundary markers with them. Sometimes the boys were themselves whipped or even violently bumped on the boundary-stones to make them remember. The object of taking boys along is supposed to ensure that witnesses to the boundaries should survive as long as possible since sometimes boundary markers would be moved, or lines obscured, therefore a folk memory of the true extent of the parish was necessary to maintain integrity of borders by embedding [seems like sometimes, literally!-Editor] knowledge in oral traditions. Village and parish were coterminous.”
Upon the conclusion of the the pious perambulation the return to the placid precincts of the parsonry would feature the obligating opportunity for the church wardens to raise revenue by hospitably hosting the mirthful merriment known as the parish-ale!
Mr. Screwtape
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