MAIL INDUCTIO, an ancient custom for the priest and people of country-villages to go in procession to some adjoining wood on a May-day morning; and return in a kind of triumph, with a May pole, boughs, flowers, garlands, and other tokens of the spring. This May-game, or rejoicing at the coming of the spring, was for a long time observed, and still is in some parts of England; but there was thought to be so much heathen vanity in it, that it was condemned and prohibited within the diocese of Lincoln by the good old Bishop Grossthead.
MAIL INDUCTIO
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