ASS, FEAST OF THE, a festival formerly held on Jan. 14 in Northern France, in commemoration of the biblical flight into Egypt. A girl with a baby at her breast and seated on an ass splendidly caparisoned was led through the town to the church where mass was said. The ceremony degenerated into a bur lesque in which the ass of the flight became confused with Balaam's ass. So scandalous became the popular revels associated with it, that the celebration was prohibited by the church in the century. (See FOOLS, FEAST OF.)