WAKE, in antiquities and popular usage, the word is of the same meaning as vigil; and the custom originated in the processions which took place early in the morning of feast. days to the church, and were not uncommonly followed by revelling and drunkenness. At present most fast (diys :ire popularly called wakes by the English peasantry ; but the pe culiar " wake" or " revel" of county parishes was, originally, the day of the week on which the church hall been dedi cated ; afterwafds, the day of the year. In 1336, an act of convocation appointed that the wake should be held in every parish on the same day, namely, the first Sunday in October ; but it was dis regarded. Wakes are expressly men tioned in Charles the First's Book of Sports, among the feasts which it was his majesty's pleasure should be observed. The wake appears to have been also held on the Sunday after the day of dedica tion : or, more usually, the day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated.
—A strange practice of celebrating fu neral rites by the lower orders in Ireland, has been thus described by Miss Edge worth :—" At night the body is waked : that is to say, all the friends and neigh bors of the dceeneed collect in a bum or stable, where the corpse is laid upon some board:, or an unhinged door, supported upon stools, the face exposed, the rest of the body covered with a white sheet. Round the body are stuck, in brass candle sticks, which have been borrowed haps at fire distance, as many eandles as the poor person can beg or borrow, observing always to have art odd number. Pipes and tobacco are first dis tributed, and then, according to the abil ity of the dece used, cakes and ale, and sometimes whiskey, are dealt to the com pany."