WAIWODE. [Waywonr..] Wa ICES, haiii.sv feativele which are kept once a year in some of the rural districts of England. They are the remains of certain religious wakes, wakiogs, or vigils, followed by a festival, which were once held in all the country parishes. Previous to the Reformation in England, every church, when it was consecrated, was dedicated to sonic particular saint or martyr, and every rural parish had its wake every year, and moat of them had two wakes, one on the day of dedication, the dies dedieationis ',and another on 'the birth-day of the saint, the propria festiritas sancta. These church festivals seem to have been established by the early popes and bishops soon after the introduction of Christianity Into England, in the place of the heathen fostivals to which the people had been accustomed.
In the Saxon times the church method of reckoning the day was from sunset to sunset, so that the Sunday and festival and fast days began about six o'clock on the evening preceding the day itself, and the eve was in fact the commencement of the sacred day, when the people were accustomed to repair to the church and to join in the religious exercises. These night devotions were called in Anglo-Saxon rearecah, wakes, and the night itself was called the eve (the Anglo Saxon afge, or wren), which explains why Christmas-eve and other eves of sacred days precede the day itself. On these occasions the
floor of the church was strewed with rushes and sweet-smelling herbs plesu-neaniao], the altar and pulpit were adorned with green boughs and flowers, and tents were erected in the churchyard. which were supplied with provisions and ale. The eve was dedicated to devotion ; the following day to festivity. These festivals gradually deviated in most parishes from the original purposes for which they were instituted. The inhabitants of neighbouring parishes attended each other's festivals, and others came from a distance, especially if the saint was of high reputation ; hawkers and pedlars frequented them with their wares, and the religious wakes were converted into fairs and scenes of dissolute indulgence. The wakes continued to be kept in this way till 1530, when Henry by an act of convocation, ordered the festival of the saint's day to be abolished, and that of the dedication of the church to be kept on the first Sunday in October in all the parishes. But the saint's day was the favourite festival of the people ; they gradually ceased to attend the festival of the dedication, and it has long been entirely discontinued, while the aaint'e day festival still eubsiste in the altered form of a country wake.
(Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, by Hone; Brand's Popular Antiquities, by Ellis.)