Night
being come, the fire was kindled to the sound of hand-bells by a young
man and a young woman, both decked with flowers. As the flames rose, the
_Te Deum_ was sung, and a villager thundered out a parody in the Norman
dialect of the hymn _ut queant laxis_. Meantime the Green Wolf and his
brothers, with their hoods down on their shoulders and holding each
other by the hand, ran round the fire after the man who had been chosen
to be the Green Wolf of the following year. Though only the first and
the last man of the chain had a hand free, their business was to
surround and seize thrice the future Green Wolf, who in his efforts to
escape belaboured the brothers with a long wand which he carried. When
at last they succeeded in catching him they carried him to the burning
pile and made as if they would throw him on it. This ceremony over, they
returned to the house of the Green Wolf, where a supper, still of the
most meagre fare, was set before them. Up till midnight a sort of
religious solemnity prevailed. No unbecoming word might fall from the
lips of any of the company, and a censor, armed with a hand-bell, was
appointed to mark and punish instantly any infraction of the rule. But
at the stroke of twelve all this was changed. Constraint gave way to
license; pious hymns were replaced by Bacchanalian ditties, and the
shrill quavering notes of the village fiddle hardly rose above the roar
of voices that went up from the merry brotherhood of the Green Wolf.
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