“ All the authorities agree in assigning the first institution of wakes to the annual assembly of the people to watch and pray on the festival of the saint to whom their church was dedicated, and this was doubtless originally the case in Eccles; the festival of St Mary the Virgin being on the 22d August, and the wake on the first Sunday after the 25th August, it has been asserted that the correspondence is tolerably well preserved. There is some error here; no festival of St Mary the Virgin falling on the 22d August. ”

“ The wake to conclude with a fiddling-match by all the fiddlers that attend, for a piece of silver." Wakes are probably as ancient as the introduction of Christianity into this county, and were at first purely religious festivals. ”