2-798-425 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

St. Wilfrid Festival, Ripon, 1844. Scene in front of Ripon Cathedral in Yorkshire, showing an annual tradition: '...the Saint (Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, in the seventh century), in whose honour the feast is held, and whose return from exile to his favourite monastery of Ripon, so long as twelve centuries ago, is still commemorated...A jolly Dr. Syntax-looking effigy, with cocked hat, black coat, and top boots, having nothing clerical about him, except the bands dangling from his chin, is manufactured by some labourers in the town, and carried from house to house, tied on a cart-horse; and accompanied by a fife and a fiddle, and a host of children, who greet the oblations to the Saint with shrill huzzas. The good old folks haste into the street to shake hands with the founder of their town...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.