Beating the bounds is an ancient custom still observed in some English and Welsh parishes. Under the name of the Gangdays the custom of going a-ganging was kept before the Norman Conquest. A group of old and young members of the community would walk the boundaries of the parish, usually led by the parish priest and church officials, to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to pray for protection and blessings for the lands.
Read more about Beating The Bounds: Ceremony, Origins, Contemporary Observations
Famous quotes containing the words beating and/or bounds:
“One is sick at heart of this pagoda worship. It is like the beating of gongs in a Hindoo subterranean temple.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nature seems at each man’s birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)