CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH CERTAIN DAYS AND SEASONS
Beside the customs connected with the changes and chances of man’s
mortal life, which we have considered in the foregoing chapter, there
are those which belong to certain fixed days of the year, Saints’ Days,
and other church seasons and festivals. To give an account of each and
all of the customs and pastimes which would come under this category
would indeed be a tremendous task, so great is their number, and so
varied their nature. I shall only attempt here to give a small
selection, arranged according to the sequence of the dates to which they
belong.
We are all of us familiar with the usual ceremonies which usher in the
New Year--the sitting up to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in,
the ringing of the church bells immediately after the last stroke of
twelve, the handshaking, and exchange of greetings. But in England
generally, New Year’s Day is of little account as a festival, being
overshadowed by Christmas. In Scotland, on the other hand, New Year’s
Day holds the more important place, and consequently New Year’s Eve, as
a day of preparatory observances, ranks above Christmas Eve. New Year’s
Eve in Scotland is known as _Hogmanay_, a term which is also applied to
the customary gift for which children go round and beg on this day. The
name and the custom are not, however, confined to Scotland, being also
found in certain of the northern counties of England (Nhb. Cum. Wm.
Yks.). Much has been written about the history of this word, but beyond
the generally accepted statement that it is of French origin, its
precise derivation still remains obscure; cp. Norm. dial. _hoquinano_,
_haguinelo_, cries on New Year’s Eve; _hoguilanno_, a New Year’s gift.
On the last day of the year, children go in companies chiefly to the
houses of the better class, singing some such rhyme as: Rise up,
gude-wife, and shake your feathers, Dinna think that we are beggars,
We’re girls and boys come out to-day, For to get our Hogmanay, Hogmanay,
trol-lol-lay. Give us of your white bread, and not of your grey, Or else
we’ll knock at your door a’ day (w.Sc.); or in shorter form: Hogamanay,
hogamanay, Gi’s wor breed-an’-cheese, an’ set’s away (Nhb.). In earlier
times it was also customary for youths to go round dressed up as
_guisers_, performing at their neighbours’ houses a Hogmanay masque.
Sometimes they went round just after midnight to enter the houses in the
capacity of _first-foot_.
[Sidenote: _New Year’s Day_]
The superstitious practice of _first-footing_ belongs also to Scotland
and northern England. The first person who crosses the threshold after
midnight on New Year’s Eve is the _first-foot_ or _lucky-bird_, and the
prosperity or misfortune of the household during the ensuing year
depends on what manner of man is then admitted. On no account must the
_first-foot_ be a woman. In most places the luckiest kind of
_first-foot_ is a fair-haired man. A man of dark complexion, a
flat-footed man, or one afflicted with a squint brings bad luck. But in
some parts of Yorkshire where the _lucky-bird_ is the first person who
enters the house on Christmas Day, if it is a dark-haired man who thus
‘lets Christmas in’, he is welcomed as a bringer of good luck, whilst a
red-haired man is esteemed a harbinger of ill-luck. On the whole, the
safest plan was that of engaging some recognized lucky person to
undertake the office of _first-foot_, instead of leaving the matter in
the hands of wayward chance.
Another old Hogmanay-night custom was that of fetching the
_ream-water_ (Sc.) from the well. This could only be done by a woman,
in some places only by a spinster. As soon as the clock had finished
striking twelve, some female member of the household would hurry
pitcher in hand to the nearest well, in order to be the first to skim
off the water lying near the surface and bring it home; for whoever
could secure this, the _ream_, _crap_ or _floo’er_ of the water, would
bring in good fortune for the whole of the year.
A writer in _Notes and Queries_ for Jan. 3, 1852, quotes the following
song sung by children in South Wales on New Year’s morning, when
carrying a jug full of water newly drawn from the well:
Here we bring new water
From the well so clear,
For to worship God with
This happy New Year.
Sing levez dew, sing levez dew,
The water and the wine;
The seven bright gold wires
And the bugles they do shine.
Sing reign of Fair Maid
With gold upon her toe,
Open you the West Door,
And let the Old Year go.
Sing reign of Fair Maid,
With gold upon her chin,
Open you the East Door,
And let the New Year in.
[Sidenote: _God-cakes, Blessing-cakes_]
An ancient custom in the city of Coventry is the sending of
_god-cakes_ on New Year’s Day. The _god-cake_ is a particular kind of
cake sent by godparents to their godchildren. It varies in price, but
its shape is invariably triangular, it is about one inch thick, and
is filled with mincemeat. A similar custom exists in Kidderminster,
where the head of the family sends out packets of _blessing-cakes_
to the scattered representatives of the original stock, wherever
they may be. Each householder who receives a gift of cakes must
again distribute them among the members of his household, servants
included, so that every one under his roof may receive the family
blessing. The cakes are like long oval buns, rather thin, coated on
the top with melted sugar, and ornamented with seven sultanas. As my
father came from Kidderminster, I have eaten _blessing-cakes_ every
New Year’s Day as far back as my memory carries me, but I was never
clear as to the significance of the seven sultanas. I think they are
intended to symbolize a sevenfold blessing. The recipe for making the
cakes is supposed to be a trade secret in the possession of a certain
confectioner, though some of us think that the secret has been lost,
and that the _blessing-cakes_ now savour of the common penny bun
mixture. But we should never dare to carry the comparison further, for
from our earliest youth we were made to feel it almost a sacrilegious
offence to call a _blessing-cake_ a bun. After all, it is the sentiment
that matters, and that remains good and beautiful.[3]
[3] Mr. J. R. G. Aubrey of the Comberton Bakery, Kidderminster, to whom
I wrote concerning this custom, kindly furnished me with the following
information: ‘As far as I know round here the custom is dead or nearly
so. I make perhaps 300 to 400 ... I think up North the custom is fairly
brisk, but they call theirs the Twelfth Cakes. Coventry makes a fair
quantity.’ July 24, 1912.
A curious New Year ceremony observed in Durham is known as _crowning_.
The Mayor and Mayoress visit the Workhouse, and there _crown_ the eldest
of the inmates by placing a five-shilling piece in each hand.
[Sidenote: _Handsel-Monday_]
The first Monday in the New Year is called Handsel-Monday (Sc. Irel.
Nhb. Lakel.). Anything which comes into your possession that day, such
as a child, a calf, a lamb, or money, augurs good luck for the rest of
the year. Formerly it was the custom for presents to be given on this
day by mistresses to servants, and by parents to children. At the
Trinity House, Newcastle, on Handsel-Monday, every free brother who
answers to his name is entitled to five shillings in money, a quarter of
a pound of tobacco, a glass of wine, and as much bread and cheese and
ale as he pleases.
[Sidenote: _Wassailing the Apples_]
The sixth of January is Twelfth Day, or Old Christmas Day, the church
festival of the Epiphany. To this date belongs the ceremony--now nearly
obsolete--of _wassailing_ the apple-trees (Sus. Som. Dev.), also known
as _howling_, or _hollering_. In some districts the performance took
place on the day itself, and in others on Jan. 5, the Eve of the
Epiphany. Herrick mentions the custom among _Ceremonies for Christmas_:
Wassail the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum and many a pear;
For more or less fruits they will bring
As you do give them wassailing.--_Hesperides_, 1648.
Boys called _howlers_ used to go round _wassailing_ the orchards. Within
doors, toasted bread and sugar were soaked in new cider and made hot,
part to be drunk by the farmer’s family and the _howlers_, and part to
be poured upon the best bearing apple-tree. The tree was then encircled
by the _wassailers_, singing a special song. Mrs. Hewitt describes the
ceremony thus: ‘On Old Christmas Eve it is customary for farmers to pour
large quantities of cyder on the roots of the primest apple-trees in the
orchard, and to place toast sops on the branches, all the while singing
the following:
Yer’s tü thee, old apple-tree,
Be zure yü bud, be zure yü blaw,
And bring voth apples güde enough,
Hats vul! Caps vul!
Dree-bushel bags vul,
Pockets vul and awl!
Urrah! Urrah!
Aw ’ess, hats vul, caps vul,
And dree-bushel bags vul,
Urrah! Urrah!
When enough of this serenading has been accomplished, guns are fired
into the branches,’ _Peasant Speech of Devon_, 2nd edit. 1892.
[Sidenote: _Plough Monday_]
The first Monday after Twelfth Day is Plough Monday, once celebrated
throughout the greater part of England. A company of men wearing white
shirts over their jackets, decorated with ribbons, drew a plough through
the village or town. They were variously designated in different
localities as: _Plough-bullocks_, or _-bullockers_, _Plough-jags_,
_Plough-slots_, and _Plough-witchers_. Among them were usually two
special characters, the Fool, and a man dressed up in showy female
costume called the Bessy; but in some places there were two, and even
four female characters with names such as Sweet Sis, Old Joan, Maid
Marian, or collectively named Bessybabs, Ladymadams, Queens. This
troupe performed some kind of morris-dance or sword-dance, and collected
money from the onlookers. Gradually the old ceremonies fell into disuse,
the plough no longer appeared in the procession, and instead of the
original ploughmen, a band of children paraded the streets to keep up
the memory of Plough Monday, a day which Tusser includes among the
‘ploughmans feasting daies’, which no good housewife should forget:
Good huswiues, whom God hath enriched ynough,
forget not the feastes that belong to the plough.
The meaning is onelie to ioie and be glad,
for comfort with labour is fit to be had.
The _Daily Mail_ of Nov. 16, 1897, mentions the observance of Plough
Monday in Warwickshire at that date; and three years later the
_Standard_ of Oct. 11, 1900, has: ‘“Plough Monday” is still kept up by
children and “hobbledehoys”, who go round with blackened faces, and
ribbons, &c., in their hats, expecting that the heads of the houses
visited will “Remember the ploughboys”, though it is questionable if the
party are now following the plough.’
A convivial custom in Cornwall gives the name of Paul Pitcher’s Day to
Jan. 24, the Eve of the Conversion of St. Paul, a day observed as a
miners’ holiday. A water-pitcher is set up and pelted with stones till
it is broken to pieces. A new one is then bought and carried to a
public-house by the stone-throwing miners, to be filled and refilled
with beer till the whole company is drunk. On the other hand, some
people say that the name Paul Pitcher’s Day originates with the custom
of throwing broken pitchers against the doors of dwelling-houses.
Parties of lads used to go round to the different houses, shouting as
they threw the sherds: Paul’s Eve, and here’s a heave. A mischievous
game similar to certain Shrove Tuesday pastimes.
Candlemas Day, February 2, the festival of the Purification of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, was reckoned the termination of the Christmas
season. Herrick wrote: ‘End now the white loaf and the pie, And let all
sports with Christmas die.’ The same poet also tells us that all the
Christmas evergreens used for decorations must be taken down on
Candlemas Eve. This custom was observed in Shropshire houses and
churches within the last thirty years, if not still later. At this date,
according to a common proverb: gooid geese all lay; New Candlemas Day,
good goose will lay, Old Candlemas Day any goose will lay. There is a
saying in Kent: Candlemas Day, Half your fodder and half your hay,
meaning that the winter is only then half gone, and you ought not to
have exhausted more than half the keep for the cattle. The same saying
is also associated with Valentine’s Day. Old folks used to say that so
far as the sun shone into the house on Candlemas Day, so far would the
snow drive in before the winter was out (Sur.).
[Sidenote: _Valentine’s Day_]
Old Candlemas Day is February 14, better known as Valentine’s Day. The
custom of writing and of sending valentines is out of fashion, and there
remains little to mark the day. In some country places it is still said
that the first man you meet in the morning is your valentine; and it is
a common saying that the birds on this day select their mates for
nesting. Formerly it was customary for parties of children to _go
valentining_ (Nhp. Rut.). They went from house to house singing and
begging, their song being usually a form of salutation, differing
slightly in different localities: Good morrow, Valentine! Plaze to give
me a Valentine, I’ll be yourn, if ye’ll be mine, Good morrow,
Valentine!; or, Morrow, morrow, Valentine! First ’tis yours, and then
’tis mine, So please to give me a Valentine, Holly and ivy tickle my
toe, Give me red apple and let me go. In Berkshire the following words
were sung:
Knock the kittle agin the pan,
Gie us a penny if ’e can;
We be ragged an’ you be vine,
Plaze to gie us a Valentine.
Up wi’ the kittle, down wi’ the spout,
Gie us a penny an’ we’ll gie out [cease].
In the northern part of Northamptonshire sweet currant buns were
formerly made called _Valentine buns_, and given by godparents to their
godchildren on the Sunday preceding and the Sunday following Valentine’s
Day. A like custom once prevailed in Rutland, where a lozenge-shaped bun
called a _Shittle_ was given to children and old people on Valentine’s
Day.
For the farmer, Valentine’s Day means that half your firing and half
your hay is already consumed. In Rutland there is an old saying:
Valentine’s Day, sow your beans in the clay. David [Mch. 1] and Chad
[Mch. 2], sow your beans be the weather good or bad. Then comes Benedick
[Mch. 21], if you ain’t sowed your beans you may keep ’em in the rick.
[Sidenote: _Sports at Shrovetide_]
Shrovetide in olden days was a season of sport and feasting, the
occasion for a final burst of jollity before the beginning of Lent. As
the name records, it was originally a time for confession and absolution
in preparation for the Lenten Fast, whence also the name _Gooddit_ (Lan.
Chs. Stf. Der.), a corruption of _Good-tide_. Shrove Tuesday is Fasten’s
E’en (Sc. n.Cy. n.Midl.), the Eve of the great Fast of the
ecclesiastical year. There still remain in some districts traces of the
former carnival gaieties, whilst the popular eating of pancakes on
Shrove Tuesday keeps up the memory of the ancient feasting. The day
before Shrove Tuesday is Collop Monday (n.Cy.), that is, rasher-of-bacon
Monday, so called because the customary dish for this day is bacon and
eggs. In parts of Cornwall it is known as Pease-Monday, from the custom
of eating pea-soup that day, though such fare would seem rather to be a
foretaste of Lent than a festival dainty.
Chief among the Shrovetide sports which have lasted down to modern
times is the well-known pastime called _Lent-crocking_ (Som. Dev.
Wil. Dor.), or _Drowin’ o’ cloam_, which consists in throwing broken
crockery-ware in at doorways on the night before Shrove Tuesday, known
as Dappy-door-night, and Lentsherd-night. _Lead-birds_ (Pem.) is a game
played by boys as a substitute for the obsolete _cock-throwing_, a
barbarous old Shrovetide sport, which is perhaps further to be traced
in the name _Lent-cocks_ (Dev.) for daffodils. In the old Grammar
Schools it was customary for each scholar to contribute towards a
fund for Shrovetide cock-fighting. This contribution was called the
_cock-penny_ (Lakel. Yks. Lan.), and it continued to be a recognized
fee paid to the Head Master long after the sport itself had died out.
Shrovetide ball-games still survive, such as _bung-ball_ (Bdf.); and
_kep-ball_, the game of catch-ball which gives the name Kepping-day
(e.Yks.) to Shrove Tuesday. There is an old saying: if you don’t have a
kepp on kepping-day, you’ll be sick in harvest.
The bell once rung before noon on Shrove Tuesday to summon the
penitents to their shrift, came to be looked upon as a signal for
preparing the day’s pancakes, and hence it was termed the Pancake
bell. The practice of ringing this bell continued certainly into the
last quarter of the nineteenth century. In Worcestershire the Pancake
bell was said to ring out the words: Pot off, pan on; Pot off, pan on;
whilst in Warwickshire the message rung out was: Pan’s a-burning; Pan’s
a-burning. In Yorkshire a kind of pancake or fritter with currants in
it is eaten on Ash-Wednesday, and the day is called Frutters’ Wednesday.
[Sidenote: _Lenten Customs_]
In parts of Cornwall a straw figure dressed in cast-off clothes and
called Jack o’ Lent was formerly carried round and then burned at the
beginning of Lent. The effigy was probably originally meant to represent
Judas Iscariot. Now the term is applied to a scarecrow, and, as a
contemptuous epithet, also to persons (Nhp. Dor.).
The Sundays in Lent, beginning with the second Sunday, are thus
enumerated in an old north-country saying: Tid, Mid, Misera, Carlin,
Palm, Pace egg day. It is supposed that _Tid_ is a corruption of _Te
Deum_, and that _Misera_ is based on the opening words of the
penitential Psalm _Miserere mei, Deus_. The fourth Sunday in Lent is,
however, more generally known as Mothering Sunday, the day on which it
was always customary for the scattered members of the family to visit
the mother in the old home, carrying some small present for her in
their hands. Special cakes and dishes were associated with this
festival, the most popular being simnel cakes, and _frummety_, a dish
made of _hulled_ wheat, boiled in milk, and seasoned with sugar and
spice. In some places the usual fare was veal and rice pudding; and in
others _fig-pie_--made of dried figs, sugar, treacle, and spice--was the
standing dish. In Berkshire at the present time it is considered the
proper thing to eat fig-pudding on Palm Sunday.
Carl Sunday, or Carling Sunday (Sc. n.Cy.), takes its name from the
grey or brown peas prepared and eaten on this day. They must be steeped
all night in water, and then fried in butter. To account for this usage
one tradition states that it commemorates the action of the disciples,
who, going through the corn fields on the Sabbath day, ‘plucked the
cars of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands,’ _St. Luke_
vi. 1; whilst a second associates it with a famine in Newcastle, which
was relieved by the arrival of a ship bearing a cargo of grey peas or
_carlings_.
[Sidenote: _Palm Sunday_]
On Palm Sunday village churches used to be decorated with the
catkin-laden twigs of the common sallow, or, as in Kent, with branches
of yew, according to the local interpretation of the word _palm_. _Going
a-palming_ (Ken.) meant gathering yew twigs on the Saturday before Palm
Sunday for this purpose. In some s.Midland counties Palm Sunday is known
as Fig Sunday, dried figs being largely consumed on this day. The
probable explanation of this practice lies in the fact that in the
Gospel narrative the cursing of the barren fig-tree is the first
recorded incident of the day following that of the triumphal entry into
Jerusalem, cp. _St. Mark_ xi. 12-14, with the result that in the popular
mind the events of two days were merged together, and the fig was
adopted as an appropriate part of the Palm Sunday festival.
[Sidenote: _Good Friday_]
An old Cheshire name for Good Friday is _Care Friday_, a preservation
of the original meaning of the word _care_, O.E. _caru_, sorrow,
trouble; cp. Germ. _Karfreitag_, Good Friday. In Lancashire it was
termed Long Friday, and also Crackling Friday, from a special kind
of wheaten cake given to children on this day. The custom of eating
Hot Cross buns is common even in towns, though probably nobody now
preserves them throughout the year as a specific against diarrhoea.
Up to the middle of last century people afflicted with eye-diseases
used on Good Friday to visit St. Margaret’s Well, near Wellington, in
Shropshire, a stone cistern containing spring water which was supposed
on this day to possess eye-healing virtues. A Good Friday sport called
_cock-kibbit_, practised in parts of Devonshire by boys, would seem to
be a kind of survival of the old Shrove Tuesday _cock-throwing_. A live
cock is put under an inverted earthenware milk-pan, and then cudgels
or _kibbits_ are thrown at the pan from a fixed distance until the pan
is broken and the cock thus released. The cock is then chased by the
whole company, and it becomes the joint property of its captor and the
breaker of the milk-pan.
The custom amongst farmers of sowing and planting on Good Friday to
ensure lucky crops we have already noticed in a previous chapter. For
the sowing of onion seed, however, a still more propitious day is March
12, the Feast of St. Gregory.
The day after Good Friday was formerly known in East Anglia as Shitten
Saturday, that is Shut-in-Saturday, the day on which the body of the
Lord lay shut in the tomb.
[Sidenote: _Pace-eggs_]
Eastertide is marked in the northern counties of England by the custom
of _Pace-egging_. The phrase itself is interesting, for we have in it
the preservation of the Latin name beside our English _Easter_, cp.
M.Lat. _pascha_, the feast of the passover. The form _Pace_ or _Paas_ is
found in English literature as far back as the early fifteenth century.
During Holy Week children, and sometimes grown-up persons too, go round
to the farmhouses begging for _Pace-eggs_. Some of the eggs are used for
special Easter Day cakes and custards, but the _Pace-egg_ proper is
stained and hard-boiled like the German _Oster-Ei_. On Easter Monday
these coloured eggs are trundled or rolled against each other till they
are broken, when they are eaten, and hence Easter Monday is termed
Troll-egg-day. Another form of this game is known as _jauping
paste-eggs_. One boy holds his egg, exposing the small end, and the
_jauper_, or striker, knocks the end of his egg against it. The egg
remaining unbroken is the conqueror, and the broken egg is forfeited.
Occasionally one or two _Pace-eggs_ are kept as ornaments. One such,
stained pink, and inscribed with a child’s name, and the date, ranked
among the ornaments on the parlour shelf in the Yorkshire farmhouse
where we were staying this August (1912). In the days when mumming was
still popular, the play of St. George was performed at Easter by mummers
who called themselves _Pace-eggers_. No doubt originally they collected
Easter eggs on their rounds; indeed, a writer on Lancashire customs says
the company included a personage styled Dirty Bet, whose duty it was to
carry a basket for the collection of eggs, but usually they played for
money only, so that _Pace-egging_ came to be synonymous with mumming. A
Lakeland play began with an introductory verse as follows:
The first that comes in is Lord Nelson, you see,
He’s a bunch of blue ribbons tied round on his knee,
A star on his breast, like silver it shines,
Ah hope you’ll remember it’s piase-eggin’ times.
An Easter custom once very common in Cheshire, Lancashire, and the
Midlands is variously termed _Heaving_, _Hoisting_, and _Lifting_.
Parties of men went round from house to house on Easter Monday carrying
a chair decorated with evergreens, flowers, and ribbons. Wherever they
came, they seized in turn every woman of the household, and made her sit
in the chair, which they then raised as high in the air as arms could
reach, three times in succession. On Easter Tuesday the women returned
the compliment to the men. A small fee was often paid by the lifted to
the lifters. Folklorists tell us that this strange practice was
originally designed to typify the Resurrection.
[Sidenote: _Easter-Day Observances_]
The prevalent practice of wearing some new article of clothing for the
first time on Easter Day is not confined to any particular district but
may be met with anywhere. A Lincolnshire name for Easter Day is
Crow-Sunday, from the belief that rooks let fall their droppings on
those that wear nothing new on that day.
_Herb-pudding_ (Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks.) is a dish peculiar to Easter Day.
It is made of the leaves of the bistort, _Polygonum Bistorta_--the
so-called Easter-giants, or Easter-magiants--boiled in broth with
barley, chives, &c., and served as an accompaniment to veal and bacon.
The old tradition that the sun rises dancing on Easter morning, which
we remember because of Suckling’s allusion to it in the lines:
But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight----
has been found lingering in some parts of the country. At the beginning
of the second half of the nineteenth century there were still some
people who would get up early on Easter Day and go out into the fields
to see the sun dance. The Rev. R. H. Cobbold, Rector of Ross, wrote on
October 13, 1879: ‘In the district called Hockley, in the parish of
Broseley, a woman whose maiden name was Evans, wife of Rowland Lloyd, a
labourer, said she had heard of the thing but did not believe it true,
“till,” she said, “on Easter morning last, I got up early, and then I
saw the sun dance, and dance, and dance, three times, and I called to my
husband and said, Rowland, Rowland, get up and see the sun dance! I
used,” she said, “not to believe it, but now I can never doubt more.”
The neighbours agreed with her that the sun did dance on Easter morning,
and some of them had seen it,’ _Shropshire Folk-Lore_, p. 335. According
to a Sussex version the sun always dances on Easter morning, but nobody
has ever seen it because the Devil is so cunning that he always puts a
hill in the way to hide it. Although Sir Thomas Browne included this
tradition in his lists of _Vulgar Errors_, he evidently felt that belief
in it was an outgrowth of popular religious feeling, and that as such it
must be handled with reverence: ‘We shall not, I hope, disparage the
resurrection of our Redeemer, if we say the sun does not dance on
Easter-day. And though we would willingly assent unto any sympathetical
exultation, yet cannot conceive therein any more than a tropical
expression,’ _Vulgar Errors_, Bk. V, Chap. XXIII. 14.
[Sidenote: _May-day Sports_]
Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the Eve of May-day was in
some northern districts known as Mischief-night, when rough practical
jokes were played by boys upon their neighbours, gates were pulled off
their hinges, and hung up in trees, tubs and mops left out of doors were
carried off and left in some inaccessible place, and other property was
wantonly damaged.
The original May-day sports and observances have long been dead and
gone, leaving only scattered traces few and far between, but at the
present time great efforts are being made to revive the old folk-songs,
dances, and mumming-plays, and children are being taught in Board
Schools how to celebrate May-day with the traditional songs,
processions, and flowers; so that we have consequently to beware of
mistaking a revival for a survival. The May-garland would seem, however,
to be a genuine relic of the past. As seen in Oxford, it is formed of
two willow hoops, placed transversely, and decorated with leaves and
wild flowers. It is suspended from a stick, which is held at each end by
a child, and carried thus from house to house on May morning. The
Jack-in-the-green, very common twenty or twenty-five years ago, was a
chimney-sweep enclosed in a frame of green leaves shaped like a bower,
who paraded the streets on May-day. He is still occasionally to be seen.
I myself saw one in Oxford in 1909. The name also lingers on in
figurative use as an expression of contempt, e.g. He looked for all the
world like a Jack-in-the-green. A Bedfordshire term for a scarecrow or a
slattern is _moggy_, a name which bears a reminiscence of the _maying_
company which consisted of: my lord and my lady, two moggys and a merry
Ander. The _moggy_ always carried a ladle.
To remind us of the revelry of May-day there is the custom among boys
of making _May-music_ with _May-horns_ (Oxf. Brks. Cor.), or whistles
made out of sycamore or willow twigs; cp. ‘Scores of youngsters, as
usual, celebrated the advent of the month of flowers in their own
peculiar way by creating a most hideous row with their May-horns,’
_Oxford Times_, May 5, 1900; and further, the use of the term
_may-games_ (Som. Dev. Cor.) for frolics, tricks, &c. In Cornwall, a
half-witted person is sometimes spoken of as a _may-game_.
[Sidenote: _Beating the Bounds_]
Near the beginning of May come the Rogation days, the Monday, Tuesday,
and Wednesday before Ascension-day, or Holy Thursday. These days are
marked in the popular mind by the ancient and well-known custom of
beating the parish bounds, whence arose the now obsolete name of
Gang-days (n.Cy.), and the name Rammalation-day (Yks.), i.e.
Perambulation-day, for Rogation Monday. The practice is also called
Processioning (Midl. Som.), and Possessioning (Nhp.). Among dialect
names for the milkwort are: Rogation Flower, Gang Flower, and Procession
Flower, showing that it was formerly much used in making the garlands
carried on these occasions. The reason why this perambulation of the
parish boundaries takes place at Rogationtide seems to be that
originally it was purely a religious observance, a procession of priest
and people through the fields to pray for a fruitful spring-time and
harvest. In course of time the secular object of familiarizing the
growing generation with their parish landmarks gained the upper hand,
but the date remained as testimony to the primary devotional character
of the custom. Another remnant of the religious side may be traced in
the term Gospel Tree, applied to some tree where the Gospel was read
aloud by the clergy on the occasion of these parochial perambulations.
It would seem, however, that recently some of the High Church clergy
have begun to revive in some form the old ceremonial processions. The
following paragraph appeared in the _Church Times_ of May 2, 1918, under
the heading Sheffield: ‘The Rogation procession, revived last year at
St. Matthew’s, again took place this year; a perambulation of the
parish was made, incense, lights, and the beautiful silver crucifix were
used, and the vicar in cope intoned the Litany. The choir and a good
number of communicants of both sexes took part, and the Rogation Mass
was afterwards sung in church. Another procession, with hymns and short
addresses at various stations, was announced for Tuesday evening.’
Similar processions were also made here in Oxford at the same date.
[Sidenote: _Whitsuntide Feasts_]
In former times, the season of Whitsuntide brought round another
parochial custom, namely, the holding of the _Whitsun-ale_ (Lin. Nhp.
Oxf. Hmp.). This was a village feast which, while it provided amusement
for the parishioners in the shape of sports and dancing, was also at the
same time made by the churchwardens a means of bringing in money to the
parish coffers for the maintenance of the church. In Oxfordshire a
similar festivity was known as a _Lamb-ale_, and with it was associated
the following sport: a fat lamb was chased by girls with tied hands; she
who caught the lamb with her teeth was styled Lady of the Lamb, and was
conducted home with her prize in a triumphal procession. The next day
the lamb was cooked and served up to the Lady and her companions.
Thirty years ago it was still customary in some west Midland districts
to decorate village churches on Whit Sunday with sprigs of birch stuck
in holes bored in the tops of the pews. I can remember this being done
by an old parish clerk in Herefordshire, but when he was gathered to his
fathers in the same profession, the custom died with him.
The north-country _Rush-bearing_ is an annual ceremony which usually
takes place concurrently with the village Wakes. It has come down from
the days when the bare earthen floors of churches and chapels were
strewn with rushes as their only covering. The parishioners assembled on
some special day, and went out to collect the rushes, which were then
piled on a gaily decorated cart, and brought back through the village to
the accompaniment of music and dancing. The custom has in many places
now fallen into disuse, but it is still kept up in Westmorland. Nowadays
the procession is formed of children who carry garlands and emblems made
of rushes and flowers, and entering the church they lay them along the
aisles. The rush-bearing festival at Grasmere takes place on the
Saturday next after St. Oswald’s Day, August 5, and the following Sunday
and Monday. A very interesting account of it entitled ‘Rush-bearing at
Grasmere’, appeared in _The Outlook_ of August 13, 1910. No doubt it is
the connexion with Wordsworth which has prolonged the life of this
particular custom, and spread its fame far beyond the country of its
birth. It is not given to all our ancient rural festivals to receive a
‘tributary lay’ from an immortal poet.
[Sidenote: _Michaelmas and Halloween_]
Passing through the village of Cuddesdon on October 11, 1912, I met
two or three big farm wagons going to the hamlet of Denton, loaded with
what was evidently a farm-labourer’s household stuff. On the top of the
last wagon, wedged in securely amongst bedding and chairs, were four or
five children, merry little people, obviously enjoying the ride through
country lanes on a warm, sunny afternoon. My companion who lived in
the village remarked to me, ‘You see how Michaelmas Day is kept here
according to the Old Style. They always make their Michaelmas moves
to-day.’
October 31 is Halloween (Sc. n.Cy.), the Eve of All Saints’ Day, a
night specially devoted to love-divination ceremonies, and other
superstitious customs such as we have noticed in a previous chapter.
The game of _hanch-apple_ (Cum. Lan.) is a favourite Halloween pastime,
so much so that in some districts Hanchin’-neet is another name for
Halloween. The game consists in biting at an apple floating in water,
or suspended by a cord.
In parts of Ireland a dish called _colcannon_, made of potatoes and
cabbage mashed together with butter, used to form part of the Halloween
dinner. In it was concealed a ring, the finder whereof would be the
first of the company to be married. In St. John’s, Newfoundland, the
popular name for Halloween is Colcannon-night, so named because
colcannon is generally eaten then.
[Sidenote: _All Souls and All Saints_]
November 2 is the Roman Catholic festival of All Souls, the day on
which the Church of Rome makes supplications for the souls of the
faithful departed. The ancient custom of going out _souling_ on this
day was preserved in the n.Midland counties well into the second half
of last century. Poor women, or companies of children, used to go round
to the houses of their wealthier neighbours singing certain doggerel
lines, and begging for gifts of cakes, apples, money, &c., &c. In some
districts this was done on All Saints’ Day, the Eve of All Souls, and
in others on All Souls’ Day itself. Formerly special cakes called
_soul-cakes_ were baked by housekeepers in readiness for the _soulers_,
but biscuits, apples, nuts--anything in fact given in response to their
request--would be accepted under the name of _soul-cakes_. There are
various versions of the traditional _souling-song_. This is a Cheshire
version: Soul, soul, a apple or two; If ye han noo apples, pears ’un
do; Please, good Missis, a soul-cake; Put yur hand t’yur pocket, Tak’
ait yur keys, Go dain i’ yur cellar, Bring what yo please, A apple, a
pear, A plum, or a cherry, Or any good thing That’ll make us all merry.
Or again, there is the simple cry: A cake, a cake, For All Souls’ sake
(Der.).
[Sidenote: _St. Clement, St. Andrew, St. Thomas_]
Similar customs belonging to November 23, St. Clement’s Day, and to
November 25, St. Catherine’s Day, were kept up in some s.Midland
counties. Children went from house to house singing verses and begging
for apples and pence, a practice known as _Catterning and Clemmening_
(War. Wor. Stf. Sus.). A Worcestershire version of the Cattern Day song
runs: Catten and Clemen come year by year; Some of your apples and some
of your beer! Some for Peter, some for Paul, Some for Him as made us
all. Clement was a good old man, For his sake give us some. Plum, plum,
cherry, cherry, Give us good ale to make us merry, Apples to roast and
nuts to crack, And a barrel of cider on the tap. Up the ladder and down
the can, Give us a red apple and we’ll be gone. The following is a
Warwickshire _Clementing_ rhyme: Clemancing, clemancing, year by year,
Apples and pears are very good cheer; One for Peter, two for Paul, And
three for the Man that made us all. Up with your stocking, and down with
your shoe; If you’ve got no apples, money’ll do. Clement was a good old
man, For his sake give us some; None of the worst, but some of the best.
I pray God send your soul to rest. This closely resembles some of the
souling-songs, in which the couplet: One for Peter, &c., also occurs
word for word the same.
St. Clement is the blacksmiths’ patron saint, and in parts of Sussex
blacksmiths used to hold a feast on November 23 in his honour. Over the
door of the inn where the feast took place a figure dressed up with a
wig, a beard, and a pipe, was set up, and called Old Clem. In Surrey it
was customary to _fire the anvil_ on St. Clement’s Day. This was done by
setting light to a charge of gunpowder placed beneath a wooden plug or
wedge driven into a hole in the top of the anvil.
November 30 is St. Andrew’s Day. In Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire
special cakes were formerly eaten on this day, called _Tandrew cakes_,
_Tandry cakes_, and _Tandry wigs_. They were plain dough cakes or buns
ornamented with currants and caraway seeds, made in honour of St.
Andrew, the patron saint of lace-makers. But since the lace trade has
become less profitable, to _keep Tandry_, i.e. to keep the festival of
St. Andrew, in this way has become less common.
Bricklayers in Sussex used to _go St. Andring_. This meant that they
went in gangs to the woods, and threw sticks at squirrels and game.
Afterwards they all repaired to the inn to drink, the squirrels being
carried home to be stuffed or eaten.
To December 21, the festival of St. Thomas, belongs the old custom
known as going _a-gooding_, _a-mumping_, or _a-Thomasing_, a practice
once common all over England from Cheshire and Yorkshire to East Anglia
and Cornwall. In some places it has been preserved up to quite modern
times. To go _a-gooding_ means to go from house to house on St. Thomas’
Day begging for money or gifts in kind wherewith to furnish the
Christmas table. This was generally done by poor widows, but also often
by people who would never think of begging at any other time of year.
Formerly every farmer set aside a sack of corn for the _mumpers_, some
of them needy widows, some of them married women with their families,
wives of the holders of cottages on the farm. These all went to receive
each a dole of corn. In course of time the doles given took the form of
money and food, including perhaps a pint of wheat for making frumenty.
An old _Thomasing_ rhyme runs thus: Well-a-day, well-a-day, St. Thomas
goes too soon away, Then your gooding we do pray, For the good time
will not stay. St. Thomas grey, St. Thomas grey, The longest night and
the shortest day, Please to remember St. Thomas Day (Stf.). In these
latter days children go _a-Thomasing_ for halfpence, singing hymns
instead of the old traditional begging rhymes.
[Sidenote: _Customs on Christmas Eve_]
Christmas is everywhere the most popular festival of the whole year,
combining as it does the religious and social sides of life in a way
none of the other ecclesiastical Holy-days do. The Church with its
message of ‘Peace on earth, goodwill towards men’, as it were, comes
down and takes the hand of the people and says let us unite together to
celebrate the mystery of family life at the altar of the home. Hence it
appeals more forcibly than any other festival to young and old, rich and
poor, town-dweller and country rustic, without distinction of creed or
class. Owing to this universal popularity, many of the old Christmas
customs are yet with us, and most of those which are dying or dead are
kept before our minds by writers of Christmas stories, and illustrators
of _Christmas Numbers_.
[Sidenote: _Mummings and Wassailing_]
Christmas Eve was the great night for the mummers who acted the play
of St. George and the Dragon; or again, there were men and boys who
carried round a wooden figure representing a horse’s head, the mouth of
which was made to open and shut by means of a string. Sometimes it was
the skull of a dead horse, decorated with ribbons, and supported on a
pole by a man concealed under a sheet. This figure was called Old Hob
(Chs.), Mari Lwyd or Merry Hewid (Wal.), and in Kent the performance
was known as _Hodening_. In some northern counties the mummers were
termed _guisers_, and in Sussex and Hampshire, _tipteerers_, or
_tip-teariers_. The children used to go _a-wassailing_ carrying a
decorated bough, or a garland which they called a _wessel-bob_, and
singing doggerel verses such as: Here we come a-wassailing, Among
the leaves so green; Here we come a-singing, So fair to be seen.
The _vessel-cup_, or _bezzle-cup_--both words being corruptions of
_wassail-cup_, due to popular etymology--was a box containing two
dolls representing the Virgin and Child, carried round by women or by
children who sang this carol: God bless the maysther of this hoose, The
mistheress also; An’ all the lahtle intepunks, That round the table go
(Yks.).
There are some still living who can remember the time when people went
out at midnight on Christmas Eve to the cow-byre to see the _owsen_
kneeling in their stalls in adoration of the Heavenly Babe.
A quaint custom at Dewsbury in Yorkshire is the ringing of the
_Devil’s knell_ on Christmas Eve. The bells toll first a hundred
strokes, then a pause, then three strokes, three strokes, and three
strokes again, to signify that the Devil died when Christ was born.
It is still customary in the West Riding of Yorkshire to eat
_spice-cake_ at Christmas time. It is a rich cake containing currants,
sultanas, spices and candied peel, made only at this season of the year,
and eaten together with cheese. In Northumberland and Durham children
are given a cake called a _Yule-babby_, or _Yule-dough_, a figure made
in ginger-bread or dough, rolled out flat, and cut out with a head, arms
and body. The arms are folded across, and two currants put in for eyes.
In Shrewsbury and the neighbourhood it was customary to eat _wigs_ or
caraway buns dipped in ale for supper on Christmas Eve. An East Anglian
Christmas cake is the _kickel_, a flat triangular cake with currants and
sugar on the top, O.E. _coecil_, tortum, M.E. _kechil_, Chauc.
_Somnours Tale_, l. 39. A very favourite Christmas dish in the north of
England is--or used to be--_frummety_, a preparation of wheat which is
_creed_ or softened in the oven, and then boiled in milk, sweetened and
flavoured with spice. In some districts it is eaten with plum loaf and
cheese.
[Sidenote: _Wren-hunting on Christmas Day_]
Wren-hunting was formerly a Christmas Day practice in Ireland. The
following day, St. Stephen’s Day, the slaughtered birds tied to a bush
decked with ribbons, were carried round by young lads, called
_wren-boys_, who begged for money, and sang a song, one version of which
begins thus: The wran, the wran, the king of all birds, St. Stephen’s
Day is caught in the furze; Although he is little his family is
great--Rise up, landlady, and give us a trate. Various legends are told
in explanation of the origin of this custom. According to one story, the
Jews were searching for St. Stephen, when his hiding-place was betrayed
to them by the noisy cries of a couple of wrens flying in and out of a
furze-bush where the saint lay concealed. The custom has also been found
in the Isle of Man, Wales, and parts of England, the song varying in
different localities, and in some places the wren being carried round on
Twelfth Day instead of on St. Stephen’s Day.
December 28 is Holy Innocents’ Day, popularly called Childermas Day.
In many parts of England, notably the northern counties and Cornwall,
this day has always been regarded as unlucky. People would refrain from
starting on a journey, or beginning a new undertaking, and housewives
would even forbear to wash clothes on this day. Indeed so forceful is
its evil influence that the day of the week on which it fell was marked
as a black one throughout the ensuing year (Yks.). Dr. Johnson gives
this superstitious belief in his definition of Childermas Day: ‘The day
of the week, throughout the year, answering to the day on which the
feast of the holy Innocents is solemnized, which weak and superstitious
persons think an unlucky day.’
[Sidenote: _Fairs, Feasts, and Wakes_]
Amongst the customs connected with corporate village life must be
included the observance of the local carnival variously termed the
Feast, Revel, Tide, Wake, &c., coupled with the name of the village, or
with that of the patron Saint of the parish church, as, for instance,
St. Giles’ Fair and St. Clement’s Fair here in Oxford. The Feast is
generally held on or about the name-day of the Saint to whom the church
is dedicated, or on the anniversary of the church opening or
consecration. It is everywhere the great gathering time for distant
friends and relations; the one important event of the year from which
all dates are reckoned, e.g. ’Twill be a year cum next Heetown Wake. In
the north of England the mills and workshops close during the Tide; all
is holiday-mirth and hospitality. People will pinch and scrape for weeks
beforehand in order to be able to afford a goodly joint of Tide-beef, or
Wake-beef, to provide which herds of fat oxen have been slain in
readiness; and every good housewife prepares a store of cakes, tarts,
pies, and pasties. Tusser felt the importance of this housewifely baking
when he wrote his lines on _The Wake day_:
Fill ouen full of flawnes [custards baked in paste], Ginnie,
passe not for sleepe,
to morow thy father his wake day will keepe.
A certain sort of wake-cake in Staffordshire has passed into a proverb.
As short as Marchington wake-cake is applied figuratively to a woman’s
temper!
[Sidenote: _Mops or Hiring Fairs_]
Beside the purely merry-making fairs were the Hiring, or Statute
fairs, held usually in the autumn, often about Martinmas, Nov. 11; but
these, too, have mostly developed into pleasure fairs. The young men
and girls who came to seek places as farm-labourers and maid-servants,
used to stand, clad in their ‘Sunday best’, on either side of the
principal street, the men wearing emblems of service in their hats.
Thus the plough-boy or carter had a piece of whip-cord; the shepherd
a lock of wool; and the cowherd a tuft of cow-hair. It is said that
the name _Mop_ which is widely used in the Midlands instead of
_Stattis_ [Statutes] is derived from this old custom of carrying the
badge of office, and refers to the mop borne by the servant-girls.
The contracts made between employer and employed at the Mop were
binding for the following twelve months. A fee, formerly termed in
the northern counties the _God’s-penny_, but later more generally
the _fastening-penny_, was given by the employer to the servant as
earnest-money. It varied in amount from one shilling to a pound. If
the servant changed his or her mind before entering the service, he
or she returned the _God’s-penny_ to the employer; and on the other
hand, if the employer changed his mind and refused to take the servant,
he forfeited the fee. The relative merits of various ‘places’, and
warnings against ‘bad meat houses’, i.e. houses where scant rations
prevailed, were transmitted to new generations of servants in doggerel
verses repeated at the hirings, such as: Bradford breedless, Harnham
heedless, Shaftee pick at the craa; Capheaton’s a wee bonny place, But
Wallin’ton bangs [excels] them aa (Nhb.).
A Runaway Mop was a statute hiring-fair held a few weeks after the
customary ones, said to be composed of servants who had been hired at a
previous fair, and had run away from their situations. In the _Evesham
Journal_ of October 16, 1897, there appeared an announcement stating
that ‘The runaway mop [at Stratford-on-Avon] will be held on October
22nd’. A Mop Fair is still held in Stratford-on-Avon. In the _Daily
Sketch_ of October 14, 1912, appeared an illustration entitled ‘Roasting
the Ox at Stratford Mop Fair’, with this note appended: ‘The
Stratford-on-Avon Mop Fair, which dates from the reign of King John, was
held on Saturday. Six excursion trains ran from London, and specials
arrived from many towns. The ox-roasting in the streets was one of the
principal sights of the Fair, seven bullocks and a dozen pigs being
spitted.’
The children’s singing game: Here comes the lady of the land, With
sons and daughters in her hand; Pray, do you want a servant to-day?
&c., is probably an outgrowth of the Hiring-fairs, an imitation of
customs once in vogue on these occasions, either derived directly from
the Fairs or from dramatic representations of them acted at Harvest
Homes.