by Peter Hill
John Askham, the Wellingborough writer and poet, looking back nostalgically to his days at dame school between 1829 and 1832, described in great detail the superstitious nature of his teacher, an elderly woman in old-fashioned clothes, whose chief occupation was eternally knitting stockings:
...she was the epitome of old errors, a repository of recipes, a cyclopedia of superstition. She was a believer in signs and tokens. She had tokens for life, and tokens for death; the latter were generally raps on the headboard of the bed, or hollow cinders out of the fire; these she could adapt either to life or death; if she inclined to death, it was a coffin, if to life, a cradle. A running over of a candle would be moulded by her superstitious fancy into the resemblance of a winding sheet: if a bright spark flew out of the candle, it was a sign of having a letter: the throbbing of her corns prognosticated a change in the weather: if her back was a sign of snow: the aurora borealis denoted war; she could see swords in the clouds quite plain.
Around the county, each day of the week had its merits or disadvantages. Monday and Thursday were said to be the best days for a wedding – but during Lent, especially Ash Wednesday, it was considered to be a bad omen. Finding a horseshoe was a good omen, but not a knife. In general, iron was a good metal to come across, but not silver. If out nutting, opening a nut with a double kernel was favourable, provided both kernels were not eaten – one had to be one thrown over the shoulder. The first egg of a pullet would bring luck if given to a loved one. An old shoe was thrown at anyone about to undertake a new venture, to ensure their success. Crows were particularly auspicious and if two were seen together, especially flying over your head, it was a sign of good fortune, though if a single crow landed in front of you, it did not augur well.
The fortunes of a child’s life could also be influenced in certain ways. When a baby was taken to visit friends for the first time, it was customary for them to give it an egg which, if preserved, would bring good fortune. One wonders how our ancestors managed to do this! Perhaps the strangest belief, however, was that a thin membrane known as a caul or kell which sometimes covered the face of an infant at birth could betoken good fortune if preserved throughout the child’s adult life. If carried, it could even could prevent drowning. However, should it be lost, it was believed to signal misfortune. Such was its scarcity and esteem that advertisements were placed in the Northampton Mercury, offering large sums of money to anyone having such a highly valued commodity.
Superstition was also attached to the use of money. It was customary for a shopkeeper to give a coin or two back to anyone buying goods, regardless of how much they had spent, not as change but as token of good luck. This was known variously around the county as either ‘lock penny’ or ‘luck money’. When hawkers had their first sale of the day, the money they received, ‘handsell’, was spat on in the hope of good luck for the rest of the day’s trading.
Many people today would flinch at carrying a calf’s tongue or a piece of fish wrapped in rushes in their pocket, yet it was believed that anyone doing so would be protected against assault, leaving them unscathed after such an encounter. It was also said to provide a ready supply of money!
It was customary to dress up in new clothes on Easter Sunday and if someone did not wear a new item of clothing, that person would not prosper for the rest of the year. In a house, care was also taken to avoid breaking a mirror or letting a child look in one before it was a year old, or misfortune would follow. Other bad omens were dropping a small piece of furniture on the floor for no apparent reason and hearing your name being called when there was nobody in the vicinity. Folk also avoided entering the front door of a house and going straight out through the back, in the belief that such an action would lead to them never returning.
Houses were protected from lightning and other harm by ‘raising the branch’, which was the custom of hanging a branch from the roof or chimney, and drinks were passed round whenever a new roof was built or replaced on a home. Another apotropaic device was to wall up an animal to watch over a new building, the body of the animal eventually becoming mummified and its spirit housebound. Later, thatchers would add the form of an animal or bird to a roof, not just for decoration but for a similar purpose.
Some occurrences were unpreventable, such as the hooting of an owl, which was always considered a bad omen. At Cogenhoe, a shoemaker and his wife were well known for their colourful ghost stories and their knowledge of ‘ow owls talk’. They would tell visitors about how an owl once flew round a nearby farmhouse, shortly after which the farmer’s wife fell downstairs to her death, and how another owl foretold the death of one of their own relatives.
However, there could be humour in a situation involving an owl. Such was the case with a man from Little Oakley, who was staggering back home alone across the fields after a heavy drinking session in Geddington. Passing somewhat noisily through a spinney, he heard what he thought was a loud voice uttering a long-drawn-out ‘Who?’ He gave his name, only to hear the sound repeated twice more. Muttering expletives, he went on his way out of the spinney, not realising what he had disturbed!
Plants have attracted a whole body of folklore for themselves. The elder tree was treated with special reverence. Known as ‘eldern’ in the north of the county and ‘edders’ elsewhere, its branches were used – like those of rowan – as a protection against witches. This accounts for why so many were planted by the side of houses and tracks in the county at one time. The long stems of elder and hazel called ‘etherings’ or ‘ether-winders’ were also intertwined between stakes in hedge-laying to bond or strengthen new fences. The blooms of lilac and hawthorn, or ‘may’, was never taken inside houses, in the belief that it would invoke a future death. A legend surrounding may as a plant of fatality describes its association with the Black Death, when it sprang up everywhere and spread in the untended fields of the depleted population. Its blossom has a sickly scent which is nauseating to many. Intriguingly, in the 1970s, a group of scientists analysed a chemical component found within the plant that is similar to that found in decaying corpses.
This mummified cat was found beneath the roof of a house in Kettering. Walling up animals in buildings was once a common way of protecting homes from misfortune, such as lightning damage or harmful human influences.
Animals made out of thatch were not just for decoration but, unknowingly for many folk, were a modern form of house protection.
Daneweed (field eryngo) was formerly found in the area around Watling Street, from which it took its other county name of Watling Street thistle. Though widespread in much of Europe, where it is considered to be troublesome once it establishes its deep roots and begins to spread, it does not really flourish in the British climate and is consequently scarce in this country. Long ago, a tradition came into being after it was found ‘in the hills near Daventry at Danes Camp’ and it was said that if it was cut on certain days, it would bleed ‘in memory of them defending their conquered territory against the Saxon army’.
The excretion from the wild rose, known locally as ‘briar ball’ or ‘save lick’, was rubbed by boys on the cuffs of their coats as a charm to prevent them getting flogged. Another plant, however, did not have the helpful effects it was intended to have: at the school in Nassington in July 1895, the medical officer of health, C.N. Elliott, was called in from Oundle to investigate absences. In his report he wrote:
I visited the village on account of a number of children being absent from school owing to a rash on their faces, hands and arms, supposed to be due to some infectious disease. After the examination, I came to the conclusion, firstly that the children were not suffering from any infectious disease, and that there was no reason why they should not attend school; and secondly, that the rash was caused by the children rubbing their hands and arms with the juice of the plant called ‘Petty Spurge’. I had no doubt this was done to escape school. In all, there were about 25 cases. The rash resembled ‘herpes’, but some children had blisters as large as half-a-c
rown.
It seems that a boy had discovered the effect that the sap of the plant had on the skin and, seeing it as a good way of getting out of school, had passed on his discovery to others. No doubt the truancy ended in a good hiding for all concerned and was never attempted again!
One can imagine what our county ancestors would have made of other natural marvels of strange appearance. For instance, there were two kinds of a brain fungus, a jelly-like substance with a moist and rubbery appearance when fresh, that soon goes rock hard on drying, and is found on the roots of old trees, rotten wood or on the ground. It was believed to fall from the clouds and, when fresh and moist, it was said to be possible to spot it from some distance away. The yellow form was known as ‘fairy butter’ and the black form as ‘witch’s butter’; both were also known collectively as ‘scum’ or ‘scoom’.
A similar substance, but an algae rather than a fungus, was a white translucent form of nostoc, which was believed to come from space, the residuum of a meteor. It was said to be found close to the spot where a shooting star had landed and was consequently known as ‘star jelly’, ‘star shot’, ‘star fall’n’ or ‘ground jelly’. However, John Morton, in his survey of the county’s natural history in 1712, believed that it came from the ‘coddy moddy’ or seagull dropping the half-digested remains of its food to the ground while in flight. There was also an ancient belief that if frogs came out onto wet ground that soon became frosty, they would turn into a jelly-like substance, like their spawn.
It was only natural that our ancestors would find objects on the ground which had an odd appearance and for which there was no obvious explanation. They therefore ascribed an origin to them and gave them a valid name. Neolithic and Bronze Age flint arrowheads were believed to be of elemental origin and to cause illness if removed, and were known as ‘elf bolts’. Many finds were fossils from the vast Jurassic sea that once covered the county. Gryphaea or ‘devil’s toenails’ are especially common, some being of immense size. Northamptonshire folk would call them ‘grandmother’s toenails’, ‘Poll parrot’s bills’, ‘bird’s bills’, ‘crow stones’ or ‘crow pot stones’. The dark brown pointed sheaths (alveoli) of belemnites, an ancestor of the squid, were believed to land during thunderstorms and were thus known as ‘thunderbolts’. Less common were ‘hearts’ (pholodomya), huge heavy heart-shaped fossils from ironstone or limestone deposits. The coiled serpent or spiral shape of ammonites led them to be called ‘snakestones’ (also a common name outside the county) and shark teeth were called ‘sparrow beaks’. If iron pyrites were found in the northern parts of the county, they would be called ‘kernels’. In the 1950s, a villager of Yarwell recalled:
Some of the fossils which abound in the county and which once gave rise to much speculation about their origin.
When the river [Nene] was dredged and deepened many years ago, a great many long-buried creatures came to light: great ammonites nearly a foot across, fossilised fishes and bones of great lizards.
Man-made objects from earlier times could also cause interest, especially coins. ‘Danes money’ was a name applied not to the currency of the Danes but to any ancient coins found in the soil. However, in the area around Chipping Warden, any old Roman coins that were unearthed were known (for reasons that are unclear) as ‘Warden folk costerpence’. In 1849, a ring was found amid the earthworks of Pipewell Abbey, inscribed ‘+ AGLA + ADROS + UDROS + TEBAL + GVT + G’, which was a charm invoking God’s help against epilepsy and toothache.
Predicting the future
Knowing what was going to happen in the future was of vital concern to everyone, regardless of age, gender or occupation, therefore certain rituals were carried out, often solemnly, at auspicious times of the year. On New Year’s Day, it was common around the county for the head of the family to open the family Bible with his eyes closed and the text of the first page he touched with his finger would indicate the events of the coming year.
Of all types of divination for the future, however, none gripped the imagination of girls and young single women more than that of knowing if and when they would marry, who it would be and if it would last. There were regularly placed days throughout the year when they could perform a simple ritual, either alone or with friends:
St Agnes’ Eve (21 January). If the following ritual was carried out successfully, a girl would dream of her husband-to-be. After a day of fasting, except perhaps for some parsley tea and a little bread, sheets and pillowcases were to be changed and a clean shift or smock worn. Before retiring to bed, the girl had to chant: ‘St Agnes, I do pray to thee, I, a maid who would married be, so thou my husband show to me.’
St Mark’s Eve (24 April) and also at Halloween. An individual girl would eat an egg yolk and fill the shell with salt, with the result that a future lover would visit before the morning. Groups of girls would also get together to make a Dumb Cake, so-named after the ritual accompanying it. The cake was basically a thin pastry consisting of flour, egg, salt and water and was marked with the initials of each girl’s name, using a pin or bodkin, and put on a gridiron over the fire to cook. At midnight, the cake was broken into three pieces and, leaving the door open and putting any pets outside the house, each girl would walk backwards silently, eating a portion of the cake, the rest being put under her pillow. Those who were to marry would shortly hear a knock at the door or a rustling in the house while lying in bed, or would dream of their future love. Those destined to remain single would dream of freshly dug graves or rings not fitting a finger.
Another ritual carried out by a group of girls was to watch the doorway of the church entrance during the day until the evening, when one of them would lay a branch or a flower in the porch. The girl who had laid the branch would return at midnight, with as many of the group who were willing, to take it from the porch to the church gate. Shortly after doing this, a vision would appear in the form of a marriage procession with her likeness hanging on the arm of her would-be groom, the number of bridesmaids and men being the number of months to wait until her wedding. If she was not to be married, however, the vision would be that of a funeral cortège, with a coffin draped in a white sheet, borne by shoulderless bearers.
Midsummer Eve (St John’s Eve). A shift was washed and left to dry on the back of a chair. At midnight, the image of the would-be lover would appear to turn the shift. Alternatively, the girl might pick a rose and take it home, walking backwards without speaking to anyone on the way. The rose was then put on paper until Christmas Day, when the girl would wear it at church, where it was believed her future husband would take it from her.
St Martin’s Eve (10 November) and St Thomas’s Eve (20 December). A girl would peel a red onion which was then wrapped in a handkerchief and put under her pillow. Wearing a clean smock, she would then go to bed and, if successful, dream of her lover. The ritual would be accompanied by a chant, one of which was used in the county from the seventeenth century onwards: ‘St Thomas pray do me right, and bring my love to me this night, that I may look him in the face, and in my arms may him embrace’.
On Tanders, ‘dreaming bannocks’ were made, each piece of dough consisting of eggs, flour, butter and salt with a little spice, to which was added a magic ingredient – a tiny pinch of soot. These were placed on a gridiron and toasted, then eaten in silence before retiring to bed. Like most other divination rituals, it was said that you would then dream of your destiny.
nine
EVERYDAY LIFE
A necessary part of life for all villages, where money was in short supply, was to make ends meet by going round the lanes, fields and woods in groups and gathering items for use at home. Gathering spare fleece was known as ‘a-wooling’ and collecting firewood was ‘a-sticking’. However, an integral part of the agricultural year and a big annual event for all the villages in the county was gleaning, gathering in the fields for loose corn left behind after harvesting. In the north of the county this was known as ‘leasing’. When collecting barley grains, handfuls were
scooped up and poured into aprons. With wheat, more care was taken, as explained by Charles Kimbell of Boughton:
the ears were placed one by one tidily in the hand until the gleaner held as much as could be grouped, then the struggling stalks were twisted round and round beneath the ears and the stalk ends tucked in to hold firmly together.
Often a second gleaning – a ‘pickling’ or ‘prowling’ – would be carried out for any grain missed first time around. This was done by the women and children and could provide valuable extra, and free, food for families and chickens. A bell known as the Gleaning Bell was rung as a signal for the gleaning to start. In some villages, such as Gretton, Slipton and Aldwincle St Peter, this would be at 7 a.m. at others, like Twywell and Duddington, it was normal practice to ring two bells, one at 8 a.m. for the start and another at 6 p.m. for the cessation of work.
John Askham wrote a vivid description of his experiences of gleaning in the area around Wellingborough in the mid-1800s. He describes a ‘motley party’, dressed in old clothes – rags and tatters – and with a bag tied round the waist to put ‘short ears’ in, arriving after a ‘long’ journey to begin back-breaking, legscratching work in fields that stretched for great distances:
A permit to go ‘a-sticking’ in Geddington parish.
When the signal ‘all-on’ was given, the gleaners spread themselves over the field; and it was not an uncommon thing for a mother and a child or two to gather such a burthen before night that they could hardly stagger home with it.
It was not uncommon for groups from neighbouring parishes in the county to fight over disputed gleaning territory, usually on boundaries. These disputes were a serious matter: more than pride was at stake and the prize of more grain for the victorious was worth the trouble. These fights could get quite vicious, with scratching, kicking, hair-pulling and tearing clothes being a common feature. One particularly noteworthy incident took place in the north of the county in 1869, when a grudge arose between Nassington and Yarwell.