Folklore of Yorkshire

by Kai Roberts

  THIRTEEN

  CALENDAR CUSTOMS AND THE RITUAL YEAR

  In the popular imagination, calendar customs are regarded as one of the most characteristic manifestations of ‘folklore’ in the modern world. Traditions such as Morris dancing are perceived as an archetypal expression of Britain’s enduring folk heritage; an almost immemorial practice which represents the last lingering influence of a distant and idealised past. Yet such a perspective fails to appreciate the malleable and dynamic nature of such customs. They are not rigid inheritances from a previous age and whilst some continuity with earlier generations inheres, they often say as much about the contemporary context in which they are performed as any historical era. Traditions die, and others are created with surprising regularity, whilst those that persist are constantly reinvented to reflect changing demographics and new cultural ideologies.

  Research over the last fifty years has increasingly demonstrated that many customs that have long been labelled as the product of remote antiquity, are not nearly as old as we would like to believe. Indeed, anything much older than a couple of generations seems to have acquired the reputation of a timeless, immutable tradition. In some cases, they are barely more than a couple of hundred years old and were not the spontaneous creation of the masses, but a corruption of practices which originated with prevailing hegemonies and expressed the dominant status quo of their age. Similarly, many such customs have been constantly revised over their lifetimes, and have usually undergone extinction and revival several times, especially as a result of major upheavals such as the Reformation, the Commonwealth and the two world wars.

  Much of the confusion surrounding calendar customs stems from Victorian models of folklore and anthropology, especially a combination of the ‘myth-ritual’ and ‘survivals’ theory, which held that such traditions were relics of pagan rituals designed to ensure the fertility of the land. Morris dancing was regularly interpreted in such terms, although we now know it probably originated as a courtly fashion during the late Middle Ages and was only widely adopted by the general populace in the sixteenth century. Today, calendar customs are understood as having infinitely more diverse origins and functions, including celebrations to mark major points in the agricultural calendar, legitimised forms of begging and half-remembered imitations of forbidden Catholic feasts. This chapter will endeavour to do justice to their multiplicity.

  Spring

  As soon as the midnight chimes had ushered in 1 January, the ritual year in Yorkshire commenced with a classic ‘visiting custom’ known as first-footing. This widespread superstition dictated that the first person to cross the threshold of a house in the New Year had to possess certain physical characteristics and perform certain actions, to ensure the luck of the family in the coming year. Conversely, should the first person to cross the threshold possess certain undesirable attributes, then ill-fortune was sure to follow. The stipulations varied wildly from place to place, without any obvious pattern, but as Ronald Hutton observes, typically they ‘reinforce prevailing stereotypes of gender dominance and biological normality’.

  For instance, in East Yorkshire, the first-footer had to be dark-haired, whilst around the North York Moors they were supposed to be fair. In Skipton, it was considered profoundly unlucky for a red-haired man to be the first to enter a house – to the extent that one family abandoned their home after this had occurred – but only a short distance away in the vicinity of the West Riding towns of Huddersfield and Bradford, red hair was considered the most auspicious attribute. The only commonality in all these places was that the first-footer had to be male. Often they were expected to symbolically brush away the old year, or to bring a spring of holly and lump of coal to place on the hearth. Equally, they were required to enter through the front door only and leave by the back.

  As it was typical for first-footers to be rewarded with a donation of victuals or money, it was common for poorer locals who conformed to the specified characteristics to go from house to house offering their services, and like so many visiting customs discussed in this chapter, the practice became a legitimised form of begging in many communities. However, as belief in the efficacy of first-footing waned through the nineteenth century, in some areas those determined to maintain their profits from the tradition turned to coercion. Writing in 1901, a native of Elland in West Yorkshire recalls that during her childhood, ‘Unless we kept our doors locked, our houses were invaded by troops of mummers who … came to sweep the old year out.’

  A more unique begging custom took place on New Year’s Day morning, in the East Yorkshire market town of Driffield, when children would walk the streets chanting,

  Here we are at our town’s end

  A bottle of rum and a crown to spend

  Are we downhearted? No!

  Shall we win? Yes!

  At this summons, shopkeepers would come to their door and throw a handful of pennies into the street for which the children would then madly scramble. Until recently, the tradition was entirely unsponsored and spontaneous, but due to its decline during the 1990s, the town council stepped in and now organise it as an official town event.

  In agricultural communities, the ritual year was greatly determined by the annual cycles of food production, and so the first farming day of the New Year was marked accordingly. Thus on Plough Monday – the first Monday after Twelfth Night – around the North York Moors and Holderness, teams of farm labourers would process around the parishes dragging a plough and soliciting donations. The Plough Stotts, as they were known, typically dressed with their shirts over their jackets, sashes across their breasts and ribbons on their hats, and were accompanied by a variety of mummers and musicians. As the pageantry grew more elaborate, it ensured that the processions endured long after their original function was obsolete.

  In East Yorkshire, the team was accompanied by two disreputable characters; a molly dancer called Besom Bet and Blether Dick, who wore a coat covered in motley rags and carried a bladder attached to the end of a stick, with which he would whack the Plough Stotts as they performed a lewd dance. Meanwhile, in North Yorkshire, the mummers were known as ‘Madgies’ who cavorted with blackened faces and horned headdresses. The Plough Stotts of some North Yorkshire communities also processed with long-sword dancers, who performed an elaborate routine involving the interlocking of swords, culminating in the symbolic beheading and resurrection of their leader. This tradition continues on Plough Monday in Goathland, following a revival in 1923.

  The 20 January marked the Eve of St Agnes, familiar to many from John Keats’ classic poem of that name and known in Yorkshire as a time ripe for divinatory practices. Typically, if they performed certain rituals, girls were supposed to receive a vision of the man they would marry. In one example, two girls must fast and remain silent throughout the day, then in the evening bake a mixture of flour, salt and water known as a ‘dumb cake’. Once cooked, this must be divided equally into two, and each girl had to carry her piece backwards up the stairs and into her bed, before it could be eaten. If these conditions were fulfilled, the girl was promised her future husband would appear to her in that night’s dream.

  Kirkburton Rapier Dancers performing at Beverley. (John Billinglsey)

  Shrovetide was observed in Yorkshire, as in most places across England, with the consumption of all those rich, perishable foodstuffs which would shortly be forbidden during the Lenten fast – cuts of meat on Collop Monday and pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. But whilst abstinence was observed for forty days and nights from Ash Wednesday, settlements along the Yorkshire coast marked the fifth Sunday of Lent with a feast of sorts. Known as Carlin Sunday, typically unappetising brown peas were fried in pig fat and seasoned with pepper to become ‘carlins’, whereupon they were consumed with great gusto.

  Filey folklore claims the custom began when a ship called The Carlin was wrecked near the Brigg, and its cargo of peas washed up on shore. However, as Carlin Sunday is known across much of the north-east coast, it seems unlikely
that its origin was so localised. The tradition more probably arose simply because peas were a readily available foodstuff permitted during the fast, and commonly donated in large quantities to the poor during this period by the local gentry. Inevitably, as the practice of fasting during Lent has declined with secularisation, so has the need for Carlin Sunday. Unlike Shrove Tuesday, however, its traditions have been long forgotten.

  Lent came to an end with Palm Sunday, traditionally known as a day for gluttony and debauchery across the country. But in certain communities in West Yorkshire, particularly those around Calderdale, a more innocent custom prevailed. On the morning of Palm Sunday, young men and women would take bottles to collect water from the local holy well, which they would then mix with Spanish liquorice to create a concoction known as ‘Popolloli’. The gathering was a popular opportunity for courting, and would-be couples could ‘plight their troth’ by drinking from each other’s bottle. The custom was observed until the early twentieth century, but with many old wells falling into disuse, running dry and being built over, it has entirely died out.

  Calderdale can boast another distinctive Easter custom known as the ‘Pace Egg Play’, performed on Good Friday. Like many mummers plays, it is a ‘hero-combat drama’ in which the protagonist must fight a series of duels, during the last of which he is fatally wounded and then subsequently resurrected. Here the hero is St George, who overcomes villains called the Black Prince of Paradine and Hector, before he is killed by the Bold Slasher and revived by the doctor. Whilst the action unfolds, a fool character named Toss Pot provides a running commentary and capers around the audience. At the end, the Pace Egg Song is sung by the cast, whilst Toss Pot collects donations, suggesting it originated as another example of a legitimised begging.

  Whilst the Pace Egg was also performed in certain Lancashire towns, the Calderdale version is unique to the valley. The lyrics to the Pace Egg Song are not replicated elsewhere and the Calderdale mummers are known for their elaborate headgear, which is often worked on for weeks in advance. The play has been presented in the region almost continually for several centuries, and whilst textual references do not exist until the early 1700s, they suggest it was already a thriving tradition. Although performances briefly died out following the Great War, it was revived in 1932 and is continued today by two teams from the hilltop villages of Heptonstall and Midgley – the latter comprised of pupils from Calder High School.

  The Pace Egg Play. (Brighouse Children’s Theatre)

  On Easter Sunday, the rising sun was credited with unusual properties, including the belief that it danced with joy in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Known across Europe, the superstition was widely observed in Yorkshire until quite recently, and folk would often ascend a local hill before dawn to witness the spectacle. Beamsley Beacon, above Ilkley, was a particularly favoured location for such gatherings. In the North and East Ridings, a divinatory custom called ‘wading the sun’ was also practiced, whereby a bucket of water was placed to catch the rising orb. If the sun ‘waded’ (i.e. was reflected in the water causing it to glimmer) then it promised a fine season to follow.

  Easter Monday was marked across the county by egg-rolling games for children, and ‘Troll-Egg Day’ was a common colloquial name for the festival. But whilst this harmless activity is often revived today, the less savoury tradition of ‘buckle-snatching’ or ‘Leggin’ Day’ (as it was called in the East Riding) has been consigned to history. Recorded in towns such as Whitby, it was customary for boys to trip girls up and remove their shoes, which they would only return upon payment of some gratuity. Unsurprisingly, this antisocial, uncouth practice sometimes led to riots and like many loutish institutions of a similar ilk, it was stamped out by the establishment of local constabularies in the nineteenth century.

  All Fools’ Day was on 1 April as it is today; pranks were played on the gullible until noon. Sending some callow youth on a fool’s errand was a particularly popular manifestation of this custom; for instance, to collect a pennyworth of pigeon’s milk from the chemist or a volume called The Life of Adam’s Father from a bookseller. A favourite in East Yorkshire was to send a boy to the cobbler’s for ‘stirrup oil’, a request which would be met by a beating from the shoemaker’s stirrup. The unlucky dupes were dubbed ‘gawks’ – a northern dialect word for cuckoo – and the hoaxes were known as ‘hunting the gawk’.

  The arrival of the cuckoo was a cause for great celebration, as it heralded the onset of summer. In South Yorkshire, a tradition called ‘footing the cuckoo’ was observed, whereby the first person to hear a cuckoo in the neighbourhood would gather his friends and as many beer barrels as they could carry, take them to the trees in which the bird was heard and proceed to carouse the rest of the day away. It is said that in the Ribblesdale village of Austwick, the locals were so keen to keep the cuckoo and hopefully the summer with it, that they tried to wall it in. The bird simply flew away over the top, but the villagers maintained that ‘if they had only built the wall one round of stones higher, the bird could never have got out.’ The same tale is told about the West Yorkshire village of Marsden, who celebrate an annual fête called ‘Cuckoo Day’ in late April.

  St Mark’s Eve fell on 24 April, and until rationality prevailed in the late nineteenth century, it was another favourite night for divinatory customs. Readings were taken from impressions created by sifting the ash in the hearth (ash-riddling) or the chaff on the barn floor (chaff-riddling). It was also the designated night for a particularly macabre custom known as ‘porch-watching’. Across Yorkshire, especially in rural areas, people believed that if an individual kept nocturnal watch in the church porch on St Mark’s Eve for three years in a row, on the third vigil they would witness the wraiths of all those who were to die in the parish during the following year process down the corpse road and into the church.

  There were many attendant superstitions which varied from place to place, including the belief that anybody who fell asleep whilst porch-watching would themselves die, and that whoever watches the porch once must do so for their whole lifetime. The tradition was a source of dread to many and it was widely exploited by the unscrupulous. A woman named Old Peg Doo used to watch the porch of the Priory Church at Bridlington every year, and charge her neighbours to reveal what she had witnessed. Although veteran porch-watchers were often shunned by the community, it was very easy for them to use their position for malicious ends. It was rumoured that for some people who heard that their wraith had been seen entering the church on St Mark’s Eve, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy as they were driven into such a state of anxiety that their death soon followed.

  The last day of April, ‘May Eve’, was marked in Yorkshire as one of the first two ‘Mischief Nights’ of the year, a time of misrule during which gangs of youths would play a variety of pranks on their unfortunate neighbours, under the illusion the date gave them protection from the law. Typical mischief included everything from simple tricks, such as leading animals astray, securing doors from the outside and removing gates from their hinges, to more elaborate schemes like suspending a needle next to a window to create a persistent and elusive tapping sound, or boarding up the windows to cause the residents to oversleep. As one commentator remarked, ‘The first of April is the Fool’s day and the last day of that month is the Devil’s.’

  Summer

  May Day itself was widely celebrated in England during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and whilst it was banned during the Commonwealth, festivities were resurrected for a period following the Restoration and again in corrupted form during the nineteenth century, according to the Victorian fashion for a romanticised ‘Merrie England’. In its original form, the day was known as a riotous occasion and involved a variety of universal customs, such as maypole dancing and ‘bringing in the May’, which would see young folk go out into the surrounding countryside to collect foliage with which to decorate the village.

  May Day festivities were particularly despised b
y Puritan reformers during the seventeenth century, who regarded such practices as both pagan and licentious. The nonconformist firebrand and inveterate diarist, Reverend Oliver Heywood, records that around 1630, the vicar of Halifax preached virulently against May Day customs and even attempted to prevent the erection of a maypole, leading to great unrest in the town. Of course, the celebration was thoroughly stamped out by the Commonwealth and whilst a revival followed the Restoration, the traditions gradually changed in form, so that by the nineteenth century, ‘bringing in the May’ had evolved into more innocent practices such as garlanding, a children’s visiting custom. In Yorkshire, a little of the old lustiness endured and young men traditionally left foliage on the doorsteps of any girl they wished to flatter.

  One of the most archetypal motifs associated with May Day is the maypole, a central feature of both the early festivities and the Victorian revival. During the nineteenth century, it was so significant that a number of villages in Yorkshire had a permanent maypole – only two survive in the county, but inevitably May Day celebrations remain vibrant in these places. Gawthorpe, near Wakefield, is one such example and their annual pageant features a horseback procession, which parades to the neighbouring town of Ossett and back before the May Queen is crowned beneath the maypole. The current pole is a former pylon donated by Yorkshire Electricity Board and winched into place by crane in 1986.

  However, the more famous maypole at Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds, is replaced every three years by traditional methods – ladders, rope and human labour. The raising ceremony originally took place on Whit Tuesday, but has now been fixed to Spring Bank Holiday and the event has become more significant than May Day itself. By custom, work begins at 6 p.m. and takes over 100 people at least three hours to complete, during which their exertions are accompanied by a band parade and Morris dancing. Once the maypole is in place, four garlands are hung halfway up and a weather vane in the shape of a fox is fixed to the top. It is said that anybody who is struck by the pole during its erection will be left simple-minded for the remainder of their days, and the phrase ‘knocked at Barwick’ was once a local idiom for those considered ‘backwards’.