British Popular Customs, Present and Past: Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
British Popular Customs, Present and Past: Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Folklore -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Social life and customs
Fuller, too, in his _History of Berwick-upon-Tweed_ (1799, p. 447), says
the association of gardeners, which took place in 1796, had in his time
a procession through the streets yearly. It was accompanied with music;
and, in the middle of the procession, a number of men carried a large
wreath of flowers. The different officers belonging to this institution
wore their respective insignia, and the whole society dined together.
JULY 1.] IRELAND.
Mason, in his _Stat. Acc. of Ireland_ (1814, vol. ii. p. 528), says that
the great holiday in Seagoe is on the first of July (Old Style), being
the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne. A procession takes place,
the whole population wear orange lilies, and the day is spent in
festivity.
JULY 5.] LEICESTERSHIRE.
At Glenfield, the parish clerk, in accordance with an old custom, strews
the church with new hay on the first Sunday after the 5th of
July.--Edwards, _Old English Customs and Charities_, p. 219.
JULY 7.] ST. THOMAS À BECKET’S DAY.
CORNWALL.
The festival called Bodmin Riding was kept on Sunday and Monday after
St. Thomas à Becket’s Day (July 7th). A puncheon of beer having been
brewed in the preceding October, and bottled in anticipation of the
time, two or more young men who were entrusted with the chief management
of the affair, and who represented the “wardens,” went round the town
attended by a band of drums and fifes, or other instruments. The crier
saluted each house with, “To the people of this house a prosperous
morning, long life, and a merry riding!” The musicians then struck up
the riding tune, and the householder was solicited to taste the riding
ale, which was carried round in baskets. A bottle was usually taken in,
and it was acknowledged by such a sum as the means or humour of the
townsman permitted, to be spent on the public festivities of the season.
Next morning a procession was formed: all who could afford to ride
mounted on horse or ass, which proceeded first to the Priory, to receive
two large garlands of flowers fixed on staves, and then through the
principal streets to the Town End, where the games were formally opened.
The sports, which lasted two days, consisted of wrestling, foot-racing,
jumping in sacks, &c. It should be remarked that a second or inferior
brewing, from the same wort, was drunk at a minor merry-making at
Whitsuntide. In an order, dated November 15th, 1583, regulating the
business of the shoemakers, a class of tradesmen which seems for ages to
have been more than usually numerous in Bodmin, it is directed by the
mayor and the masters of the occupation, “that at the _Rydyng_ every
master and journeyman shall give their attendance to the steward, and
likewise bring him to church, upon pain of 12_d._ for every master, and
6_d._ for every journeyman, for every such default, to the discretion of
the master of the occupation.”
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