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
patiently awaited until one fell off, when the unfortunate swain whose
name it bore was instantly discarded as being unfaithful. It is to this
custom that Gay has thus alluded:
“See from the core two kernels now I take,
This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn,
And Booby Clod on t’other side is borne;
But Booby Clod soon falls upon the ground,
A certain token that his love’s unsound;
While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last;
Oh! were his lips to mine but joined so fast.”
_Jour. of Arch. Assoc._ 1853, vol. iii. p. 286.
YORKSHIRE.
At Ripon, the women make a cake for every one in the family, whence this
eve is by them called _cake-night_.--_Gent. Mag._ 1790, vol. lx. p. 719.
WALES.
In North Wales there is a custom upon All Saints’ Eve of making a great
fire called _Coel Coeth_, when every family for about an hour in the
night, makes a great bonfire in the most conspicuous place near the
house, and when the fire is almost extinguished every one throws a white
stone into the ashes, having first marked it; then having said their
prayers turning round the fire, they go to bed. In the morning, as soon
as they are up, they come and search out the stones, and if any one of
them is found wanting they have a notion that the person who threw it in
will die before he sees another All Saints’ Eve.--Pennant MS., quoted by
Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 389.
In Owen’s _Account of the Bards_, preserved in Sir R. Hoare’s _Itinerary
of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales_ (vol. ii. p. 315), the following
particulars are given in connection with the above custom:--The autumnal
fire kindled in North Wales on the eve of the 1st of November is
attended by many ceremonies, such as running through the fire and smoke,
each casting a stone into the fire, and all running off at the
conclusion, to escape from the black short-tailed sow; then supping upon
parsnips, nuts, and apples; catching at an apple suspended by a string,
with the mouth alone, and the same by an apple in a tub of water; each
throwing a nut into the fire, and those that burn bright betoken
prosperity to the owners through the following year, but those that burn
black and crackle, denote misfortune. On the following morning the
stones are searched for in the fire, and if any be missing, they betide
ill to those who threw them in.
SCOTLAND.
Burns, in his notes upon Halloween, gives the following interesting
account of the superstitious customs practised by the Scottish
peasantry:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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