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
Fig-pies, or, as they are called in this country, “fag-pies,” are, or
were, eaten on a Sunday in Lent, thence known as Fag-pie Sunday.--_N. &
Q. 2nd S._ vol. i. p. 322.
STAFFORDSHIRE.
Fig-pie Wake is kept in the parish of Draycot-in-the-Moors and in the
neighbouring villages on Mid-Lent Sunday. The fig-pies are made of dry
figs, sugar, treacle, spice, etc.; they are rather too luscious for
those who are not “to the manner born.” But yet on this Sunday, the
friends of the parishioners come to visit them, and to eat their
fig-pies.--_N. & Q. 2nd S._ vol, i. p. 227.
FIRST MONDAY IN MARCH.
BERKSHIRE AND HAMPSHIRE.
The first Monday in March being the time when shoemakers in the country
cease from working by candle-light, it used to be customary for them to
meet together in the evening for the purpose of _wetting the block_. On
these occasions the master either provided a supper for his men, or made
them a present of money or drink; the rest of the expense was defrayed
by subscriptions among themselves, and sometimes by donations from
customers. After the supper was ended, the block candlestick was placed
in the midst, the shop candle was lighted, and all the glasses being
filled, the oldest hand in the shop poured the contents of his glass
over the candle to extinguish it; the rest then drank the contents of
theirs standing, and gave three cheers. The meeting was usually kept to
a late hour.[22]--_Every Day Book_, vol. ii. p. 470.
[22] In some places this custom took place on Easter Monday.
FRIDAY IN LIDE.
CORNWALL.
The first Friday in March is so called from _lide_, Anglo-Saxon for
March. This day is marked by a serio-comic custom of sending a young lad
on the highest mound or hillock of the work, and allowing him to sleep
there as long as he can; the length of his _siesta_ being the measure of
the afternoon nap for the tinners throughout the ensuing twelve months.
The weather which usually characterizes Friday in Lide is, it need
scarcely be said, not very conducive to prolonged sleep. In Saxon times
labourers were generally allowed their mid-day sleep; and it has been
observed that it is even now permitted to husbandmen in some parts of
East Cornwall during a stated portion of the year. Browne appears to
allude to this practice in Devonshire, when he says in the third song of
his first book, in reference to the song-birds in the woodland:
“Whose pleasing noates the tyred swaine have made
To steale a nap at noontide in the shade.”
Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1870, vol. i. p. 64.
MARCH 3.] SCOTLAND.
Sinclair, in his _Statistical Account of Scotland_ (1795, vol. xvi. p.
460), says, “At Sandwick the people do no work on the third day of
March, in commemoration of the day on which the church of Sandwick was
consecrated; and, as the church was dedicated to St. Peter, they also
abstain from working for themselves on St. Peter’s day (29th June), but
they will work for another person who employs them.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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