PANCAKE DAY is another name for Shrove Tuesday, from the custom of eating pancakes on this day, still generally observed. A writer in the “Gentleman’s Magazine, 1790,” says, that “_Shrive_ is an old Saxon word, of which _shrove_ is a corruption, and signifies confession. Hence Shrove Tuesday means Confession Tuesday, on which day all the people in every parish throughout the kingdom, during the Romish times, were obliged to confess their sins, one by one, to their own parish priests, in their own parish churches; and that this might be done the more regularly, the great bell in every parish was rung at ten o’clock, or perhaps sooner, that it might be heard by all. And as the Romish religion has given way to a much better, I mean the protestant religion, yet the custom of ringing the great bell in our ancient parish churches, at least in some of them, still remains, and obtains in and about London the name of _Pancake-bell_: the usage of dining on pancakes or fritters, and such like provision, still continues.” In “Pasquil’s Palinodia, 1634,” 4to. it is merrily observed that on this day every stomach till it can hold no more, Is fritter-filled, as well as heart can wish; And every man and maide doe take their turne, And tosse their pancakes up for feare they burne; And all the kitchen doth with laughter sound, To see the pancakes fall upon the ground. * * * * * _Threshing the Hen._ This singular custom is almost obsolete, yet it certainly is practised, even now, in at least one obscure part of the kingdom. A reasonable conjecture concerning its origin is, that the fowl was a delicacy to the labourer, and therefore given to him on this festive day, for sport and food. At Shrovetide to shroving, go thresh the fat hen, If blindfold can kill her, then give it thy men. Maids, fritters and pancakes inough see you make, Let slut have one pancake, for company sake. So directs Tusser in his “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, 1620,” 4to. On this his annotator, “Tusser Redivivus, 1710,” (8vo. June, p. 15,) annexes an account of the custom. “The hen is hung at a fellow’s back, who has also some horse bells about him, the rest of the fellows are blinded, and have boughs in their hands, with which they chase this fellow and his hen about some large court or small enclosure. The fellow with his hen and bells shifting as well as he can, they follow the sound, and sometimes hit him and his hen, other times, if he can get behind one of them, they thresh one another well favour’dly; but the jest is, the maids are to blind the fellows, which they do with their aprons, and the cunning baggages will endear their sweethearts with a peeping-hole, whilst the others look out as sharp to hinder it. After this the hen is boil’d with bacon, and store of pancakes and fritters are made.” [Illustration: ~Threshing the Fat Hen at Shrovetide.~]