A Treasury of British Folklore

Maypoles, Mandrakes and Mistletoe

Dee Dee Chainey

• Publisher: National Trust
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781911358565
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Folklore & Mythology
• Index: Social Sciences

Dee Dee Chainey is an archaeologist by training and co-founder of Folklore Thursday.

1

OUR SUN AND
SEASONS – THE
FOLKLORIC YEAR

Through all times and in all places people have conjured festivals to honour the changing of the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun, or the spinning of the stars. Each region has its own ways of marking the turning of the world, even if the importance of the darkening year and browning of the fields is a nostalgic memory of yesteryear for many. It’s difficult to experience the changing landscape from our homes in built-up city areas. Even so, the turning of the world still lingers at the edges of our modern culture, in the crevices of our imaginations and in the corners of our traditions. This is what connects us with our animistic – and animalistic – past.

As people have done for centuries, we still look up to the sky, marvelling at the burning grandeur of the Sun, and the gentle beauty of the Moon, and folklore reflects our continuing wonder. In Scotland it’s seen as very good luck to always move ‘sunwise’ – in the same direction as the sun moves across the sky – while moving ‘widdershins’, or against the Sun, is associated with bad luck and evil. It is, apparently, very bad luck to point at the sun at any time, and it’s often thought of as bad luck to see the moon through tree branches. For the antiquarians and folklorists of the past, the ancients were said to have many practices and observances surrounding the heavens. More recently, archaeologists have mapped out extraordinary solar and lunar alignments at ancient stones, from Land’s End to John O’Groats. We can imagine people of times long gone, watching the shadows trace across the land and solemnly taking measurements of the Sun’s rays, in order to build great megaliths and stone circles that marked special occasions in the year – one such is Castlerigg in Cumbria, one of the earliest stone circles in Britain, dating from around 3000BC. Until the late eighteenth century in Britain, when artificial light through gas began to be developed, the period of darkness ‘between the sun and the sky’ – that is, between daybreak and sunrise – was seen as a magical time, particularly potent for incantations and the best time for performing exorcisms. Just like us, in the Middle Ages people looked up to the night skies and saw the Man in the Moon. For them he was a ‘rustic’, or country dweller, bound in rags and carrying a faggot (or bundle) of sticks. Weighed down by his burden, both physically and symbolically, he was seen as a moral lesson on how stealing never profits.

As each new day dawns, marking the Sun’s travel, the named individual days of the week have come to have special significance in different places. Getting rid of the floor sweepings in Ireland on a Monday is said also to get rid of your luck for the week to come, while a sneeze on a Wednesday in Hertfordshire means a letter is coming. To begin anything on a Friday, from a journey to a business deal, is regarded as bad luck in Devon. In Norfolk, rain on Sunday morning apparently means rain all week.

Seasonal festivals that developed over time in rural Britain continue to break the year into segments, following the changing weather and reflecting the activities that happen, or used to happen, at different times of the year. Some festivals, like harvest, honour the autumn as the fleeting or ‘flitting’ season while others, like Halloween (also known as All Hallows’ Eve), mark a more symbolic time, welcoming the darkening of approaching winter, in which remnants of pre-Christian beliefs still linger.

Allhallowtide lasts from 31 October to 2 November. The festival dates from pre-Christianity in Britain, and includes Halloween (or All Saints’ Eve), All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day. This feast is a time dedicated to honouring the dead, thought to have its origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain, and traditionally marked the end of summer in Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland, and welcomed the dark half of the year. Huge bonfires were built, where animals would be burned, and a great feast would take place. Well into the nineteenth century, people believed that this was the time when the spirits of the dead roamed the earth.

To many, 1 November was thought of as New Year’s Day, and a particularly auspicious time for predicting the future. The Welsh Halloween is Nos Calan Gaeaf, one of the nights when in Welsh folklore the Cŵn Annwn – the spectral hounds of the Welsh underworld, Annwn – ride high in the sky on a wild hunt. Anyone who sees or hears these hellish beasts is said to be doomed to die. The procession is led either by Arawn (king of the underworld) or by Gwyn ap Nudd (king of the Tylwyth Teg or Welsh ‘fair folk’). It’s said that Arawn holds his court at Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, an entrance to the Otherworld. In Cornwall, Halloween is known as Nos Kalan Gwav, meaning the ‘eve of the first day of winter’, and is celebrated with a great harvest feast. The Tudors marked the festival as an opportunity to pray for the souls of the departed – especially those in purgatory – and would ring bells to comfort the souls trapped there, light bonfires and ward off evil spirits with protective charms. Traditional Allhallowtide activities regularly take place at Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire and regional variations are often revived and celebrated elsewhere in Britain.

Mumming has taken place across Britain since the fourteenth century, in celebration of various seasonal festivals. Traditionally, actors dress up as characters to perform folk plays around All Souls’ Day, Christmas, Plough Monday, and Easter, and they are now often seen along with Morris and sword dancing groups at village events. Similar characters appear in folk plays in many regions, and often include Saint George, the hero, and his opponent, who is a Turkish knight in southern England and known as Slasher in other areas. A quack doctor who has the power to restore life to the dead generally makes an appearance, while Father Christmas, Beelzebub, the Fool, and a horse are other characters that sometimes take part, depending on local tradition. Each region has its own version to add their particular local flavour to the custom. In Scotland, mumming is known as ‘going galoshins’. Mumming that takes place around Halloween (or All Hallows’ Eve) is called souling, or soul caking – remembered in the particularly haunting ‘Souling Song’ by the folk group The Watersons. At this time of year, the mummers would knock at doors and sing for soul cakes, made for the poor in return for their prayers for the dead and used to remember loved ones who had passed away over the previous year. Soul caking is still very popular in Cheshire, and plays are performed annually by such groups as the Jones’ Ale Soul Cakers, although nowadays to raise money for local charities.

In Lincolnshire, it’s
very unlucky to eat the
whole Christmas cake
on Christmas Eve.

Christmas traditions abound in Britain, and many customs are still common practice today – such as kissing under the mistletoe, hiding lucky charms in the Christmas pudding, and having a Christmas tree. There are some other more strange examples of Christmas folklore in different regions and countries. In Lincolnshire – a warning for those eager to start the celebrations early – it’s very unlucky to eat the whole Christmas cake on Christmas Eve. More ominously, a Scottish bannock or fruit cake that breaks in the middle predicts the death or illness of the intended recipient within the year. In Westleton, Suffolk, the lights were turned off in many households on Christmas Eve because the furniture was thought to jump about. In London it’s said that a white Christmas leads to a brown Easter. Elsewhere, a saying that a green Christmas means a full graveyard doesn’t bode well for many. Similarly, having wet things hanging in a house on Christmas Day is said to invite bad luck, and even a death. Another luck-related custom is that you should always bite into a mince pie because cutting it will cut your luck. Today, many people still believe that Christmas decorations should be taken down before Twelfth Night – either 5 January or 6 January – or bad luck will follow, although originally it was acceptable to leave them up until Candlemas, on 2 February.

Wren Day is celebrated on St Stephen’s Day, falling on 26 December (now known as Boxing Day in Britain) in places like Pembrokeshire and Suffolk, and also across Ireland. Mummers known as strawboys or wrenboys would dress in masks, straw suits and colourful clothing, then go about hunting a wren, which would be tied, alive, to a pole or pitchfork. The revelry would include music and parades through the villages and towns. Money would be collected to host a ‘wren ball’ in January.

In Wales, St Stephen’s Day is known as Gŵyl San Steffan, and was observed by bleeding livestock – for health and stamina – right up until the beginning of the nineteenth century. A practice called ‘holming’ – hitting female servants on the arms with holly branches until they bled – was also traditional, supposedly to ensure good luck for the coming year. Nos Galan, the Welsh New Year, would follow soon after. A horse’s skull – the Mari Lwyd – with hinged, snapping jaws and covered in a sackcloth or a white sheet with colourful ribbons and bells, would be carried from house to house, accompanied by other traditional characters, such as Punch and Judy. The mummers would knock on the door, singing traditional songs to gain entry, and the householders would reply in song, eventually allowing them to come in to share food and drink, after the horse had cavorted around the house, and often giving money for their collection. This tradition dates back to at least the 1800s, and can take place any time between Christmas Day and Twelfth Night, and revivals of this pageant are today seen around Christmastime in cities such as Chepstow, Aberystwyth, and Chester. Hodening, or hoodening, is a similar tradition that took place in Kent around Christmastime from the eighteenth century. A wooden hobby horse was mounted on a pole and carried around the local villages, accompanied by musicians, a groom to lead the horse and a man dressed as a woman, called a ‘Mollie’, collecting money as they went. The horse still makes an appearance in local mumming plays, even though the traditional form of hoodening no longer takes place.

The mummers would
go from house to house
singing traditional
songs to gain entry.

‘First footing’ is a traditional custom on New Year’s Eve in Scotland and the North of England. According to tradition, the first person to enter a house once the clock has struck midnight should be a man, for a woman would cause disaster. Some say a fair-haired man is the luckiest, for instance in Scotland, while others believe it should be a dark-haired fellow, as in Lancashire, where a dark-haired man brings the most luck with him. Some say a flat-footed person bodes ill. In Yorkshire the first foot must always bring a glass of spirits, while in Northumberland it must be a bachelor who brings in the luck for the year, and he should always carry coal. Today, the first foot carries a combination of items when entering the house: a coin, bread, salt, coal, evergreen, and whisky, to represent wealth, nourishment, protection or flavour, warmth, a long and healthy life and a dose of good cheer! It’s also important that the person should already be outside the house at the stroke of midnight. In Lincolnshire, the first foot should say the following rhyme:

Take out, and then take in,

Bad luck will begin;

Take in, then take out,

Good luck conies about.

It’s said to be very bad luck to carry fire out of the house on New Year’s Day, or indeed any implement made from iron. In some places it was seen as very bad luck to lend anything on that day, even a light for the fire.

In the nineteenth century in the West Riding of Yorkshire, groups of child mummers would go ‘wassailing’ across the festive season, which meant visiting houses and singing traditional hymns in return for a little money or refreshments, similar to carol singing today. They would dress up for the occasion and carry the ‘wassailing cup’, along with little boxes containing figurines of the Virgin and Child called ‘milly-boxes’, a corruption of ‘My Lady’. These would be lined with sugar, spices, and oranges. Wassailing took place in many other parts of Britain as well, although in most areas ‘wassailing’ meant something else entirely, and was an orchard custom that took place after Christmas. In Exeter, Devon, many farmers and their families would gather around their orchard trees, pour cider over their roots and dangle cake from the branches, while songs were sung and traditional rhymes chanted to bless them for the coming year, ensuring an abundant harvest of apples for cider making. A Surrey rhyme about this goes like this:

Here stands a good apple-tree,

Stand fast at root,

Bear well at top;

Every little twig

Bear an apple big:

Every little bough

Bear an apple now;

Hats full, caps full!

Threescore sacks full!

Hullo boys, hullo!

Wassailing events still happen today throughout the country, for instance at Isaac Newton’s orchard in Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire, around ‘Old Twelfth Night’ in January – another traditional time for wassailing. Other events take place at Cotehele Orchards in Cornwall, and at Birmingham Crescent Theatre.

Yuletide has long been a time of all-night celebrations in Shetland, with the beat of drums, blowing of horns and banging of kettles; over time these celebrations have become more elaborate. In 1840 tar barrelling was introduced, where youths would set the barrels alight on rafts, which would then be dragged through the streets. A torch procession replaced this mischief in the 1870s when the name Up...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part One: Of the Land, Plants and Animals
• Part Two: Witchcraft, Magic and Heroic Tales
• Part Three: The Milestones of Life
• Afterword
• Sources and Further Reading
• Where to Find Folklore
• Illustration Notes
• Index
• Acknowledgements
• Copyright