Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

Courant, for March 15th, 1783. "Leeds, March 11th, 1783: Tuesday se'nnight, being Shrove-tide, as a person was amusing himself, along with several others, with the barbarous custom of throwing at a cock, at Howden Clough, near Birstall, the stick pitched upon the head of Jonathan Speight, a youth about thirteen years of age, and killed him on the spot. The man was committed to York Castle on Friday."

Another writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, Jan. 1751, p. 8, says, "Some, yet more brutal, gratify their cruelty on that emblem of innocence the dove, in the same manner, to the reproach of our country and the scandal of our species." That hens were thrown at as well as cocks appear from many unquestionable evidences. In the same work, April, 1749, is "A strange and wonderful relation of a Hen that spake at a certain ancient borough in Staffordshire, on the 7th of February, being Shrove Tuesday, with her dying speech." Dean Tucker wrote "An earnest and affectionate Address to the Common People of England, concerning their usual Recreations on Shrove Tuesday," London, 12mo. no date, consisting of ten pages only.

In King Henry the Seventh's time it should seem this diversion was practised even within the precincts of the court. In a royal household account, communicated by Craven Ord, I find the following article: "March 2, 7 Hen. VII. Item to Master Bray for rewards to them that brought cokkes at Shrovetide, at Westm". xx." In the manuscript Life of Thomas Lord Berkeley, the fourth of that name, by Mr. Smith, still remaining at Berkeley Castle, speaking of his recreations and delights, he tells the reader, "Hee also would to the threshing of the cocke, pucke with hens blindfolde and the like," ii. 459. This lord was born A.D. 1352, and died in 1417.

[A curious notice of cock-fighting is contained in a letter from Sir Henry Saville, dated 1546, printed in the Plumpton Correspondence, p. 251. He invites his relation to "se all our good coxs fight, if it plese you, and se the maner of our cocking. Ther will be Lanckeshire of one parte, and Derbeshire of another parte, and Hallomshire of the third parte. I perceive your cocking varieth from ours, for ye lay but the battell; and if our battell be but £10. to £5. thear wil be £10. to one laye or the battell be ended."]

In the hamlet of Pinner, at Harrow-on-the-Hill, the cruel custom of throwing at cocks was formerly made a matter of public celebrity, as appears by an ancient account of receipts and expenditures. The money collected at this sport was applied in aid of the poor-rates.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]

This custom appears to have continued as late as the year 1680. (Lysons's Environs of London, ii. 588.)

By the following extract from Baron's Cyprian Academy, 1648, p. 53, it should seem to appear that hens also were formerly the objects of this barbarous persecution. A clown is speaking:-"By the maskins I would give the best cow in my yard to find out this raskall; and I would thrash him as I did the henne last Shrove Tuesday." The subsequent passage in Bishop Hall's Virgidemarium, 1598, iv. 5, seems to imply that a hen was a usual present at Shrovetide, as also a pair of gloves at Easter :

"For Easter gloves, or for a Shrovetide Hen,

Which bought to give, he takes to sell again."

In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, we find the ploughman's feasting days or holidays, thus enumerated: 1. Plough Monday; 2. Shrove Tuesday, when, after confession, he is suffered to thresh the fat hen; 3. Sheepshearing, with wafers and cakes; 4. Wake Day, or the vigil of the church Saint of the village, with custards; 5. Harvesthome, with a fat goose; 6. Seedcake, a festival kept at the end of wheat-sowing, when he is to be feasted with seed-cakes, pasties, and furmenty pot.

"At Shrovetide to shroving go thresh the fat hen,
If blindfold can kill her, then give it thy men."

These lines in Tusser Redivivus, 1744, p. 80, are thus explained in a note. "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 favouredly: 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, while the others look out as sharp to hinder it. After this, the hen is boiled with bacon, and store of pancakes and fritters are made. She that is noted for lying a-bed long, or any other miscarriage, hath the first pancake presented to her, which most commonly falls to the dog's share at last, for no one will own it their due." This latter part of the note is to illustrate the following lines:—

66

Maids, fritters, and pancakes, y-now see ye make,
Let Slut have one pancake for company sake."

Heath, in his account of the Scilly Islands, p. 120, has the following passage: "On a Shrove Tuesday each year, after the throwing at cocks is over, the boys in this island have a custom of throwing stones in the evening against the doors of the dwellers' houses; a privilege they claim from time immemorial, and put in practice without control, for finishing the day's sport. I could never learn from whence this custom took its rise, but am informed that the same custom is now used in several provinces of Spain, as well as in some parts of Cornwall. The terms demanded by the boys are pancakes, or money, to capitulate."

Mr. Jones informed me that, in Wales, such hens as did not lay eggs before Shrove Tuesday were, when he was a boy, destined to be threshed on that day by a man with a flail, as being no longer good for anything. If the man hit the hen, and consequently killed her, he got her for his pains.

"A learned foreigner (qu. if not Erasmus?) says, the English eat a certain cake on Shrove Tuesday, upon which they immediately run mad, and kill their poor cocks. Quoddam placenta genus, quo comesto, protinus insaniunt, et gallos trucidant;' as if nothing less than some strong infatuation could account for continuing so barbarous a custom among Christians and cockneys." Note to Veillè à la Campagne, or the Simnel, a Tale,' 1745, p. 16.

[SHYING AT COCKS. Probably in imitation of the barbarous custom of " shying," or throwing at the living animal. The "cock" was a representation of a bird or a beast, a

man or horse, or some device, with a stand projecting on all sides, but principally behind the figure. These were made of lead cast in moulds. They were shyed at with dumps from a small distance agreed upon by the parties, generally regulated by the size or weight of the dump, and the value of the cock. If the thrower overset or knocked down the cock, he won it; if he failed, he lost his dump. Shy for Shy.-This was played at by two boys, each having a cock placed at a certain distance, generally about four or five feet asunder, the players standing behind their cocks, and throwing alternately; a bit of stone or wood was generally used to throw with, and the cock was won by him who knocked it down. These games had their particular times or seasons; and when any game was out, as it was termed, it was lawful to steal the thing played with; this was called smugging, and it was expressed by the boys in a doggrel,

"Tops are in, spin 'em agin;

Tops are out, smugging about."

Hone's Every-Day Book, i. 253.]

PANCAKE CUSTOMS.

In the north of England Shrove Tuesday is called vulgarly Fasten's E'en; the succeeding day being Ash-Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten Fast.'

At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the great bell of St. Nicholas's church is tolled at twelve o'clock at noon on this day; shops are immediately shut up, offices closed, and all kinds of business ceases: a little carnival ensuing for the remaining part of the day. [At Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, the old curfew bell, which was anciently rung in that town for the extinction and relighting of "all fire and candle light," still exists, and has from time immemorial been regularly rung on the morning of Shrove Tuesday, at four o'clock, after which hour the inhabitants are at liberty to make and eat pancakes, until the ["St. Taffy is no sooner gone,

But Pancake day is coming on:
Now eat your fill, drink if you're dry,
For Lent comes on immediately.

Now days exceed the nights in length,

And Titan's heat improves in strength."

Poor Robin's Almanack, 1731.]

bell rings at eight o'clock at night. This custom is observed so closely, that after that hour not a pancake remains in the town.] "Let glad Shrove Tuesday bring the pancake thin,

Or fritter rich, with apples stored within."

Oxford Sausage, p. 22.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1790, p. 256 says that at Westminster School, upon Shrove Tuesday, the under clerk of the college enters the school, and preceded by the beadle and other officers, throws a large pancake over the bar which divides the upper from the under school. A gentleman, who was formerly one of the masters of that school, confirmed the anecdote to me, with this alteration, that the cook of the seminary brought it into the school, and threw it over the curtain which separated the forms of the upper from those of the under scholars. I have heard of a similar custom at Eton school.

[At Baldock, in Hertfordshire, Shrove Tuesday is long anticipated by the children, who designate it as Dough-nut day; it being usual to make a good store of small cakes fried in hog's lard, placed over the fire in a brass skillet, called doughnuts, wherewith the youngsters are plentifully regaled. In Dorsetshire boys go round, begging for pancakes, singing,

[ocr errors]

I be come a shrovin

Vor a little pankiak,

A bit o' bread o' your biakin,

Or a little truckle cheese o' your miakin.

If you'll gi' me a little, I'll ax no more,

If you don't gi' me nothin, I'll rottle your door."]

The manuscript in the British Museum before cited, Status Schola Etonensis, 1560, mentions a custom of that school on Shrove Tuesday, of the boys being allowed to play from eight o'clock for the whole day; and of the cook's coming in and fastening a pancake to a crow, which the young crows are calling upon, near it, at the school-door. "Die Martis Car

nis-privii luditur ad horam octavam in totum diem: venit coquus, affigit laganum cornici juxta illud pullis corvorum invocantibus eum, ad ostium schole." The crows generally have hatched their young at this season.'

"Most places in England have Eggs and Collops (slices of bacon) on Shrove Monday, Pancakes on Tuesday, and Fritters on the Wednesday in the same week for dinner."-Gent. Mag. Aug. 1790, p. 719. From ، The Westmoreland Dialect,' by A. Walker, 8vo., 1790, it appears that cock

« PredošláPokračovať »