Shrove Tuesday.—The pancake bell is still rung at Dursley. The "oldest inhabitant" says that they sometimes rang two bells, which were supposed to say "Pan on! Pan on!"
Ash Wednesday (?)—Several old persons in Minchinhampton say that in their youth they used to eat peas-pudding on a certain week-day in Lent; they think it was Ash Wednesday.[1]
Mid-Lent Sunday.—In the Stroud and Minchmhampton districts, servant girls still expect to go home for "Mothering Sunday"; they generally take a cake with them. Cakes are sold in the Stroud shops for the purpose ; so, too, in Bristol. At Randwick, married children go home to visit their parents. Round Haresfield, veal is eaten on this day.[2]
Good Friday.—This is a good or lucky day for sowing beans and potatoes. At Avening, it is unlucky to wash clothes on Good Friday, though no reason is alleged. At Dursley, within the memory of old people, the congregation, at the close of morning service, went to the woods on Stinchcombe Hill to hunt the squirrel. The parish clerk, Mr. T. Phillipps, who remembers it, says that as many as a hundred persons would go. They went all over the wooded parts of the hill, which is Common. I cannot ascertain that any ceremony was associated with the hunt, or any special use made of the squirrels when caught.[3]
Easter.—i. Easter Cakes were, and sometimes are still, specially made for the season, in Stroud and Bristol districts. In Bristol itself the custom is particularly strong. A teacher in Bristol, whose home is at Avening, always brings an Easter cake when she comes back for holidays at that season.
ii. Church Clipping. The church at Painswick is now "clipped" by school children on the afternoon of the Feast Sunday (Sept. 19), but old inhabitants say that the custom used to be observed on Easter Monday. The churchyard is noted for a great number of
- ↑ The proper date is Care or Carle Sunday, the Sunday preceding Palm Sunday. In the northern counties and in Scotland the peas eaten are known as Carlings. See Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (1848), vol. i., pp. 113-8; T. F. Theselton Dyer, British Popular Customs, pp. 121-3.
- ↑ See Brand, op. cit., vol. i., pp. 110 et seq.
- ↑ For animal hunts, see J. Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, vol. i., pp. 518, 532 (N. W. Thomas).
