Here is a lost custom I am sure would welcome a revival to a wider range of industries. T. F. Thiselton Dyer in his 1875 British Popular Customs Present and Past notes that the first Friday in March was called Lide, from the Anglo Saxon Hlyd for March. This is remembered in an old proverbs which states:
“Duck’s won’t lay ‘till they’ve drunk Lide water.”
Daffodils were also called Lide lilies/ T. F. Thiselton Dyer notes that in Cornwall it was associated with a bizarre custom:
“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.”
Thus the day was considered a sort of Cornish miner’s holiday although the weather which Thiselton Dyer again notes was:
“usually characterizes Friday in Lide is, it need scarcely be said, not very conducive to prolonged sleep.”
It is believed that during
“Li Saxon times labourers were generally allowed their mid-day sleep ; and it has been observation that it is even now permitted to husbandmen in some parts of East Cornwall during a stated portion of the year.”
As the tinners disappeared from Cornwall so did the custom it would appear.
In search of traditional customs and ceremonies 