Custom occasional: Jumping over PH at St Salvatore’s College, St Andrews.

On the 29^th of February 1528, 24 year old Patrick Hamilton died and entered St Andrew’s folklore. For on that day he was burned alive for his Protestant beliefs and generations of St Andrew’s University students have avoided the location of his martyrdom ever since.

On the pavement set into the cobblers inconveniently in front of the college chapel and entrance are the letters PH. To many it might be missed but to the students of the University and especially this college it is greatly avoided. For stepping on it could either result in failing your exam or losing your entire degree!

Jumping the curse

https://www.facebook.com/5f9264ee-27b5-47b2-88c5-50e2565b8ec3

Whilst I was there a student was making a beeline to the pavement and at the point of the PH made a side step and continued I asked them why:

“Well I don’t want to tempt fate I have finals this year!”

A number of views on the St Andrew’s Twitter feed note the same. A David Kaiyewu @kaynis1 tweeted that

“Better safe than sorry I think. Knw sm1 who stepped on it n didn’t pass. Superstitious or not just avoid it, it’s just one tiny spot.”

Another posting stating:

“As an undergraduate I never dared to step on the initials!”

Although Abdulmalik Ismaila@AbdulTaibah boldly stated;

“I stepped on it several times and I still passed my degree.”

But why the curse?

It is said that the fire burned for  six hours and in this time Patrick Hamilton unleashed a curse to any future student who would step on the place he burned. It is thought the initials were placed  both to mark the martyrdom and make it clear where not to step!

#FridayThe13th is just superstition, just like the curse of Patrick Hamilton…right? According to tradition, any student who steps on the PH will be cursed to fail their degree – would you step on it? https://t.co/BY8LZGuY6q pic.twitter.com/IyH28e9QZn

— University of St Andrews (@univofstandrews) October 13, 2017

Lifting the curse

It was evident that the custom was very much believed. However, there is a way of reversing the curse fortunately for someone who might inadvertently step on the PH . It can be removed by running into the sea on May Day near naked at dawn or running around Sailles Quad eight times. The St Andrew website wryly observes that:

“While May Dip remains an extremely popular tradition among students, I have yet to witness or hear of someone attempting the latter.”

The number of those in the waters on May Day must suggest that plenty of students must step on it – or they are crazy enough to enter the icy cold waters of the North Sea – you decide.

Once you got your degree of course you were free of the curse’s power and it is said that another tradition exists of upon receiving the degree you would immediately walk past sallies quad with the paper in hand before stepping on it.

I’ve got a degree but one day I may need one from St. Andrews so thought I’d better not risk it!

Custom contrived: Sheringham Viking Procession and Long Ship burning

When one thinks about Viking festivals one will probably say Up Helly Aa, some may mention York’s Yorvik festival or even Flamborough – only one of which unfortunately I have had the pleasure of attending. Few might say Sheringham, a fantastic week long event, has rapidly getting a reputation to rival the others.

Taking a Viking to the place

Sheringham takes it name from Shira meaning a Viking Lord and Heim meaning home. The custom, fairly young, was started by a local artist called Colin Seal who saw a potential to both honour its heritage, raise its profile and produce some well needed money for the seaside town in a time which is traditionally very quiet and not a time we think of visiting the seaside. In an interview for North Norfolk Press he stated:.

“After Christmas, it’s a bit of a let-down…January and February are quite miserable, so it’s nice to have something to do and, even though it’s cold, people wrap up and we go ahead whatever the weather.”

Cold it was, but at least the sun was shining as we arrived. It had certainly lived up to its promise. The town was very busy with adults and children milling around awaiting the procession.

Over the week there had been all manner of Viking themed events in the museum and local Oddfellows Hall transformed into a Viking Hall from shield and axe making to talks on Viking history but it was the final day which attracted my interest – a whole day of Viking re-enacting culminating in a splendid Viking Longship burning.

Been inViking to a great event

The event now run by a carnival committee also attracts a considerable number of reenactors from Essex to Leicestershire; although the local Gorleston Wuffa group were the main group. There was said to be around 200 and they certainly looked impressive. These re-enactors were excellent looking very convincing both in dress and hair. There were beards a plenty and lots of menace. It really did feel as if the Vikings really had landed that day as they assembled on the clifftop showing off their archery and axe throwing.

However it was the torchlit procession that I was waiting for. Slowly the sun was setting glimmering across the water and people were massing along the road and on the beach.  The Vikings then began to march, both men and women, holding their torches to the side. The warm of the torches certainly helped keep the crowd warm but it was about to get a lot warmer. Behind them came their Long boat and slowly they dragged it to the beach down the ramp followed by two Vikings carrying their torches aloft and the crowd behind them. Two groups of Vikings awaited holding their torches facing each other ready to burn it as the boat was physically raised over the pebbles to its burning place.

Do Burn your boats

Soon the Viking crowd threw bits of wood and other combustibles. The 28 foot long Longboat was an impressively made piece and a shame to see it burn, with its menacing dragon head. According to the Eastern Daily Press it:

“built by West Runton carpenter Brian Howe and his son Henri.Featuring a dragon-like figurehead with mythical creatures and Norse themed decorations on the bow, the boat also includes a mast and sail, as well as more than 30 hand-painted Viking shields emblazoned with the names of the town businesses sponsoring the festival. Weighing in at around 500lb, it has been painstakingly painted over hundreds of hours by a team of volunteers led by artist Jill Brammer, Viking Festival founder Colin Seal and former TV and film set designer Chris Neville.”

It was slowly lowered by the awaiting torch bearers on the softer and flatter sand. More and more wood was laid within it and one by one the torch bearers threw their torches in. A blast of the horn went out and the crowd cheered high above beach at a safe distance as the Vikings magically bathed in its glow. Raising their axes and swords the Vikings formed a group menacingly! Cheers went out from the Vikings and slowly but surely the boat began to be engulfed in the flames. As the sea lapped at its footings the flames continued to burn until after around an hour it was nothing but burn scraps, flames leaping into the air as it lay on its side collapsing. All in all a remarkable end to an excellent day and week.

 

Custom demised: Leap Year Agricultural and garden lore

Today is the 29th of February – a date which as you know only comes around every 4 years- intercalary year or bissextile year. Readers may be familiar with the belief regarding “Ladies Day” or “Ladies’ Privilege,” but there were other beliefs and customs associated with the day due to its rarity.

With a day made up of .25 of a day, there would be bound to be issues and the most wary of this change as always was country folk.  Weather governs agriculture and it according in a year leap the weather always changes on the friday and considering the awful windy and rainy weather of 2020 so far, I did notice that it did change accordingly…but lets see how that changes over the year.

Leaping lambs

Often the presence of an extra day appeared to knock the whole calendar both literally and folklorically out of kilter. One Scottish countryside view was regarding sheep and it was said that:

Leap year was ne’er a good sheep year”

This is reported in an 1816 edition of the Farmer’s Magazine:

“It has long been proverbial here that ‘leap year never was a good sheep year,’ an observation which this winter has been fully realized.”

Interesting in 1816 there was a considerable drop in temperature which meant that the snow quickly turned to ice and many lambs died. Whether it happened on a Friday though is unknown!

Not bean a good year

Planting crops were particular affected by Leap Day and the whole year. New plant fruits should not have been planted on the day as they only bore fruit once every four years. But the most reported was that broad beans and peas grew the wrong way in that their seed would be set in the pods in a different way to other years i.e back to frint. The reason for this appears to be that as this was the Ladies Privilege year when the idea of proposing was upside down the bean would lie the wrong way but why broad beans (and often peas) should be associated with this is unclear.

The custom even got to the ears of the great scientist Charles Darwin who in his autobiography stated who discussion of his scepticism:

“In illustration, I will give the oddest case which I have known. A gentleman (who, as I afterwards heard, is a good local botanist) wrote to me from the Eastern counties that the seed or beans of the common field-bean had this year everywhere grown on the wrong side of the pod. I wrote back, asking for further information, as I did not understand what was meant; but I did not receive any answer for a very long time. I then saw in two newspapers, one published in Kent and the other in Yorkshire, paragraphs stating that it was a most remarkable fact that “the beans this year had all grown on the wrong side.” So I thought there must be some foundation for so general a statement. Accordingly, I went to my gardener, an old Kentish man, and asked him whether he had heard anything about it, and he answered, “Oh, no, sir, it must be a mistake, for the beans grow on the wrong side only on leap-year, and this is not leap-year.” I then asked him how they grew in common years and how on leap-years, but soon found that he knew absolutely nothing of how they grew at any time, but he stuck to his belief.

After a time I heard from my first informant, who, with many apologies, said that he should not have written to me had he not heard the statement from several intelligent farmers; but that he had since spoken again to every one of them, and not one knew in the least what he had himself meant. So that here a belief—if indeed a statement with no definite idea attached to it can be called a belief—had spread over almost the whole of England without any vestige of evidence.”

With all this in mind I thought I might go ahead and plant some beans and see what happens! I’ll report back in 2024 – hopefully – at the latest.

A.C. Smith in their 1875 article from Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine on Wiltshire Weather Proverbs and Weather Fallacies they note:

“I must also call attention to the remarkable prejudice against Leap-year, a prejudice as common and as widely spread as it misunfounded. It is popularly supposed that neither children nor  domestic animals born in that year will thrive and that neither ” Leap year never was a good sheep year.”

Perhaps the last word though should be for A.C Smith’s who states:

“I need scarcely say that these are all popular delusions, founded on no reliable basis, though doubtless they do occasionally, however unfrequently, by accident, come true ; and then they attract unmerited attention, and are held up to admiring disciples as infallible weather-guides.

One thing however seems quite certain, and that is that if our observations are recorded through a long period of time, there will be found to be a balance of averages, both as regards heat and cold, and wet and dry weather: and in short the general average through the whole period will be found to be maintained.”

And with such cynicism and logic the custom must have died out!