Custom contrived: King Harold’s Day at Waltham Abbey

King Harold Day is a good example how a custom can be made to capitalise on a local areas famous offspring and in a way question why it had not been done before. Waltham Abbey is the sort of small town nestled on the outskirts of the great conurbation of London which could easily be overlooked, lose its identity to a dormer satellite of that great city. A place where its own identity and the celebrating thereof is largely overshadowed by its larger neighbour.

King Harold, the loser of the famous battle of Hastings is perhaps an obvious choice – a victim of fortune and the sort of ‘loser’ the British oft like to celebrate and remember. However, despite the marking of his grave in the ruins of the local abbey, the first time it would appear Harold was celebrated in 2004, being developed from various sources as the event website describes how:

“Elaine Fletcher and Tricia Gurnett, who both used to work in the area, decided they would like to do something to promote the rich history of this ancient town.   They soon found that Isabelle Perrichon, owner of the historic tearooms in the town and a French national, had the same idea, and had spoken to the Rector at the Abbey Church, who had asked Dave and Sheila Giles to represent the Church on the group.   The sixth person who joined was Garth Gregory, a local amateur dramatics enthusiast.   This little group put together the first event.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnKDwUsSWnA

2016 was a big year for the festival marking the 950^th anniversary of 1066 the events were as follows:

“ We began with Compline for a Coronation in the Abbey on the 6 January 2016. During the year we went on to have a major exhibition at the Museum on King Harold II, his Life and Legacy. We welcomed English Heritage’s 1066 March to the town when armoured horsemen rode at some speed through gridlocked traffic to the Abbey and we then re-enacted King Harold praying at the Holy Cross of Waltham before continuing his journey to Hastings. Then we had the 2016 King Harold Day. This was followed by a Day Conference held at the Town Hall, and organized by the Museum, which attracted renowned speakers on King Harold, the Bayeux Tapestry and the 1066 story. Finally there was a talk on King Harold at the Museum.”

The event is a colourful addition to the roster of commemoration and re-enactment types of events which the British do so well. With the march through the town and the King praying at the cross one could clearly see in these busy modern streets how Waltham Abbey’s great history was a rich one.

Custom survived: Harvest festivals

As the autumn draws in, it is difficult to avoid piles of produce piling up at churches, community halls and schools, all of these being collected for annual harvest festivals which bring colour and poignancy to the drawing days.

Shine on harvest moon

For the medieval period the harvest was a major event. Every village would celebrate bringing in the harvest usually in some harvest home event and quite often a large harvest supper – with much feeding, drinking and associated activities. It was these associated activities which caused many within the church to look at supressing these events. However, others realising the need for a moment of reflection at this time looked for other alternatives.

Thus unlike other customs the origins of the custom is well recorded. It was in 1843 that the Reverend Robert Hawker established a special thanksgiving service at his church at Morwenstow in Cornwall. The custom was firmly established as Christian event adopting Victorian hymns such as We plough the fields and scatter, come ye thankful people come and all things bright and beautiful. The church was decorated with home-grown produce for the Harvest Festival service a tradition which continues today. The service remained a local event until 1854 when the Revd Dr William Beal, Rector of Brooke Norfolk was the first to hold a Harvest Festival. He noted his aim was to:

“to put a stop to the disgraceful scenes which too often characterise the close of harvest, and to the system of largess, which gives rise to cases of the grossest description.”   The Times at the time stated more politely that:  “The attempt to put an end to the system of public-house harvest feasts, in which neither wives nor children can join, appears in this instance to have been eminently successful.”   

Another early adopter of the custom was Rev Piers Claugton at Elton Huntingdonshire in or about 1854. By 1875 the Lincolnshire Chronicle recorded St Mary’s Church at Stamford indicating in 20 years how far it could spread.

Reap what you sow

An earlier account is recorded at Plumtree in 1880 in The Nottinghamshire Guardian where a new organ had been installed and attracted considerable interest:

“The service commenced with the harvest hymn, “Come, ye thankful people, come”, sung as a processional. Tallis’ Festal Responses were used in the service, the first part of which was intoned by the Rev. A. Marshall rector of Heythrop, Oxon, and formerly curate of Plumtree; the latter part being taken by the Rector. The first lesson was read by the Rev. F. Sutton, rector of Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire; and the second lesson by the Rev. H. Seymour, rector of Holme Pierrepont. The Proper Psalms, 144  and 147, and the Canticles were sung to Single Anglican Chants. The anthem was “Ye shall dwell in the land” (Stainer), the bass solo in which was sung by the Rev. A. Marshall, and the treble solo by Archibald White, of S. Werburgh’s Church, Derby.”

It continued with:

“A very eloquent and able sermon, which was listened to with marked attention by an appreciative congregation, was preached by the Rev. the Hon. Wm. Byron from the text “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace,” – Ephesians 4:3 – from which, connecting it with the events of the day, he delivered a most admirable and practical discourse on the beauty and necessity of harmony and concord in the parochial and domestic life.”

It was recorded that:

“The church was very tastefully decorated with the usual flowers, and fruits, and corn, and produce, which are so general at our Church Harvest Festivals. Plumtree is now amongst the most beautiful of our Notts. churches, and is well worthy of a visit by all who value a hearty service, and appreciate beauty of colouring and artistic design in ecclesiastical decoration.”

By the 1900s it had spread considerably both geographically and ecumenically being described in Horsham Sussex’s Congregation church:

“which was very tastefully decorated for the occasion with flowers, fruit and vegetables”

In the Sheffield it is recorded in Daily Telegraph Sheffield that it was already being described as the:

 “The harvest festival season in Sheffield is now in full swing. In churches and chapels all over the city preachers are drawing the old familiar themes.”

The Berwickshire News and General Advertiser recorded that Etal church:

“was beautifully decorated with fruit, flowers, corn, and vegetables, by Rev. R. and Mrs Simpson.”

Throughout the 20^th century it had become firmly established as part of the church’s calendar across the various denominations. Today the focus may have moved from celebrating directly the village harvest to a general celebration of thanksgiving for ‘our daily bread’ to recognising the need of others beyond. So nowadays the displays of food with inedible gourds and sheaths of wheat is far more about ‘arrangements’ than providing food.

Custom demised: St. Francis’s day swallow hibernation

 “But if hirundines (swallow family) hide in rocks and caverns, how do they, while torpid, avoid being eaten by weasels and other vermin?”  

Gilbert White in his  1776 Naturalist’s Journal

Such was the puzzle until recent times about how the swallow bird and its relatives survived the winter unscathed. The country folk even had a date in the calendar for it – St Francis’ Day, the 4^th.

On this date it was widely believed that they would survive the winter at the bottom of a lake or pond deep in the mud remaining asleep or else torpid in some hole in the bank of such a river or even trees. It would appear that this belief even marked itself on the landscape with Swalcliffe the a cliff where swallows nested, being an example.  The greater founders of modern science – Linneaus, Buffon and Baron Cuvier – accepted without question Cuvier in his 1819 Le regne animal recorded:

“It appears certain that swallows become torpid during winter, and even that they pass his season at the bottom of the water in the marshes.”

Richard Carew in his Survey of Cornwall recorded:

“In the west parts of Cornwall during the winter season, swallows are found sitting in old deep tin works and the holes in seacliffs; but touching their lurking place, Olaus Magnus makes a stranger report; for he saith that that in the north parts of the world, as summer weareath out, they clasp mouth to mouth, wing to wing, and leg to leg, and so after a sweet singing, fall down into a certain great lakes or pools amongst the canes from whence.”

Olaus Magnus theory was repeated by Carl Linnaeus in his Systema naturae (1758); and even Samuel Johnson stated that swallows@

‘certainly sleep all the winter …in the bed of a river’.

Again Gilbert White in his 1789 The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne failed to believe that a British bird would leave Britain so hibernation was the obvious choice.

This view began to become questioned as an empirical view of science developed. Even so late into the 19^th century it was an unquestioned view provided by local evidence such as in the third volume of Kingston’s Magazine for Boys, where an anonymous communication called M. K., stated that:

“A friend of his father once found a bird-ball upon the banks of the Ribble, which sprang into life upon being placed near the fire.”

An another account is given in the following 1883 letter.

“The wife of our village blacksmith was the daughter of a respectable farmer, renting under the Harcourts at Newnham, and incapable of falsehood. She told me this: ‘When I was a young girl, we had lots of swifts nesting under the eaves. Father thought they brought in a deal of dirt and vermin, so when the birds were gone in the autumn he had all the holes plastered up. The spring of next year was very early, fine and warm; and sister and I were disturbed by a strange scrabbling noise. Told father. He said, Rats, and had the skirting board knocked away, and out came what we all thought was a great bat. Father took it up, and it was a swift, and we took out about forty of them, and as the poor birds were mere skin and bone we tried to feed them. No use; so the poor things were tossed out of the window and flew away.”

Another account stating that:

“In the early part of the year 1843 I was residing at Great Glenham, in Suffolk. One morning about the beginning of March, I was told that a swallow had been seen coming out of a pond near our house. I expressed my disbelief in the correctness of this information, but was assured that there could be no mistake. Some days afterwards our gardener came to me in triumph, and told me that he had brought the swallow, which had been found dead near the pond where it had before been seen.”

However whilst misinformation was still being spread, evidence for the counter view was being gathered.  As the 19^th century progressed, colonialism had allowed British naturalists to explore globally and hence encountered swallows in places such as India in the British winter.  Even so works such as Maurice Burton’s Animal Legends from 1955 recorded a discovery by a Professor Jagger of a swallow hibernating in a rockface but these may have been misidentifications, often storm petrels or sick birds. Now the 4^th is a date for the birds to start migrating!