Custom demised: May Goslings

May Gosling’s dead and gone You’re the fool for thinking on

We all know of April Fool’s day but in many places, especially in the North, it was the first of May which was associated with pranks. The receivers of which were called May Goslings.

According to a contributor to the Gentleman’s magazine of 1791:

“A May gosling on the 1^st of May is made with as much eagerness in the North of England, as an April noddy (noodle) or fool, on the first of April.”

Despite the unlikeliness of needing two fool’s days back to back it was apparently still current in the 1950s in Cumbria and north Yorkshire according to Opie in The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959)

Indeed Nicholas Rhea’s diary, a blog site records:

“One very popular May Day game when I was a child in Eskdale was May Gosling. It was rather like April Fool pranks played on April 1 because children played jokes upon each other. Anyone who fell victim was known as a May Gosling. Just like April Fool jokes, the pranks had to be perpetrated before noon.”

He notes he has not heard any reference to it recently suggesting its demise.  Like April Fool’s Day, as noted above one must do all the pranks by none otherwise you would be taunted with:

“May Gosling’s dead and gone, You’re the fool for thinking on.”

Even TV celebrity and gardener Alan Titchmarsh notes in his 2012 Complete Countrymen illuminates and suggests it did indeed survive longest in Yorkshire:

“As a Yorkshire lad, born on 2 May, my Yorkshire grandmother would ask me ‘Have you been christened a May Gosling?” I wondered what she meant then I discovered there had been a Northern custom, akin to April Fooling, which took place on 1 May. Tricks were played and successful perpetrators would cry ‘May Gosling!’ presumably implying the victim was a silly as a young goose. The response would be: ‘May Gosling past and gone. You’re the fool for making me one!”

John Brand in his 1810 Observations on Popular antiquities noted a ritual associated with it:

“The following shews a custom of making fools on the first of May, like that on the first of April “U.P.K spells May Goslings” is an expression used by boys at play, as an insult to the losing party. U.P.K is up pick that is up with your pin or peg, the mark of the goal. An additional punishment was thus: the winner made a hole in the ground with his heel, into which a peg about three inches long was driven, its top being below the surface; the loser with his hands tied behind him, was to pull it up with his teeth, the boys buffeting with their hats and calling out “Up pick you May Gosling” or “U.P.K Goslings in May.”

Robert Chambers in 1843’s Everyday Book noted also that:

“There was also a practice of making fools on May-day, similar to what obtains on the first of the preceding month. The deluded were called May-goslings.”

Perhaps it is due for a revival for in response to the above’s Nicholas Rhea’s article a commenter notes:

“ May gosling mischief

Having been born and bred in Yorkshire, but lived all my married life in the Vale of Evesham, I could hardly believe my eyes on reading Nicholas Rhea’s tale in the May edition – someone actually knew of May Gosling! Fifty or so years ago when I tried to describe May Gosling Day to my husband, I got some very strange looks. I gave up in the end! Had you been caught out on April Fool’s Day, it was such a joy to get your own back on May Gosling Day. Thank you, Nicholas Rhea. Mrs E B Palfrey, Pershore”

What with Yorkshire’s continuation of Mischief Night perhaps another day of pranks might not be needed!

Custom demised: Holly Day, Brough, Cumbria

In the Cumbrian town of Brough, once in Westmorland was an unusual Twelfth night custom which appeared to be the extension of the usual burning of the greenery on Twelfth night as now enacted at London’s Geffrey Museum. An account by Reuben Percy and John Timbs in their 1828 The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction which states:

“Holly Tree At Brough it is called night because it was customary at time of the year to decorate the altars holly There are two head inns in town at which the holly is provided alternately Early in the morning send out a body of husbandmen to fell large ash tree for although it is called night yet holly being a scarcity ash substituted They then affix torches of greased reeds to each bough tree and then take it into the inn to remain till seven o clock in At that hour a gun or pistol is fired the tree is taken out into a convenient part of the town where it is lighted after huzzaing for about half an hour is carried up and down the town on shoulders followed by the and stopping every time they the cross at the top of the town again salute the holly and fireworks are discharged It is taken town again and so on till it is The person who carries the his shoulders is named Ling who it is extinguished carries it to of the town and after throws it among the crowd eagerly watch the opportunity of away with it for I should observe two separate contending parties to whichever inn it is carried the to spend the evening in drinking very often it terminates with a name given to all their The origin of the custom as I observed from the offerings to the altars at of the year which is the by the name given to it WHH”

William Hone in his 1827 Everyday book added:

“Twelfth Night, or Holly Night, was formerly celebrated at Brough, by carrying through the town a holly-tree with torches attached to its branches. The procession set out at 8 o’clock in the evening preceded by music, and stopped at the town-bridge, and again at the cross, where it was greeted each time with shouts of applause. Many of the inhabitants carried lighted branches as flambeaux; and rockets, squibs, &c, were discharged on the joyful occasion. After the tree had been carried about, and the torches were sufficiently burnt, it was placed in the middle of the town, when it was again cheered by the surrounding crowd, and then was thrown among them. The spectators at once divided into two parties, one of which endeavoured to take the tree to one of the inns, and the other to a rival inn. The innkeeper whose party triumphed was expected to treat his partisans liberally.”

A curious custom which appears to be a mixture of burning out bad spirits into the new year with some survival of a pagan tradition mixed up with wassailing. What is more curious is that in some form we have not seen it restored.

Custom demised: Pinch bum day: a child’s view of Oak Apple day

Oak Apple day was a nationally celebrated event which commemorated the restoration of Charles II and his escape by hiding in an oak tree. It was an official day that was to be celebrated around the county, and some places still organise events on or around this date,  but generally outside of these places its main observance the wearing of oak leaves or more precisely oak apples (oak wasp galls) has disappeared. Across the country, this custom was particularly upheld by children not perhaps necessarily because of any keenness of the monarch but perhaps for the joint pleasure of a half day holiday from school. The common rhyme had different variants according to the local name from it.

“Royal Oak Day, 29^th May.

If you don’t give us a holiday.

We run away”.

Wilson (1940) notes that at Windermere Grammar School, the day was called Yak Bob Day, where although it was seen as a holiday the master decided to ignore this and so with protests falling on deaf ears the older boys bolted and barricaded the windows and doors to the school. With the boys chanting the above chant except obviously the first line, the teachers were unable to enter and the holiday was restored.

It was also popular as a result of the ability to admonish those who had forgotten! Like a student who has forgot its non-uniform day, such students were the target of a wide range of penalties. The most common appears to be pinch bottom day. When those not wearing had their bottoms pinched! This was particularly popular in mixed schools and various accounts tell of rather over-enthusiastic boys getting in trouble. The reason for pinching bottoms comes from a legendary story that Major Carless who was also up the tree prevents the king from falling out by pinching his bottom!School boys were particularly important in upholding the custom, probably because of the potential of causing mischief. Unsurprising, pinch bottom day was not particularly held up in boy’s school, where other penalties were given.   No more vigorous was the tradition upheld than at Nottingham High School where individuals not upholding the tradition where pelted with rotten eggs. The observance of this penalty fell into abeyance in the 1870s. Briscoe  a Nottinghamshire author notes:

“A more unpleasant custom prevailed in the northern portion of the county about twenty years ago. Those who did not conform to the usages of the “Royal Oak Day” were pelted with rotten eggs. In order  to be well supplied with the ” needful ” for that day the young men would hoard’ up hen eggs for about a couple of months before they would be brought into requisition, so that the eggs would become rotten before they were required. This custom was in time carried to such an extent that the ‘strong arm of the law’ was often brought into requisition to suppress it; the rough young folk pelting persons indiscriminately. Smaller eggs are still used by the school lads on ‘King Charles’ Day.’

More common was nettling! A Nottinghamshire author notes thatnettles used on people without a spray of leaves and adds that the wise boy wore his oak leaves, armed themselves with a stinging nettle and carried a few dock leaves for first aid just in case. This was carried on until noon. The schools were generally not appreciative of this tradition and at Hayton a correspondent of NFWI remembers their brother being canned on both hands for nettling a girl. The penalty ranged from the rather innocuous rubbing clothese with chalk and such the day was called Chalky Back Day to Cobbing’ or spitting as was done in Cornwall.

Sometimes, non wearers were simply berated such as at Gloucester College where they were called shig shags and interestingly at Kirkby Lonsdale as well as being beaten by oak branches they were called Tom Paine, after the noted ‘revolutionary and republican’.. According to Brand’s popular antiquities boys in Newcastle-upon-Tyne would taunt :

“Royal oak, The Whigs to provoke.”

Those who wore plane-tree leaves recieved:

“Plane-tree leaves, The Church folk are thieves.”

The customs appears to died out soon after 1859 when the day ceased to be a holiday. Reports suggest that the children’s observation survived into the 1870s, but bereft of the holiday aspect and perhaps the concerns of parents the custom has completely died out. Perhaps for the good eh?