Custom revived: Carlin Peas on Carlin sunday

“The tradition of cooking carlins is relatively unheard of today. But we still mark the occasion at Beamish, usually by cooking peas, seasoned with either salt and vinegar or sugar! See carlin pea displays at Pockerley Old Hall and The 1900s Pit Village.”

Beamish Museum website

The fifth Sunday in Lent and is known as Carlin Sunday due to its association with Carlin peas, one of the few surviving localised dishes perhaps in England – I had never heard of them until I had visited the north and read more in books on folk customs – but despite what Beamish says above is still enacted and the peas can be seen for sale in northern soups and elsewhere. In the North a saying; developed to help people remember what days were what being derived from the psalms and hymns and names of the Sundays in Lent:

“Tid, Mid, Miseray, Carlin, Palm, Pace-Egg Day”

Tid was the second Sunday when Ye Deum Laudamus was sung, Mid was third Sunday when the Mi Deus Hymn was sung, Miseray – the fourth Sunday, was when the Misere Mei Psalmwould be chanted and then Carlin, the fifth Sunday, Palm the sixth and final and Pace Egg was Easter Sunday. As the communities became separated from the Catholic doctrine it would seem only the last three would be remembered.

Give peas a chance!

So what are Carlin peas? They are dried maple peas or pigeon peas often fed to bord and used for fish bait, but somehow became a Lenten staple. The were usually soaked in salt water overnight on Friday, then on Saturday boiled in bacon fat enabling them to be eaten cold or hot on the Sunday, often being served  with a sprinkling of salt and pepper, vinegar or rum.

Two peas in a pod

So why the North only? Well, there are two origins said to why the peas were restricted to the North-east as related in Chris Lloyd in his excellent 2021 Northern Echo article “Why the North-East traditionally spends today eating dried pigeon peas.:

“This tradition may have started in 1327 when Robert the Bruce and his Scots were besieging Newcastle. The starving Novacastrians were saved on Palm Sunday when a shipload of dried peas – perhaps sailed by Captain Karlin – arrived from Norway. Fortified by the carlins, the defenders fought off the Scots who went and attacked Durham instead.

Or it may have started during the Civil War in 1644 when, from February 3 to October 27, another army of Scots besieged the Royalist forces in Newcastle. This time, Captain Karlin arrived with a boatload of peas from France to save the day”

Versions of this later story have the ship of peas wrecked or stranded at Southshields a fortnight before Easter Day, which was also in time of famine and the peas washed ashore and were eaten, the salt adding to the flavour, which is still recommended to eating it. And equally say the shop came from Canada. Despite being a North -eastern tradition it soon spread to Yorkshire and Lancashire – my first experience was at a Good Friday fair just south of Manchester..

In the 20th Century, the tradition began to die out, although it seems to have clung on in pubs. With all pubs now closed, perhaps the pandemic will kill off a North-East tradition that may be 700 years old and could have been started by Captain Karlin.

A correspondent of Notes & Queries (1st S. vol. iii. 449) tells us that on the north-east coast of England, where the custom of frying dry peas on this day is attended with much augury, some ascribe its origin to the loss of a ship freighted with peas on the coast of Northumberland. Carling is the foundation beam of a ship, or the beam on the keel.

So there is another explanation of the name. Yet another suggestion is made by Brand in his 1849 Popular. Antiquities:

“In the Roman Calendar, I find it observed on this day, that a dole is made of soft beans. I can hardly entertain a doubt but that our custom is derived from hence. It was usual among the Romanists to give away beans in the doles at funerals; it was also a rite in the funeral ceremonies of heathen Rome. Why we have substituted peas I know not, unless it was because they are a pulse somewhat fitter to be eaten at this season of the year.” Having observed from Erasmus that Plutarch held pulse (legumina) to be of the highest efficacy in invocation of the Manes, he adds: “Ridiculous and absurd as these superstitions may appear, it is quite certain that Carlings deduce their origin from thence.”

This explanation, however, is by no means regarded as satisfactory.

Pease offering

Chris Lloyd (2021) states:

“I remember when I lived in the Stokesley area, neighbours used to mention Carlin Sunday and it was something to do with eating peas on that day. I wondered if you would be able to find out more about it, please?”

He also states that they were commonly sold at fairgrounds and mobile food counters, being eaten with salt and vinegar as I had. Lloyd (2021) notes that:

“At fairgrounds, they were traditionally served in white porcelain mugs and eaten with a spoon. In more recent years, they have been served in thick white disposable cups”

And that in:

“ world famous Bury Market and in Preston, parched peas are sold ready-cooked and served in brown-paper bags or in plastic tubs.”

He also claims that:

“Consumption is limited to certain areas within the historical boundaries of  Lancashire, notably Oldham, Wigan, Bury, Rochdale, Prestob, Stalybridge, Leigh, Atherton, Tyldesley and Bolton.“

However it may have had a wider distribution. Thistleton-Dwyer’s 1836 Popular customs states:

“On this day, in the northern counties, and in Scotland, a custom obtains of eating Carlings, which are grey peas, steeped all night in water, and fried the next day with butter.”

It is indeed remembered in Ritson’s Scottish songs:

“There’ll be all the lads and lassies. Set down in the midst of the ha’, With sybows, and ryfarts, and carlings, That are bath sodden and raw.”

Whatever the truth despite a decline and apparent disappearance in the early 20^th century, carlin peas are now again sold in pubs and in food stores and carlin Sunday continues.

Custom demised: Great Crosby Goose Fair

Many readers will know the Tavistock Goosey Fair, certainly Nottingham’s Goose Fair but Great Crosby once a small village, now a considerable settlement, seven miles from Liverpool also had its ‘Goose Fair.’

Notes and queries records that the feast took place when the harvest is gathered in about that part of the country, and so it forms a sort of “harvest-home” gathering for the agriculturists of the neighbourhood. Thus, it appears to have developed from a feast day and was associated with St Luke’s Day or rather the nearest Sunday. Notes and queries continues to state that:

“It is said also that, at this particular period, geese are finer and fatter after feeding on the stubble-fields than at any other time.”

And the comments that:

“Curious to say, however, the bird in question is seldom, if ever, eaten at these feasts.”

A reason for this being given that George Henderson’s 1911 Survivals in Belief Among the Celts, states that:

“At ‘Goose Fair’ at Great Crosby, Lancashire, the goose was held as too sacred to eat.”

Whether is true is unclear and it may have been that it was simply a trade fair and once does not eat the profits. Similarly when it demised is not known. 

Custom demised: Eccles Wake

In the town of Eccles was a famous wake, an annual festival associated with the Parish church and doubtless associated with its foundation. The event was celebrated on the first Sunday in September, and continued during the three succeeding days, and consisted of feasting upon a kind of local confectionery, called “Eccles Cakes,” and ale, with various sports. 

Edward Baines in their 1836 History of County of Lancaster: 

“On Monday morning, at eleven o’clock the sports will commence (the sports of Sunday being passed over in silence) with that most ancient, loyal, rational, constitutional and lawful diversion.”

One of the most barbaric aspects was:

 “Bull Baiting: In all its primitive excellence, for which this place has been long noted…the day’s sport to conclude with baiting the bull, Fury, for a superior dog-chain.”

The festivities continue:

“At one o’clock there will be a foot race; at two o’clock, a bull baiting for a horse collar; at four o’clock, donkey races for a pair of panniers; at five o’clock, a race for a stuff hat. On Tuesday, the sports will be repeated; also on Wednesday, with the additional attraction of a smock race by ladies. A main of cocks to be fought on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for twenty guineas, and five guineas the byes, between the gentlemen of Manchester and Eccles; the wake to conclude with a fiddling match by all the fiddlers that attend for a piece of silver.”

Such village wakes flourished throughout the midlands and northern England and were seen as holidays for working people in the industrial regions such as Wigan.  As such by the 18th century, huge crowds were attracted and by 1877 local residents complained and thus the custom stopped by order of the Home Secretary. 

Today the only relic of the Eccles wakes are those Eccles Cakes….and delicious they are too!

Custom survived: Good Friday Holcombe Hill Egg rolling, Lancashire

The last custom I attended before we dived into national lockdown in 2020 was the annual Good Friday at Rivington Pike, those it seemed fitting that the first post Lockdown Easter custom I should attend is the other noted Lancashire Good Friday custom at Holcombe Hill, near Ramsbottom, Lancashire.

Rolling off

The Holcombe Hill Good Friday custom is noted in virtually all folk customs books but usually as an aside in a list of egg rolling locations; which is not particularly useful as it is often coupled with Bunker’s Hill, Derbyshire, which I am pretty sure is no longer extant. And whilst other egg rolling customs get some detailed accounts made, these days usually online, Holcombe’s custom appears to have been so under the radar, that before the pandemic hit, I doubted it actually happened. Or certainly that it did not happen in the same vigour as that of Rivington. However clearly I was wrong and it was the pandemic that indicated that it was very popular when this appeared in the 2021 Manchester Evening News:

“For the second year in a row, a popular children’s tradition is set to be cancelled.

Egg rolling at Holcombe Hill is an unusual event that takes place at Easter each year and has a history dating back centuries.

If you live in the area you will almost definitely have heard of it and might have been among the crowds of onlookers gathered to watch and cheers as youngsters roll painted boiled eggs down the hillside…..

Despite this long history, authorities have advised that no egg rolling take place at Holcombe Hill this year as large crowds ‘would make social distancing impossible’.

The car park on Lumb Carr Road will be locked over the Easter weekend to dissuade people from driving to the hill.

Coun Andrea Simpson, Bury council’s cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said: “After a year of lockdown, we’re all desperate to get out there and enjoy the countryside, and get our lives back to normal…..Thousands of people mixing together at Easter carries a very real risk of causing infection to spread and making people very ill.”

Bar this there is little else recording it bar a mention in 1908 of someone selling sweets at the top in the Bury News and perhaps the original focus of the custom the Church service first recorded in print in 1949 as far as I can gather.  Sadly in many well-known customs people feel it is unnecessary to write anything about them…until now!

Rolling on

So I decided to attend in 2022 and experience the custom. With such rather informal affairs it is always difficult to know what time to attend. If the church custom still happened at the foot of the hill it would have been good to attend, but finding details of this was more difficult and it would appear to be bit early…so I aimed for midday.

Arriving there on a sunny Good Friday thankfully it was clear that there were already many on the summit of Holcombe Hill by the large number of cars crammed along the streets of the small village in its shadow. After finding a parking place, I noticed the large numbers of families with the children clutching egg boxes…meaning only one thing…egg rolling.

At the base of the hill one could see the small figures of people at the top appearing like spikes on dinosaur either side of the dark shadow of the Peel Monument on top. Indeed, there was a steady stream of people of all ages ascending the summit which felt at times more like a mountain than a hill! On the way, there were bits of egg shell. Did they land here or did they not make it?

I spoke to a number of people as they ascended the hill and asked them why they did it. One commented that ‘it was a family tradition’ and another said ‘I remembered going to the summit with his father and grandfather’ I asked did you go with eggs and one could not remember and the other said ‘why yes of course’. I also asked why they did it and another stated that ‘it was just a ritual a way of burning off a big lunch’ another said it was to ‘remember to the Calvary!’

At the top there was a large number of people, mainly eating their lunch, and then like a steady stream, going down to the edge of the hill with their eggs. I peered into a couple of egg boxes to see some neatly painted eggs; indeed some looked stained in the traditional fashion. I joined the families to see how they were rolling them and the answer was they werent! The hill unlike every other site for egg rolling had no good slope. Much of the hill was covered with thick heath and bracken. Instead the children went to the edge of the cliff, one ledge looked pretty precarious and there the aim being to get they either as far as possible, as smashed as possible or both and beneath a large rocky outcrop -the main aim of their projectiles, was splatted with eggs and shells like a giant omelette attempt! It seemed that this was the usual practice for the children confirmed by one of the older men with his grandchildren…and as such I was surprised it had not been recorded before!

 

Custom survived: Making Simnel Cakes for Mothering Sunday

Recently I have noticed that well-known bakery Greggs had been selling Simnel cakes around March time in memory of the tradition of making Simnel Cake which if the number of recipes on the internet is anything to go by is still a commonly made cake. Here is a clip of well-known Mary Berry making one!

The association with Mothering Sunday has been so great that it became alternatively known as Simnel Sunday. 

Nathan Bailey in his 1721 Dictionary states that:

“Simnel is probably derived from the Latin Simila, fine flour, and means a sort of cake, or bun, made of fine flour, spice, &c.”

Frequent mention is made of the Simnel in the household allowances of Henry the First.

“Cancellarius v solidos in die et i Siminellum dominicum, et ii salum, et i sextarium de vino claro, et i sext. de vino expensabili, et unum grossum cereum, et xl frusta Candell.”–_Libr. Nigr. Scaccarii,”

Why a cake should be firstly established with a religious custom is unclear but some have argued that it derived from a type of bread given out on the Sunday service. Indeed a bread called “simnel bread” is mentioned by Jehoshaphat Aspin, in his Pictures of Manners, &c., of England quoting from a statue book of the 51st of Henry III:

“A farthing symnel_ (a sort of small cake, twice baked, and also called a cracknel) should weigh two ounces less than the wastel_(a kind of cake made with honey, or with meal and oil).”

At some point probably to make it more commercially viable it manifested itself into cakes with the image of Jesus to know the traditional 12 apostles and Jesus made of balls of marzipan!

Edward Baines in his 1836 History of Lancashire records that:

“At Bury, in Lancashire, from time beyond memory, thousands of persons come from all parts, and eat “simnels” on Simnel Sunday.”

However the custom nearly fell afoul of the church:

“Formerly, nearly every shop was open, quite in defiance of the law respecting the closing during “service,” but of late, through the improved state of public opinion, the disorderly scenes to which the custom gave rise have been partially amended. Efforts have been repeatedly made to put a stop to the practice altogether, but in vain. The clergy, headed by the rector, and the ministers of all denominations (save the Romanists) have drawn up protests and printed appeals against this desecration, but, as just stated, with scarcely any visible effect. It is not a little singular that the practice of assembling in one town, upon one day–the middle Sunday in Lent, to eat simnel cake, is a practice confined to Bury. Much labour has been expended to trace the origin of this custom, but without success.”

Herrick in his Hesperides has the following:

“TO DIANEME. “A CEREMONIE IN GLOCESTER.    “I’ll to thee a Simnell bring, ’Gainst thou go’st a _mothering;  So that, when she blesseth thee, Half that blessing thou’lt give me.”

Hone’s Book of Days gives the origin of the name

“There is a story current in Shropshire, which is more picturesque. Long ago there lived an honest old couple, boasting the names of Simon and Nelly, but their surnames are not known. It was their custom at Easter to gather their children about them, and thus meet together once a year under the old homestead. The fasting season of Lent was just ending, but they had still left some of the unleavened dough which had been from time to time converted into bread during the forty days. Nelly was a careful woman, and it grieved her to waste anything, so she suggested that they should use the remains of the lenten dough, for the basis of a cake to regale the assembled family. Simon readily agreed to the proposal, and further reminded his partner that there were still some remains of their Christmas plum-pudding hoarded up in the cupboard, and that this might form the interior, and be an agreeable surprise to the young people when they had made their way through the less tasty crust. So far all things went on harmoniously; but when the cake was made, a subject of violent discord arose, Sim insisting that it should be boiled, while Nell no less obstinately contended that it should be baked. The dispute ran from words to blows, for Nell not choosing to let her province in the household be thus interfered with, jumped up, and threw the stool she was sitting on at Sim, who, on his part, seized a besom, and applied it with right good will to the head and shoulders of his spouse. She now seized the broom, and the battle became so warm, that it might have had a very serious result, had not Nell proposed as a compromise that the cake should be boiled first and afterwards baked. This Sim acceded to, for he had no wish for further acquaintance with the heavy end of the broom. Accordingly, the big pot was set on the fire, and the stool broken up and thrown on to boil it, whilst the besom and broom furnished fuel for the oven. Some eggs, which had been broken in the scuffle, were used to coat the outside of the pudding when boiled, which gave it the shining gloss it possesses as a cake. This new and remarkable production in the art of confectionery became known by the name of the cake of Simon and Nelly, but soon only the first half of each name was alone preserved and joined together, and it has ever since been known as the cake of Sim-Nel or Simnel.”

Well upon cooking my Simnel cake I took pains to boil the fruit and then add it to the mix bake it slowly..and then with the marzipan on carefully place it under the grill..and very nice it was too. My mother was very pleased with it as I arrived surprising her on Mother’s Day.

Custom demised: Lating the witches at Pendle, Lancashire

Lancashire Folklore, 1882 by John Harland and T.T. Wilkinson., it was formerly believed that witches assembled on this night to do “their deeds without a name,” at their general rendezvous in the forest of Pendle, a ruined and desolate farmhouse, denominated the Malkin Tower, from the awful purposes to which it was devoted. It is said in Hone’s Year Book 1838 that:

“This superstition led to a ceremony called lating, or perhaps leeting the witches. It was believed that, if a lighted candle were carried about the fells or hills from eleven till twelve o’clock at night, and burned all that time steadily, it had so far triumphed over the evil power of the witches, who, as they passed to the Malkin Tower, would employ their utmost efforts to extinguish the light, and the person whom it represented might safely defy their malice during the season; but if by accident the light went out, it was an omen of evil to the luckless wight for whom the experiment was made. It was also deemed inauspicious to cross the threshold of that person until after the return from leeting, and not then unless the candle had preserved its light.”

Pendle of course is famous for its witch trials but what is unclear is whether this was a custom or before that. It would appear that if there was a large scale belief of witches in the area why would you want to go across the moors on this night anyway. One wonders whether this was some sort of initiation or dare based custom. When this custom died out is unclear but I am sure that people are still wary of the witches in this area.

Custom demised: Braggot Sunday

T. F. Thistleton-Dwyer’s 1875 British Popular customs present and past sort of spiced ale called Braggot, Bragget, or Braggat, was used in many parts of Lancashire on these visits of relations, whence the day was called Braggot Sunday.

Minsheu in his 1617 Ductor in Linguas tells us that Braggot is composed of two Welsh words. Brag, malt, and Gots, honeycombs. In Ben Jonson’s masque of the metamorphosised gipsies 1605 has the following lines:

“And we have serv’d there, armed all in ale, With the brown bowl, and charg’d in bragged ale.”

Robert Nares, James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, Thomas Wright 1859 A glossary; or collection of words, phrases, names and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration in the works of English authors, particularly of Shakespeare, and his contemporaries notes the recipe for making bragget:

 “Take three or four gallons of good ale, or more as you please, two dayes or three after it is densed, and put it into a pot by itselfe ; then draw forth a pottle thereof, and put to it a quart of good English honey, and set them over the fire in a vessell, and let them boyle faire and softly, and alwayes as any froth ariseth skumme it away, and so clarifie it, and when it is well clarified, take it off the fire and let it coole, and put thereto of pepper a pennyworth, cloves, mace, ginger, nutmegs, cinamon, of each two pennyworth, beaten to powder, stir them well together, and set them over the fire to boyle againe awhile, then bring milke warme, put it to the reste, and stirre all together, and let it stand two or three dales, and put barme upon it, and drink it at your pleasure.”

Despite a small mention on some website and apparently a brand of braggot ale being available as well as the detailed method Braggot ale it does not appear to have been revived as a culinary experience. Perhaps the quote by Liza Frank on her blog on folklore may suggest why:

“My snifter remains unfinished and the rest of the bottle will shortly descend the drain, but if you like your liquor a bit weird and worthy of a flagon, you might as well sup of the braggot.”

So alternative name for Mothering Sunday as Braggot Sunday has been forgotten by many and does look like being revived soon!

Custom demised: Gyst-ale in Ashton-under-Lyne

A lost festival was associated with Lady Day in Ashton-under-Lyne. Its first mention is in a rental of Sir John de Assheton, compiled a.d. 1422:

“that twenty shillings were paid to him as lord of the manor for the privilege of holding this feast by its then conductors. The persons named in the roll as having paid 3s. 4d. each are: Margret, that was the wife of Hobbe the Kynges (of misrule) ; Hobbe Adamson ; Eoger the Baxter; Robert Somayster; Jenkyn of the Wode; and Thomas of Curtual.”

What does Gyst-ale mean?

The meaning of the term gyst-ale is involved in some obscurity—most probably the payments above were for the gyst, or hire, for the privilege of selling ale and other refreshments during the festivals held on the payment of the rents of the manor. These guis-ings were frequently held in the spring, most probably about Lady Day, when manorial rents were usually paid; and, as the fields were manured with marl about the same period, the term marlings has been supposed to indicate the rough play or marlocMng which was then practised. This, however, must be a mistake, since the term relates to merry pranks, or pleasure gambols only, and has no connection with marl as a manure.”

Thistleton-Dwyer goes on to explain:

“These gyst-ales, or guisings, once ranked amongst the principal festivals of Lancashire, and large sums of money were subscribed by all ranks of society in order that they might be celebrated with becoming splendour. The lord of the manor, the vicar of the parish, the farmer, and the operative, severally announced the sums they intended to give, and when the treasurer exclaimed ” A largesse,” the crowd demanded ” from whom ?” and then due proclamation was made of the sum subscribed. The real amount, however, was seldom named, but it was announced that ” Lord John­son,” or some other equally distinguished person had con­tributed “a portion of ten thousand pounds” towards the expenses of the feast.”

One of the important aspects on the custom was the construction of an immense garland:

“which contained abundance of every flower in season, interspersed with a profusion of evergreens and ribbons of every shade and pattern. The framework of this garland was made of wood, to which hooks were affixed, and on these were suspended a large collection of watches, jewels, and silver articles borrowed from the richer residents in the town. On the day of the gyst this garland was borne through the principal streets and thoroughfares, attended by crowds of townspeople dressed in their best attire.”

The custom appeared to have inherited some characters from a mummer’s play. Indeed R.T. Hampson’s 1841 Dates, Charters, and Customs of the Middle Ages,states:

“In Lancashire we find the term gyst-ale, which seems to be one of the corruptions of disguising, as applied to mumming. Gyst-ale, or guising, was celebrated in Eccles [England] with much rustic splendor at the termination of the marling [field-dunging] season when the villagers, with a “king” at their head, walked in procession with garlands, to which silver plate was attached, which was contributed by the principal gentry in the neighbourhood.”

Thistleton-Dwyer continues:

“These were formed into a procession by a master of the ceremonies, locally termed the king. Another principal attendant was the Fool, dressed in a grotesque cap, a hideous grinning mask, a long tail hanging behind him, and a bell with which he commanded attention when announcements were to be made. In an early period of these guisings the fool was usually mounted on a hobby-horse, and indulged in grotesque pranks as he passed along—hence we obtained the term ” hob-riding,” and more recently the proverbial expression of “riding one’s hobby to death.”

Sadly all this uniqueness has now gone around the beginning of the last century!

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!

Custom demised: Cob Coaling

“We come a Cob-coaling for Bonfire time,

Your coal and your money we hope to enjoy.

Fal-a-dee, fal-a-die, fal-a-diddly-i-do-day.

For down in yon’ cellar there’s an owd umberella

And up on yon’ cornish there’s an owd pepperpot.

Pepperpot! Pepperpot! Morning ’till night.

If you give us nowt, we’ll steal nowt and bid you good night.

Up a ladder, down a wall, a cob o’coal would save us all.

If you don’t have a penny a ha’penny will do.

If you don’t have a ha’penny, then God bless you.

We knock at your knocker and ring at your bell

To see what you’ll give us for singing so well.”

So goes a short song sung in this case by south Lancashire children as they went around collecting wood for the fire and any money they could for fireworks.  The custom appears to have restricted to around the Lancashire and Yorkshire areas, the former unsurprisingly a coal area and each area would have different versions. On the East of the M60 blog some variants are suggested by commenters to a post on Cob coaling. A Peter Swarbrick notes:

“I lived in Denton during the 40’s and 50’s when Halloween was a Scottish custom that we had nothing to do with. When we went calling, the words to our song were as follows: We come a cob calling for bonfire plot
There’s nowt in yon corner but an old pepper pot Fol der ee, fol der ee, fol der ee dum dy day, Guy Guy Guy stick him in the eye Tie him to a lamp post And there let him die Christmas is coming The geese are getting fat, Please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t got a penny A ha’penny will do If you haven’t got a ha’penny Then god bless you.”

Interesting to note a link with Christmas showing the creeping early intervention of the custom is no new thing perhaps. Also on the blog a Duncan Graham similarly notes:

“In Hyde we used to sing We’ve come a cob coaling, cob coaling, cob coaling. We’ve come a cob coaling for bonfire night. Good tidings we bring to your your king, We’ve come a cob coaling for bonfire night.”

Also a Rob Standing also notes that:

“The last two lines are new to me, but otherwise the song is identical to what we sang in Hathershaw, Oldham in the early 1960’s, except we sang ‘If you give us owt, we’ll steal nowt and bid you good night.
Small but crucial change (and slightly threatening in retrospect) which makes more sense.”

It appears to have surprised until the late 1970s and early 80s. It is possible that it survived into the 1990s as it is mentioned by Quentin Cooper and Paul Sullivan’s 1993 maypoles, martyrs and mayhem on the 21^st October saying :

“in the weeks leading up to November the 5^th bonfires have to be built. Nicking gates is not the way to win a neighbour’s affections; and so it was that the organised fuel collecting tradition was born. Cob Coaling was the North’s version of this. It survives around Stalybridge and Dunkinfield, just east of Manchester. Children go from door to door sing cob-coaling songs and asking for lumps of wood as well as money for fireworks. The cob coaling song has the complex and erudite chorus:

“We’ve come a cob-coaling, cob coaling, cob coaling, We’ve come a cob coaling for Bonfire night.”

Sadly despite the memorable song it appears to have died out. The death of cob coaling would appear to have been the same factors that have been claimed to have caused the demise of Penny for the Guy the growth of modern estates with reduced area for bonfires combined with the restrictions on the sale of fireworks. Today cob-coaling is fondly remembered by over 40s and a few folk singers. Although it may survive in some areas you never know!