Custom demised: Handsel Monday in Scotland

“In their impatience to have the holiday commence, young people usually waken the villages by kicking old tin pans at unearthly hours of the morning through the quiet streets,”

Such was the popularity of this lost custom. William Walsh in his 1897 Curiosities of Popular Customs records that:

“Handsel Monday. The first Monday in the year. This is a great holiday among the peasantry and the children generally in Scotland, being especially devoted to the giving and receiving of presents, or, in the Scotch vocabulary, handsels. The young visit their seniors in expectation of some remembrance, and postmen, scavengers, and newspaper carriers look for the equivalent of what in England are known as Christmas boxes.”

Chambers Book of Days notes that:

“The first Monday of the year is a great holiday among the peasantry of Scotland, and children generally, as being the day peculiarly devoted in that country to the giving and receiving of presents. It is on this account called Handsel Monday, Handsel being in Scotland the equivalent of a Christmas box, but more specially inferring a gift at the commencement of a season or the induing of some new garment. The young people visit their seniors in expectation of tips (the word, but not the action, unknown in the north). Postmen, scavengers, and deliverers of newspapers look for their little annual guerdons.”

This lost custom a sort of Scottish Boxing Day survived the longest in Fife and Perthshire when despite Dundee and Glasgow moving to New Year’s Day as a holiday of choice rural areas still remembered it. in Auchterarder .It was marked with:

“much noise and boisterous mirths….Boys, carrying flambeans, began to perambulate the town shortly after 12 o’clock and from that hour till morning the streets resounded with their hideous noise…. “well fortified withing…A few fist blows were exchanged later in the evening, but this appeared to be the head and front of the offending,”

Its popularity deriving from it being a holiday for farm workers as report in the Dunfermline Press in 1890 states that:

“On farms, Auld Hansel-Monday, where it is kept, is the great winter holiday of the year. Outdoor and indoor servants have a complete escape from bondage for the day, and many a farmer will own that the hardest day’s work for him and his wife throughout the year occurs on Handsel Monday.”

To Handsel was then to give a gift and it is recorded that:

“Not only has he himself to fill their place, but he is expected to handsel them, from foreman to herd-boy; and part of the handsel almost invariably includes a gift of a little money.”

On January 6, 1870, the Perthshire Advertiser called the day the “holiday-in-chief” of the year

The death of the custom

What killed the custom off was the adoption of New Year’s Day as a holiday as reported from a public meeting held in Dunfermline to make this decision. Many argued in the November 1886 meeting that it was a much loved tradition. The former Provost Robert Robertson, who could not be parted from it ‘without a pang’ from his “old friend” stating that:

“In his younger days, Handsel Monday was the day of all days – the principal day of the year, and a day of much pleasure. Then it was that family circles met together. Grandfather and grandmother, father, mother and family, all met together, There were no strangers admitted to the family circle then. Children came many miles…and if there was one member of the family absent, there was a sad blank.There was no teetotalism then, but in decent families there was no hard drinking. It was a great day, and because of that it was long looked forward to.”

Despite the pleas Dumferline chose January 1^st and Handsel was consigned to history.

Handy breakfast

The breakfast was one of the most popular parts of the custom. The farmers would treat their servants on that morning to:

“ a liberal breakfast of roast and boiled, with ale, whiskey, and cake, to their utmost contentment; after which the guests went about seeing their friends for the remainder of the day. It was also the day on which any disposed for change gave up their places, and when new servants were engaged.”

An interesting account of the healing powers of the custom and its associated victuals noted by Chambers from Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland, xv. 201:

“It is worth mentioning that one William Hunter, a collier (residing in the parish of Tillicoultry, in Clackmannanshire), was cured in the year 1738 of an inveterate rheumatism or gout, by drinking freely of new ale, full of harm or yeast. The poor man had been confined to his bed. for a year and a half, having almost entirely lost the use of his limbs. On the evening of Handsel Monday, as it is called, some of his neighbours came to make merry with him. Though he could not rise, yet he always took his share of the ale, as it passed round the company, and in the end he became much intoxicated. The consequence was that he had the use of his limbs next morning, and was able to walk about. He lived more than twenty years after this, and never had the smallest return of his old complaint.”

Now there is a reason to revive a custom!

 

Custom survived: Remembrance Day Poppies

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders’ Fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae 1915

For 100 years the red poppy has been a poignant sign to remember those which had fallen serving in the British Armed Forces and those linked to it. The Royal British Legion who have the poppy as its trademark

“worn to commemorate the sacrifices of our Armed Forces and to show support to those still serving today”.

From tiny seeds

Soon after McCrae’s powerful poem became popular it inspired Moina Michael who was an American academic, , to construct red silk poppies which she would see in remembrance. These were then brought to England by a French women called Anna Guérin as a traditionally. She wrote in her 1941 Synopsis:

“Field Marshall Haig , the President , called a meeting where I explain the Idea which was adopted immediately , but they had no money in the Treasury to order their Poppies .  It was September and the Armistice day in November.  I offered them to order their Poppies in France for them , so my own responsibility , that they would paid them after . Gladly they accepted my offer .

Sir Francis* went to Paris with me and we made the arrangement , we ordered for 1 million flowers of silk poppies.  Their first National Flanders ‘ Poppy day was an enormous success and it has developed so well , so big that for the past 15 years the ENGLISH EMPIRE was selling 25.000.000 flanders ‘ Poppies on Armistice day , poppies made by the disabled soldiers in a factory near Birmingham.”

Finally when the British Legion as it was then called, formed in 1921, it then made an order for 9 million and then sold them on that year’s Armistice’s Day which developed into Poppy Day raising an incredible £106,000; as they all sold out and the money was used to support the World War One Vets find jobs and homes. In 1921 a Major George Howson set up a factory employing disabled ex-Servicemen to make the poppies. This Poppy Factor still continues this aim.

It is reported in the Aberdeen Journal on 12 November 1921 that: 

“POPPY DAY” IN ABERDEEN.  A regrettable hitch, occasioned by a mistake on the other side of the Channel, and also by the unsettled weather, was accountable for the non-arrival in Aberdeen yesterday of the poppies which were to be sold in the streets on behalf of Earl Haig’s Fund for ex-Service men.  The blood-red poppy is the flower most associated with the campaign in Flanders, and everyone who took part in the devastating battles of Ypres and other war-torn villages and plains of France and Belgium will readily remember the blazing mass of colour which used to brighten the shell-scarred trenches and fields when the poppies were in bloom. 

To make up for the lack of poppies, flags were distributed, and a large staff of willing helpers, ex-Service men, women, and others were early on the streets collecting for the good cause. Although the stock of flags was limited there was no limit to the amount of the contribution, and everyone gave liberally.  Many citizens wore scarlet flowers in their buttonholes as symbolic of the poppy and the sacred nature of the occasion.

On the 11th November 1921, the Dundee Courier recorded:

“PREPARING FOR POPPY DAY IN DUNDEE.    Owing to Poppy Day being announced so shortly before the event, Dundee was at first faced with a shortage of “poppies,” but matters have taken a different complexion during the past few days through the efforts of a large number of willing workers in the city. 

The number of poppies sent from France was very much less than the estimated requirements, Edinburgh receiving only 100,000 to serve the whole of Scotland.  It was evident that of these Dundee could get only a small proportion, and Lord Provost Spence accordingly made it known that something would have to be done to make the effort on behalf of ex-service men more of a success by the manufacture of more poppies.

A few years later as a response to the lack of poppies over the border, Earl Haig’s wife established in Edinburgh, the Lady Haig Poppy Factory which continues to independently distribute their versions of the poppy.

The poppies are the main way in which the Royal British Legion raise money. paper and plastic poppies are sold throughout Britain but vary slightly, in England, Wales and Norther Ireland they have two red paper petals with a single green paper leaf and plastic central head and sits on a green plastic stem and until 1994 it stated Haig Fund but now just Poppy appeal. The poppies have four petals and are curled in Scotland.

Poppy Power

The Poppy appeal has become the most successful and highest profile charity in the UK. As a result the scope of the use of flowers has grown considerably being seen not only on lapels but cars, buses, public buildings, magazines and even lamp-posts. The period of which it is worn has also increased. For the first few years after the first world war it was only worn on Armistice Day but now it is common to see the flower appear from late October to the 11^th November and quite often for some the whole winter period firmly attached to coats. Sold now at every street corner or event around this time it is now impossible to avoid a seller. The poppy itself has multiplied in its nature no longer just the paper ones but ceramic and metal ones, some being dated and some so heavily bejewelled that fraudsters have sadly muscled in on the money!! Interesting early on in its history a division between the types of poppy was thought to be counterproductive. In a newspaper letter in Hull a seller wrote:

“Sir. Why should there be a distinction between the silk and cotton poppies.  I, one of the many collectors, think it is a very wrong idea. The poor man’s penny, given with a free heart (in many cases it is a struggle to spare) is belittled by the ones who wish their gifts to be advertised … many a working girl and man gave their silver, but asked for no distinction, whilst one with a haughty demeanour asked for a silk poppy.  On being told that our stand had no silk poppy, he replied, “Very well, I will go to another stand where they have the silk flowers. …”

The poppy has entered the art world for example when an installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies each for each solder killed from the British Empire in WWI was set up in 2014 in the Tower of London moat to amazing and poignant affect.

War of the poppies

“presenters and politicians seem to compete in a race to be first – poppies start sprouting in mid-October while the absence of a poppy is interpreted as absence of concern for the war dead, almost as an unpatriotic act of treachery.”

In recent years there have developed a number of controversies. Some have suggested that the compulsory wearing for public figures has been used to give support to current military action. Some people such as newsreader, Jon Snow has called the demand that all public figures where one as ‘poppy fascism’ and others have complained it has become a seasonal “fashion accessory” There has been concerned that a web of lies has been established using the selling of poppies as a way for the Far right to engender hatred of religious minorities who ‘try to ban it’ not that this has ever been proved!

As a response to this there has been a growing development of the white poppy as an alternative. Some appear to have railed against this as a modern anti-British Legion response, thought as disrespectful and some apparently have lost their jobs. However, this poppy was introduced in 1933 and now sold by the Peace Pledge Union which is worn:

“in remembrance of all casualties of war including civilian casualties, and non-British casualties, to stand for peace, and not to glamorize war.”

Despite the White Poppy and a more recent Purple Poppy representing animals lost in conflict increased popularity it is evident that the red Poppy will continue to be a symbol of remembrance for our fallen soldiers..but let’s hope one day it only remembers conflicts long in the past of our memory.

Custom demised: Visiting wells and springs at Midsummer

Many wells and springs were believed to increase in proficiency either Midsummer (Eve or Day). Often such wells would be dedicated to St. John the Baptist, the saint whose feast day would be on that date. Some such as St. John’s Well, Broughton, Northamptonshire or St John’s Well, Shenstone, Staffordshire, whose waters were thought to be more curative on that day.  This is clear at Craikel Spring, Bottesford, Lincolnshire, Folklorist Peacock (1895) notes in her Lincolnshire folklore that:

“Less than fifty years ago a sickly child was dipped in the water between the mirk and the dawn on midsummer morning,’ and niver looked back’ards efter, ‘immersion at that mystic hour removing the nameless weakness which had crippled him in health. Within the last fifteen years a palsied man went to obtain a supply of the water, only to find, to his intense disappointment, that it was drained away through an underground channel which rendered it unattainable.”

Now a lost site, it is possible and indeed likely that the site now called St. John’s Well in the village is the same site considering its connection to midsummer.

Often these visits would become ritualised and hence as Hazlitt notes in the Irish Hudibras (1689) that in the North of Ireland:

“Have you beheld, when people pray, At St. John’s well on Patron-Day, By charm of priest and miracle, To cure diseases at this well; The valleys filled with blind and lame, And go as limping as they came.”

In the parish of Stenness, Orkney local people would bring children to pass around it sunwise after being bathed in the Bigwell. A similar pattern would be down at wells at Tillie Beltane, Aberdeenshire where the well was circled sunwise seven times. Tongue’s (1965) Somerset Folklore records of the Southwell, Congresbury women used to process around the well barking like dogs.

These customs appear to have been private and probably solitary activities, in a number of locations ranging from Northumberland to Nottingham, the visiting of the wells was associated with festivities. One of the most famed with such celebration was St Bede’s Well at Jarrow. Brand (1789) in his popular observances states:

“about a mile to the west of Jarrow there is a well, still called Bede’s Well, to which, as late as the year 1740, it was a prevailing custom to bring children troubled with any disease or infirmity; a crooked pin was put in, and the well laved dry between each dipping. My informant has seen twenty children brought together on a Sunday, to be dipped in this well; at which also, on Midsummer-eve, there was a great resort of neighbouring people, with bonfires, musick, &c.”         

Piercy (1828) states that at St. John’s Well Clarborough, Nottinghamshire

“a feast, or fair, held annually on St. John’s  day, to which the neighbouring villagers resorted to enjoy such rural sports or games as fancy might dictate.”

Similarly, the Lady Well, Longwitton Northumberland, or rather an eye well was where according to Hodgon (1820-58) where:

“People met here on Midsummer Sunday and the Sunday following, when they amused themselves with leaping, eating gingerbread brought for sale to the spot, and drinking the waters of the well.”         

When such activities ceased is unclear, but in some cases it was clearly when the land use changed. This is seen at Nottinhamshire’s Hucknall’s Robin Hood’s well, when the woods kept for Midsummer dancing, was according to Marson (1965-6)  in an article called  Wells, Sources and water courses in Nottinghamshire countryside states it was turned to a pheasant reserve, the open space lawn was allowed to grass over and subsequently all dancing ceased. In Dugdale’s (1692) Monasticon Anglicanum notes that at Barnwell Cambridgeshire:

“..once a year on St John Baptist’s Eve, boys and lads met there, and amused themselves in the English fashion with wrestling matches and other games and applauded each other in singing songs and playing musical instruments. Hence by reason of the crowd that met and played there, a habit grew up that on the same day a crowd of buyers and sellers should meet in same place to do business.”       

Whether the well itself was the focus for the festivities or the festivities were focused around the well because it provided water are unclear, there are surviving and revived midsummer customs which involve bonfires and general celebrations but no wells involved.

The only custom, revived in 1956, which resembles that of the midsummer well visiting is Ashmore’s Filly Loo.  This is the only apparent celebration of springs at Midsummer is at Ashmore Dorset where a local dew pond, where by long tradition a feast was held on its banks, revived in 1956 and called Filly Loo, it is held on the Friday nearest midsummer and consists of dancing and the holding of hands around the pond at the festivities end.

Another piece of evidence perhaps for the support of a well orientated event as opposed an event with a well is the structure of the Shirehampton Holy Well, Gloucestershire which arises in:

“‘A large cave … Inside, there is crumbling masonry – the remains of an ancient shrine or hermitage – and a pool fed by a stream which seeps through the floor of the cave. The rays of the midsummer sun are said to strike the centre of this pool, and seers used to read the future in its depths.”

It was suggested that the building was:

“duly oriented for midsummer day, so that it is clearly a mediaeval dedication to S. John Baptist.”

This unusual site may indicate the longer and deeper associations of springs and midsummer than is first supposed…or antiquarian fancy. Nowadays if you visit these wells at Midsummer you will find yourself alone…but in a way that may have been the way it had always been.