Folklore of Lincolnshire

by Susanna O'Neill

  In the 1920s and ’30s there was a tradition named the Monkey Walk Parade held on Sunday afternoons in July, involving the youth of Lincoln who would dress in their Sunday best and parade up and down the high street. Men would take one side of the street and ladies the other and they would watch each other as they walked past. It was a gentle form of courtship and many couples would become paired up as a result. The tradition is still remembered now, when people don their best clothes and refer to them as their monkey suit.

  Gainsborough Co-op Gala Day

  This started in 1905 and was held on the first Saturday in July. This day was organised for the children of members of the Gainsborough Co-op and a variety of games were organised for them to enjoy. Rather like children’s sports days today, they were encouraged to join in relay races, sack races, sprint races and egg and spoon. There was dancing, a Punch and Judy show, a beauty queen contest and many other activities for children to enjoy.

  6 July

  Barton Bike Night is a relatively new event, having run for the last fifteen years. The village becomes packed full of stalls, food and drink, as well as hosting a variety of bike-related events. All kinds of motorbikes turn up and there is so much to watch, with all the trailing and ride-outs – certainly not one to miss!

  In mid-July there was a nine-day long festival at Stamford, boasting crafts, music, floats, sporting activities, children’s games and a flea market. Today the festival takes the form of a parade, with floats and a procession to join in with.

  22 – 24 July

  The So Festival takes place on these days. Started in 2009, this is a relatively new festival but proves to be very popular. There is street theatre, music, comedy, carnivals, dancing and much more.

  24 July

  In 1971, Bardney saw its very own folk festival. The locals were all rather worried about it before the event, thinking it would be a noisy, messy, bad idea with lots of people causing trouble, but the whole thing went off without a hitch. Approximately 60,000 people turned up, some travelling from Australia and it was a peaceful, successful event, but only ever repeated once, in 1999.

  Samphire Day

  In April he [the cuckoo] opens his bill, in May he sings all day, in June he changes his tune, in July away he does fly, in August go he must.

  The first Monday in August is known in the south of Lincolnshire, Holbeach and the Wash area as Samphire Day. Samphire is a plant which grows well in marshland areas and is also known as the poor man’s asparagus. This day was a day’s holiday for the locals, who would use it to go and pick the plants and pickle them. They made a real occasion out of the day, taking a picnic along, and some people took an oil stove to brew up tea. It is said that it is a favourite taste of Prince Charles and it is still picked and pickled today, then apparently sold to Harrods in London.

  Sheep shearing was a very important event in late July/early August, where all the men would work in teams and visit each other’s farms to help one another get all the sheep done. A supper of frumenty, a meal using eggs and wheat and sometimes dried fruit, was enjoyed at the end of the day; a wholesome meal meant to give them energy for the task in hand. The Lincolnshire men had a special way to count sheep:

  1: yan

  2: tan

  3: tethera

  4: pethera

  5: pimp

  6: sethera

  7: lethera

  8: overa

  9: covera

  10: dic

  Thought to be a link to their Celtic origins, a similar system was used by the Welsh and Cornish shepherds.

  6 August

  The annual Brigg Fair was a popular horse fair in its time but like many others began to lose popularity with the increase of motorised vehicles. It is, however, still celebrated today, if not quite in the same way. Many markets take place including livestock, and some people do still bring their horse and carts to parade the grounds.

  Horncastle and the Great August Horse Fair

  This was once a huge three-week long affair. Begun in 1229, it is thought to have been the largest of its kind at one time and people from all over the world would travel to it. Brass bands would march the streets and the town would be crammed with people of every class. This fair was last held in 1948.

  August and September were the main months for gathering in the harvest and so there were numerous rituals surrounding these months as there were many farming communities in Lincolnshire. One widespread custom was, once the last load was ready the women and children would ride it home and if there were any early apples, the children were each given one as a treat.

  Women and children used to go out ‘gleaning’, which was a tradition of collecting the leftover crops from farmers’ fields after the harvest had been collected. The practice could be viewed as an early form of welfare but it was also a social occasion, with the youngsters competing to see who could get the fullest sack load. In many parishes there was a gleaning bell, which was rung to call the gleaners into the fields when the main harvest was completed and then to call them home again in the evening. There were known signs that a field was not ready to be gleaned as yet, such as a sheaf on the gate. The vicar of the villages would collect some corn and wheat from each farmer and these tithe profits were often used for welfare purposes.

  Cock Stack was a well-known practice, whereby a large cock was created out of straw and wood when the harvest was finished, and was placed on top of the last stack as an advert to everyone for miles around that the farmer had wheat for sale.

  There were many songs to keep people’s spirits up while working and, of course, when the harvest was over there were songs of celebration:

  I rent my shirt and tore my skin

  To get my master’s harvest in.

  Hip, hip, hurrah!

  Harvest in and harvest home,

  We’ll have a good fat hen and bacon bone.14

  24 August

  St Bartholomew’s Day Knives was a tradition whereby men would give each other knives on this date and even the headmaster of the school would give some to lads who had been good. St Bartholomew was apparently murdered with a knife and so the knife is his symbol. Sutton also links the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre to the symbol of the knife. The knives given on this day were called lamb’s foot knives as they were often small enough to remove small stones or cut rough edges from a lamb’s foot.

  3 September

  The Lincoln Long-Wool Ram Sale was a sheep farmers’ fair for the buying and selling of all things to do with sheep. Folk in Lincolnshire are still very proud of their sheep and they can often be seen displayed at agricultural shows and fairs around the country.

  September was also the month for the gathering and drying of herbs and the last of the onions, ready for the winter months. Lavender was popular for use in pillows and for easing headaches; onions were used as a cure for chilblains and colds; thyme, sage, rosemary and many others were collected, each having their own uses.

  As in all farming communities, most of the corn should have been harvested by September and so large harvest suppers and celebrations took place during this month. Lincolnshire, of course, excelled in this tradition, having so many families and communities linked to farming, and the feasting, dancing and singing involved everyone.

  8 September

  This date saw the ancient tradition of the Grimsby Boar Hunt, whereby the annual sport of boar hunting commenced and landowners presented a boar’s head to the mayor, resulting in a huge final feast. The HMS Grimsby uses the emblem of a boar for the ship’s crest, as a remembrance of this ancient right allowing the townsfolk to hunt boar in Bradley Woods, nearby. Whether the tradition will be reignited with the supposed increase of wild boar in Britain, only time will tell.

  14 September

  Once known as Fool’s Fair, this was held in Broadgate, Lincoln. It was an annual fair held for the sale of cattle and apparently granted to the people by King William as he and his wife visited the town and gave the people an offer
of a favour of their choosing. He apparently granted their request for a fair with a smile, as he viewed it as a humble request indeed.

  29 September

  This was Michaelmas Day, customarily the date when farm and agricultural workers moved to new employment.

  1 October

  Each leaf caught as it falls in October means a happy month in the coming year.

  Lincolnshire Day: although only first held officially in 2006, the date marks the anniversary of the Lincolnshire Rising in 1536, when the Catholics revolted against the establishment of Henry VIII’s Church of England. It is the day when all things Lincolnshire are celebrated; from historical events, traditions, culture, present-day practices and, of course, food. Well known for its sausages, cheese, beer and other delights, this is the perfect day to celebrate them.

  The Harvest Festival also took place on this day, where fruit and vegetables were displayed in the churches, people donating what they could, and then the goods were distributed to hospitals, the poor and the needy.

  October was the month in which many village fairs, feasts and fêtes were once held, as all the harvest work was finished and people had some money to spend. It was a time for relaxation and fun and also the time when those who had left home for work elsewhere were allowed back for the weekend, for their own village feast. Much traditional fare was on offer along with fairground attractions which included rides, stalls and fortune tellers. Some villages also incorporated ploughing matches into their festivities.

  Potato picking was of great importance and up until the 1950s, children were given an annual holiday during the potato harvest. In the 1920s and ’30s many French and Irish labourers came to Lincolnshire looking for work. It was hard, back-breaking work in cold and wet conditions, with poor pay, but even so, women and children would help out for a bit of pocket money, in order to buy clothes for the winter.

  The October Lincolnshire Stuff Ball, originating in 1785, was once an annual event, involving any locally produced materials, or ‘stuff’. A feast with local food was on offer and those women who attended dressed in locally-made clothes would gain entrance for free. Every year there was a different colour code for the ball and thus the event was sometimes referred to as the Colour Fancy Dress Ball. It is said that upwards of 300 people attended, attired in garments manufactured from wool of the county.

  31 October

  Celebrated the country over, All Hallow’s Eve is considered a very eerie night; the night when the lost souls returned to earth. This was the night people would gather round the fire and tell each other ghost stories, scare each other and share riddles. There were many rituals about how to catch sight of the Devil on this night, where to go and what one must do. Some villages had gatherings for the children to enjoy, with games such as bob the apple, hunt the thimble and blind man’s buff. People would make lanterns from mangolds as we do nowadays with pumpkins. Hot baked potatoes, sausages and peas were the order of the day. Snap dragon was a local dish some people liked to include, containing lots of meat and brandy-soaked raisins, which were set alight for extra fun.

  The Lincolnshire Life magazine shares an old superstition from Horsington, where at midnight on Halloween twelve lights were said to have been seen to rise from the mound in the churchyard where the ancient church of Horsington once stood.15 They were apparently blue lights, split into groups of three which then travelled to the nearby villages of Horsington, Stixwould, Bucknall and Wadingworth. What these strange lights represented and when they were last observed is unknown, but if you are brave enough to search them out, this is the night to see them.

  All that remains of the ancient church of Horsington, where strange lights were said to emerge. It is hidden amongst a thick clump of trees across a farmer’s field next to Grange Farm, just outside Horsington, along Hale Road, from Stixwould.

  1 November

  The religious observance of All Saints’ Day. The following day is All Souls’ Day, when Christians remembered their dead. On this day there was once a tradition, in Lincolnshire, of ‘souling’, whereby the children would go from house to house in the village, singing a ditty in order to receive a ‘soul cake’, which was a sort of bun.

  3 November

  Stickney Feast used to have a game called ‘pelting the pig’, whereby you could win a pig, which was a great prize one could put away ready for Christmas. Other prizes included a sack of potatoes or a joint of beef. There were a variety of different games played on this feast day.

  4 November

  ‘Guying’ was a tradition where children would dress up in old clothes and masks and make an effigy of a guy, from straw and scraps of clothes, to take round with them. They would then visit houses in the village and were rewarded with coppers for reciting ditties such as:

  Please to remember

  The fifth of November

  The poor old guy.

  A hole in his stocking

  A hole in his shoe,

  Please can you spare him

  A copper or two?

  If you haven’t got a penny

  A half-penny will do

  If you haven’t got an half-penny

  Well, God bless you.

  5 November

  Remember, remember the fifth of November! Guy and his companion’s plot: We’re going to blow the Parliament up! By God’s mercy we wase catcht, with a dark lantern an’ lighted matcht!

  Bonfire Night. As in most places around the country, the custom was to collect together things to burn, from branches to old chairs – with a straw and paper guy effigy to burn on top, as a remembrance of Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up parliament during the Gun Powder Plot of 1605.

  Lincolnshire, like all the counties, celebrated Bonfire Night and Mischief Night and Sutton gives a few examples of some of the mischievous acts in which the locals would take part. For example, one source told how they used to tie a button to a piece of cotton and attach it to someone’s window, then jiggle the cotton so that it would continuously knock against the glass. Another trick was to tie two door handles together so people could not get out of their houses. Another popular one was to knock on a house door and then to run away before it was answered.

  11 November

  ‘Martinmas’, rather like Flitting Day, was the date on which certain groups of farm labourers from areas of North Lincolnshire preferred to move, rather than the April date.

  13 November

  St Brice’s Day, the Stamford Bull Running. St Brice’s Day is the anniversary of the massacre of the Danes in 1002, and there is the possible connection here between blood spill and blood sport. The bull-running tradition involves the taunting and chasing of a bull through the streets of Stamford by a crowd of jeering men, women and children and packs of hunting dogs, until the bull eventually gives up, exhausted, and is then killed and roasted in a feast for the village. The whole process is rather savage and the tradition, fortunately now obsolete, met with much opposition through the years, especially from those who were members of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The last time it took place was the late 1830s but the memory of the events still live on in the town even up to the present day.

  One possible origin of the tradition stems from the tale of two fighting bulls being discovered in a field by some butchers. The men apparently tried to separate the bulls but their efforts accidentally resulted in both bulls running into the public highway. They then charged wildly into the town, spreading panic and alarm, until the Earl of Warren gave chase on his horse, joined by all the stray dogs in the area and brought the beasts to bay. The people apparently so enjoyed the ‘sport’ that the earl granted the town a meadow in which a bull fight could take place every year preceded by a bull chase through the town. November being such a cold month the idea of a race and then a huge feast was welcomed by the people and the locals thoroughly enjoyed the festivities, even until the last. Perhaps this is why the memory is still so strong.

  17 November

  T
his day is the Feast of St Hugh, who is the patron saint of Lincoln, the protector of sick children. He was the Bishop of Lincoln between 1186 and 1200 and his shrine in the cathedral became a very popular pilgrimage location. The feast used to be a thirty-day event, attracting many, and he is still remembered today within a service in Lincoln Cathedral on this date. This is a principle feast in the cathedral and is an occasion when the entire Foundation gathers to celebrate the Eucharist at midday.

  30 November

  This day or the nearest Sunday to it, usually the first Sunday in advent, was known in some areas as Stir Up Sunday, after the first words of the collect in the Book of Common Prayer, ‘Stir up, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people.’16

  It was also the day many women in the county made their Christmas puddings, which should traditionally be stirred by all members of the household. One of the main ingredients was brandy, and as well as stopping any mould growing this helped to mature the pudding until Christmas.