Folklore of Yorkshire

by Kai Roberts

  Winter

  A second Mischief Night was traditionally celebrated on 4 November and still survives in some of the industrial regions of West Yorkshire, although in many cases the whole period between Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night has now become one long period of misrule. Customs were similar to those practiced on 30 April, although in recent years, the game of knock-a-door-run has become especially favoured, possibly because, in this day and age, some of the more extreme pranks discussed earlier are likely to lead to charges of criminal damage. Considering the nastiness of some of these older traditions, those who today bemoan the depredations of trick or treating should count their blessings.

  Christmas traditions in Yorkshire typically began in the week preceding the festival itself, with children’s visiting customs and mummers plays – although in some areas these are recorded starting as early as Martinmas (11 November). In Beverley, for instance, performances featuring Besom Bet and Blether Dick were familiar around this time. Writing in 1890, John Nicholson notes, ‘Often their disguise is so complete that at lonely houses they are rude and bold, demanding money or drink in such a way as to terrify the women who have been left at home. The writer has a vivid recollection of his mother keeping one of these fellows at bay with a sweeping brush, while he bolted the door to prevent any farther inroad.’

  In the run up to Christmas Eve, the gentler custom of wassailing was particularly widespread amongst children in the county. Groups would proceed from door to door carrying a box called the ‘Vessel Cup’, which contained two dolls representing the Virgin and Child on a bed of crimped paper, silver stars and flowers. Sometimes they would also carry a holly branch decorated with ribbons, dolls and oranges. The party would sing a variety of carols and the ‘Wassailing Song’, the lyrics of which ran:

  Here we come a-wassailing

  Among the leaves so green

  Here we come a wandering

  So fair to be seen.

  As with all visiting customs, the householders were expected to offer the children a small reward for their performance, typically some small change or appropriate festive fare – indeed, it was considered profoundly unlucky to turn away the first wassailers of the season.

  On Christmas Eve it was also tradition for a family to bring the yule log into the house, which should be lit from a fragment of the previous year’s log. Along with a yule candle, it was left to burn all night to represent the Star of Bethlehem. People considered it an ill-omen for the yule log and candle to burn out before the dawn, and it was similarly unlucky to give out light from the house or sweep the ashes from the hearth. In some places, the lighting of the yule log was accompanied by great ceremony. One writer records that the log had first to be laid on the hearthrug, whilst the family gathered round and each made three wishes. Once it was set alight, they feasted on gingerbread, cheese, mince pies and a seasonal dish called ‘frummety’ (a type of porridge made from creaved wheat and milk, fruited with raisins). In South Yorkshire, meanwhile, a posset pot was sent around the table from which each member of the family should drink.

  In Dewsbury, the Church of All Saints (now known as Dewsbury Minster) practices a unique bell-ringing custom on Christmas Eve known as ‘Tolling the Devil’s Knell’. First, a bell known as ‘Nine Tellers’ is rung in five sets of five. This arrangement is known as a ‘passing bell’ and was traditionally sounded in rural parishes to indicate the death of somebody in the parish. As the passing bell struck four times for a man and three times for a woman, the number five is supposed to signify the apocryphal belief that Christ’s birth represented the death of the Devil. Somewhat contradictorily, the ringing of the passing bell on Christmas Eve is also supposed to protect the town of Dewsbury from the Devil’s influence in the coming year.

  Following the passing bell, the tenor bell is chimed once for every year since the birth of Christ and timed so that the final strike coincides with midnight. Legend claims that the observance remembers a crime of Sir Thomas de Soothill, a fifteenth-century noble who, in a fit of rage, threw a servant boy into an iron forge or a local dam. As a penance, he provided the tenor bell for the church and initiated the tradition of Tolling the Devil’s Knell. However, the truth of this legend is debatable and indeed, the provenance of the custom remains unclear. No references to it exist before the nineteenth century and whilst Reverend John Buckworth is supposed to have ‘revived’ the practice in 1828, he may have invented it entirely.

  In some places, it was common to ‘let in Christmas’ at dawn; a practice which had much in common with first-footing on New Year’s Day. Similar rules about behaviour and appearance governed the ritual: a boy of a certain hair colour should be first across a household’s threshold on Christmas morn; he must enter by the front door carrying a sprig of evergreen; then once the family has provided him with a sixpence or some repast, he must leave by the back door. As with first-footing, this became a regular role on Christmas Day for poorer members of the community endowed with the requisite physical characteristics. They were referred to as ‘lucky birds’ and held in great esteem at that time of year.

  Long-sword dancers traditionally performed on Boxing Day in many communities across Yorkshire, and the custom endures today in a small number of places including Flamborough, Grenoside and Handsworth. The Handsworth area of South Yorkshire – along with Norton, Woodhouse and Upperthorpe – was also known during this period for a mummers play called ‘T’Owd Tup’. The performance was perhaps more common around neighbouring parishes in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and when S.O. Addy wrote about the tradition in 1901, it was already dying out in the Sheffield region. However, it has clung on in some isolated pockets and been subject to periodic revival throughout the twentieth century.

  Like many mummers plays, T’Owd Tup is a hero-combat play, performed door-to-door by a group typically comprised of several lads from the local area. ‘Tup’ is an archaic term for a ram and one boy is dressed as the eponymous beast, swaddled in sheets of tarpaulin and carrying a head fashioned from wood, with marbles for eyes and a red flannel for a tongue. The narrative of the play would see the Tup led to market, slaughtered by the Butcher, then restored to life by the Doctor, whilst Our Owd Lass and Little Devil Doubt capered around. The performance would climax with a rendition of the well-known folk song, ‘The Derby Ram’, after which the players would be given donations for their efforts.

  A similar custom by the name of the Poor Old Hoss was performed in the North Yorkshire town of Richmond. In this case, the ram became a horse and the other players dressed as huntsmen, forcing it to canter around until the symbolic arrival of winter, when the Hoss lay down to die and was subsequently resurrected. For a time in the mid-twentieth century, the head of the Hoss was an actual horse skull and thoroughly terrified the local children. Performances of the Poor Old Hoss persist today, although rather than tour Richmond’s pubs throughout the festive season, the custom is now confined to Christmas Eve in the marketplace and is thoroughly endorsed by the local council.

  Some might argue that like too many surviving calendar customs in the county, such mummery has been sanitised and divorced from its original constituency. Where once they were spontaneous expressions arising from the community itself and often strongly disliked by anyone who aspired to respectability, these traditions have been co-opted by the authorities who now present them as a harmless sideshow for the amusement of tourists and aggrandisement of local dignitaries. They have been taken from the folk and their original subversive function has been lost. As such, they exist purely as whimsical historic relics, whilst living folklore has long since moved on and flows unnoticed in a subtle current all around us.

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  Ibid.: Nidderdale and the Garden of the Nidd (1894)

  Ibid.: Romantic Richmondshire (1897)

  Ibid.: Chronicles and Stories of Old Bingley (1899)

  Ibid.: Upper Wharfedale (1900)

  Ibid.: Lower Wharfedale (1902)


  Ibid.: Kirkbyoverblow and District (1903)

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  Ibid.: The History of Brighouse, Rastrick and Hipperholme (1893)

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  Ibid.: Folk Tales from York and the Wolds (1992)

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  Newspapers & Periodicals

  Bradford Antiquary

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  Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society