Folklore of Lincolnshire (28 page)

An old saying tells that mill stones should be set to ‘turn with the sun, since the miller will never thrive while their course is against it.’
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It was said also that if the sun shines on the apple trees on Christmas Day then there will be a heavy crop of fruit next season. However, when planting, ‘Seed sown during a moon that came in on a Sunday and went out on a Sunday, will never come to much.’

Roy Fisk catalogues some old Lincolnshire remedies, but neither he nor I recommend the use of them if you find yourself troubled with any of the following!
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If you are afflicted with ague (a form of Malaria) then the old belief was to line your shoes with the leaves of a tansy plant and if this did not do the trick, pills of compressed spider’s webs were suggested, to be taken before breakfast. If these are hard to come by, live spiders between two slices of bread and butter should do the trick. Think how jealous your work colleagues would be of your packed lunch! Another cure was to gather seven worms from the wet earth of a new grave, at midnight, and mix them into a paste, then apply. Take your pick!

To help stop the shakes of the ague one could tie a piece of hair to an aspen tree. If bitten by a mad dog, you should apparently place in the bitten hand the key from the church door. Fits can allegedly be charmed away by touching or wearing a rope which has been used for hanging, or wearing a silver ring which has been made from money and consecrated at an altar. Those suffering from rheumatism should carry a potato in their pocket. Alternatively they can be cured by being confirmed a second time.

Cramp can be avoided by carrying a lucky bone in one’s shoe, whose bone is not quite clear, or leaving a bowl of water under the bed, or even placing a piece of cork between the mattress and the bed. Also, if shoes are placed in the shape of a ‘T’ at the bottom of your bed when going to sleep at night, this will help with cramp. For scalds, a special chant is repeated whilst dressing the wound with bramble leaves dipped in spring water: ‘There came three ladies out of the East. One with fire and two with frost. Out with the fire, in with the frost.’

When you are bothered by warts, place in a bag as many pebbles as you have warts and leave the bag at some crossroads. You will lose your warts but they will be transferred to the unfortunate person who picks up the bag. Or if you can sell them to a friend, wrap the money up and bury it and your warts should disappear. If this does not work, try to rub some dandelion juice into them, or the soft white insides of a broad bean pod. The remedy for boils is a salve of soft soap and sugar, fig poultices or buttermilk swallowed three times a day, whilst fasting. Jaundice is relieved by drinking a tea made from the twigs or bark of the barberry bush, or a mixture of sheep dung in boiled milk. Similarly, a concoction of sheep’s dung and cream can be a cure for small pox.

A toothache can be cured by ‘fill[ing] the mouth with cold water and sit[ting] on the fire until it boils, when the pain will be gone’. Either that or the pain of your burning behind will have distracted you from your tooth! If you carry the tip of a cow’s boiled tongue in your pocket, you will be protected from the toothache coming on. If you have a headache, a recommended cure was to wrap the skin of a snake around your hat. It should relieve the pain. For sore eyes, wash them out with a concoction of eight garden snails shaken in a bottle with spring water.

For whooping cough you should wear shredded garlic inside your socks when you are in bed. This will keep those pesky vampires at bay as well! Alternatively, for children you could feed them fried mice, or let a horse breathe down their throat.
If the child is having none of this, try hanging a bag of insects around the child’s neck. Belief has it that the cough will disappear as the insects decay. A less gruesome answer would be to take three hairs from the cross on a donkey’s back for your cure, or to ride a quarter of a mile upon a donkey.

If you have a cut from a knife or another piece of metal, to make the skin heal faster, clean and tend to the offending metal first, ridding it of any dirt or rust. Bleeding can be stopped by applying a thick cobweb. I have heard this to be true and believe it was a method used during battles centuries ago, however I would recommend using a bandage, if you have the choice!

The
Lincolnshire Poacher
magazine quotes from the
News Chronicle
of 1892,
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which states that many a farm in Kesteven used to hang a mouldy Good Friday bun from the beams of the kitchen ceiling. The idea was that if someone in the family or even any of the cattle were suffering from certain ailments that a mouldy portion of the bun would be cut down and mashed into some water to create a remedy for the complaint. There are other incidents related of people using mouldy fruit or scraping the mould off hanging meat and wrapping the wound with the mouldy fat, and the idea that this cleaned out the wound and helped the healing process was prolific; a possible forerunner of penicillin perhaps.

Along with numerous superstitions and beliefs, Lincolnshire was full of its own sayings about every day things. For example someone away from home feeling homesick may say ‘I wish I had hold of our cat’s tail.’ When changing underwear before leaving the house, people would say ‘I must make a decent accident.’ Something which was scarcely worth mentioning would be ‘neither nowt n’ summat’.

A charming saying from Alkborough was repeated to children who were being too nosy:

These adages and practices, along with the wonderful Lincolnshire dialect, would fill many books, but for the study of folklore we have other matters to attend to.

For this chapter I have Maureen Sutton
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to thank for much of the detailed and thorough information about the different festivals and rites of Lincolnshire throughout the year.

As in many other parts of the country, this day, First Footing, represented the belief that the very first person over the threshold of a house on New Year’s Day brought with them either the good or bad luck for the rest of the year. Naturally, if the person brought bad news, then ill-luck would befall the house. The tradition dictated that a man with dark hair carrying a piece of wood, some coal and some silver would be the bearer of good luck. Fair or ginger hair was seen as bad luck, but a woman was worse still! Gutch and Peacock, however, tell of a tradition in Lincolnshire Marsh where a light-haired man with a fair complexion was preferred.
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Sutton offers a few possible explanations for this tradition. One theory is that when the Vikings invaded the county they raped many of the indigenous women and so it was seen as very bad luck to open the door to a fair-haired man. Silver could be viewed as a good charm for the year’s fortunes and coal brought with it a warm house. Wood could have signified averting death, as bringing in wood ensured a coffin was not carried out that year.

Ethel Rudkin relates the ritual a lady of Caistor performed every New Year’s Day.
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She would arrange for a man to enter her house first thing in the morning,
carrying something yellow, such as jasmine. He was instructed to go to the fire and stir it up with the poker whilst wishing her a happy New Year. She said that the stirring of the ashes was a sign of stirring a good friendship and making it glow again.

The first day in January was also viewed as a ‘no washing day’, as it signalled a death within the family before spring and thus was avoided:

There used to be a tradition in Lincoln, early in January, of hosting a feast for all the poor children of the city, named the Robin Dinner. Hundreds of poor children would be gathered for a hearty meal at the Drill Hall, where festivities and entertainment followed. Unfortunately this is said to have died out by the late 1930s.

Rudkin mentions a tradition of the ‘Plough Jags’ doing the rounds on the first Monday in January.
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She states that this was the only night of the year where there was no law and so they could not be ‘had up’. The tradition was that gangs of ploughboys visited each house in their area asking for money. If anyone refused they would have a furrow ploughed on the path before their door. They are also referred to as ‘Plough Jacks’ or ‘Plough Bullocks’ and are said to have dressed as morris dancers and performed little plays.

Lincolnshire, having a very large farming community, had a great many superstitions concerning crops, as they represented the livelihood of so many. The ‘Shooting of Trees’ was one such rite performed to ensure a good crop for the year. This involved visiting the orchards and shooting at the trees in order to get their sap flowing – then a good harvest would be guaranteed. This is a similar rite to the Wassailing in which the southern folk of the country participated to ensure a good crop of cider apples for next year’s harvest.

This date marks the occasion of the famous Haxey Hood game. This is a tradition which has stood the test of time and even though it is a very old ritual, having being practised since the thirteenth century, it is still as popular as ever today. The precise origin of the game is somewhat unclear but one story tells of an elderly lady, possibly Lady Mowbray, Lady of the Manor, who was travelling one windy twelfth night when her red hood was blown off over the fields by a strong gust. A handful of villagers who were working nearby chased it, and after much fun and excitement returned the hood to its owner. The story tells that the actual man who caught the hood was too shy to give it back and so another handed it over to Lady Mowbray.
She was so grateful and amused, she gave thirteen half acres of land, Haxey Fields, to twelve men, for an annual celebration of the fun, and she apparently called the shy man ‘fool’, hence this character in the games. The whereabouts of twelve of the half acres’ is now unknown, but the last half is used in the Haxey Hood today.

The game today requires a ‘hood’, twelve ‘boggons’ and a ‘fool’. The boggons, or ‘plough-boggons’ as they are sometimes referred to, are dressed in red jackets and represent the original twelve who first caught the stray hood. In the week leading up to the game, the twelve boggons journey around the village and visit all the inhabitants, inviting them to attend the game, as players or observers, and to gather funds for beer and entertainment.

On the day itself, at around one in the afternoon, the players gather by the churchyard and the fool gives a speech about the game’s rules and announces which pub is offering the most beer for the final catcher of the hood. The fool is also entitled to kiss any one he pleases, even ‘be she the highest i’ the land’.
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Elaine Kazimierczuk inquired what qualifications were needed for the job of the fool and was given the answer; ‘You just need tolerance, fortitude and a capacity to drink beer’.
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The stone depicted here, outside St Nicholas’ Church, Haxey, is known as the Mowbray Stone, on which the fool stands when delivering the introduction to the game.

Then to the Haxey Field, where the eldest boggon throws the hood high into the air. The idea is that the players must try and capture the hood and carry it out
of the field, whilst the boggons fight to keep it within the bounds. If the boggons succeed until evening, they can retire and the players play on down the streets, fighting for which pub the hood will be taken to. Once there, it is kept by the landlord until next year and everyone has a good old knees-up. The merriment lasts a few more days and originally there was the tradition of ‘Smoking the Fool’, whereby a fire was made beneath the fool, who sat in a large tree and then was suspended from a branch and dipped into the thick smoke emanating from the crackling damp straw.