St. Margaret's Day (November 16th) is marked by barrel rolling on Copper's Fell, Lesser Rivington, in which seven of the braver (and fitter) young adolescent men of the village are sealed naked in barrels which are then set on fire before being sent on their way down the steep hillside. An impressive spectacle, especially as the barrels are left to blaze at the bottom until the wood becomes brittle enough for said young men to burst naked from within in a gesture of Mithraic Rebirth. Teams of village girls are on hand with a herbal salve of witch-hazel, hyssop and lavender with which to rub on any burns thus incurred, though this practise in itself has developed a certain licentiousness far removed from its original intention.      

Otherwise, on this day:

* 1384 – Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.
* 1821 – American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.
* 1938 – LSD is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland.