Folklore: Good Friday customs

Subject: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 11:31 AM

I had a hot cross buns for breakfast and will be having fish for tea. Although I did let down my Catholic upbringing by having some meat at lunchtime. Mea Culpa :-(

We also always used to perform the Pace Egg play on Good Friday and I believe that was the traditional time for it.

Not this year of course!

Any other Good Friday customs?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 11:40 AM

Given Steve Roud often posts here, I am a bit wary of referencing his book "The English Year", but there are 6 and two bits pages of customs on Good Friday, then a few on Easter Saturday, followed by another substantial section for Easter Sunday and Monday.

For Good Friday, he specifically lists Bread and Eggs, Burning Judas, Butterworth Charity, Hartfield Dole, Hot Cross Buns, Skipping, Tinsley Green Marbles, Washing Molly Grime, Widow's Son and Workington Football (listing the section headings).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 11:44 AM

I should have mentioned that my wife's family always referred to Spy Wednesday for the Wednesday in Holy Week. It was not a term I knew before meeting them.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Felipa
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 01:07 PM

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/10-good-friday-traditions-you-ve-never-heard-of-1.3864889
includes wash and cut your hair but not your beard, plant potatoes and garlic and root vegetables, eat the egg of a black hen, wash your feet and save the water as a cure ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 01:16 PM

That is fascinating, Felipa. Thank you. I wonder how some of these things come about?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 02:57 PM

DMcg...steve roud never posts here. I usually have to let him know if there's anything really interesting.... Derek

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: mg
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 04:41 PM

I just listened to pope's station of the cross. very impressive. based on prisoners providing commentary. i do not talk between one and three p.m. probably should not be on internet.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 04:58 PM

Sorry, I thought I had seen some.

So plugging his book is ok, I assume!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 05:16 PM

Below the line, no?

And why on Earth is it *good* Friday?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,h
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 02:38 AM

As a student nurse in Bolton, Lancashire, my wife would join thousands of others on Good Friday to climb up to the tower on top of Rivington Pike. We've done it several times since. But facilities have been closed this year and people have been asked to stay away.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Murpholly
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 03:14 AM

Moving on to Easter Day my hubby always gets up before dawn in order to watch the sun dance as it rises. Top of a hill is best but not this year as living in flat land Lincolnshire. Have made it to seaside in the past.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 03:31 AM

My wife Anne reckons that it was traditional in her family to climb Pendle Hill. Judging by the number of people we have seen up there in previous years a lot of other people think so too!

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 04:00 AM

I would usually try to get to Bacup for The Nutters but this year it is not to be for obvious reasons:-( The council have been trying to stop it for years. I hope this is not the catalyst that sees them win!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Eastertide customs
From: Felipa
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 07:05 AM

In the Derry area (N Ireland), people would cross the border and walk up the hill to the restored ring fort at Grianán Ailigh and roll their Easter eggs. But I don't know if that would have been on Friday, more likely Sat or maybe even Sun after mass and dinner? People in Co Derry and Tyrone have told me of how they used to build Easter houses outside and keep their Easter eggs there. The late Seán Gallagher had a theory that this custom derived from booleying, when the cattle are driven to summer pastures and temporary shelters would be built for the people watching them.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Murpholly
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 07:14 AM

Was the trek up Pendle to watch the sun rise or to watch the witches flyiong?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 08:45 AM

When I have been up it has been in daylight, after all you want to end up at the pub when you get back down! Having said that, my wife has been up there overnight in the past (just checking the broom cupboard for besoms).

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 08:46 AM

Lancashire Pace Egging Songs collected by Annie G Gilchrist
8. Beg Your Leave sung by Jolly-Boys (Pace-Eggers) from Overton Village, Sunderland Point, Easter, 1906.

Sunderland Point is a collection of houses at the mouth of the Lune, cut off every day by the tide. The Gilchrist family still live there. Mimep, a seventeen footer built as a pleasure boat, is owned and used by the family.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Murpholly
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 11:45 AM

I hope that the pace eggers leave flowers for Samb o's grave at Sunderland point.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Mo the caller
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 03:37 PM

Well of course you plant your potatoes on Good Friday.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 03:48 PM

On Easter Sunday my wife will be trying to keep her temperature down, and I will continue to be fetch and carry boy!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 05:10 AM

Maundy Thursday;
Royal Maundy Distribution

Saddleworth MM: 7:00pm approx Road End Fair. Greenfield, opposite King William IV - first dance out and waistcoat awards.

Every Good Friday, hundreds of people climb the hill near Ramsbottom, Lancashire, while hundreds more gather at the base. Boiled eggs, often decorated, are then rolled from the top of the hill, with onlookers cheering on their progress. Police have warned people off visiting Holcombe Hill this weekend and confirmed that the traditional Easter egg rolling competition is off.

Cecily Fox Smith followed the Holcombe Harriers on foot;
I wish't I was in Lancashire huntin' o' the hare, All across the wide moorlands an' the hollows brown an' bare,
Hearkenin' to the good hounds' cry, hearkenin' to the horn, Far away in Lancashire on a windy morn.

Bury Pace Eggers: It seems very unlikely that the tour will happen this year.

One of the best known pace egging teams comes from the Calder Valley High School at Midgley, who have unique Pace Egging hats and perform every Good Friday in the village, and also at nearby Heptonstall, near Hebden Bridge, in the afternoon (usually at 3pm).
Heptonstall has its own team of players and they can also be seen at Weavers Square at intervals through the day from 11 onwards so you can seen two forms of the play in one go! Good Friday falls on April 10th in 2020 but the events are cancelled owing to the Virus. In 2021 it will be on Friday 2nd April.

Saturday; The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers or Nutters are a troupe of Lancastrian clog dancers who dance 7 miles across the town of Bacup.

Easter Day; Richmond on Swale Morris Men: Swaledale Tour starts up 10:00 am in the village of Muker, before heading down the dale taking in Gunnerside and Low Row before finishing off at 2:30 pm in the small but pleasant Market town of Reeth.

Easter Monday;
Egg rolling in Avenham Park, Preston, beside the River Ribble. The local paper has made strenuous efforts to organise the day. Fortunately, people remain stubbornly independent. Most eggs, however, are hollow chocolate ones, which do not roll down the steep slope very well.

Bottle-kicking and Hare Pie Scramble, Hallaton, Leicestershire

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Apr 20 - 02:09 AM

I would surmise the popularity of climbing local hills on Good Friday would be because it was a Holy Holiday. Ya can't sit in church all day!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Apr 20 - 04:36 AM

This is more of a mountain climb - and in midsummer. Staggering? That is probably the right word!

"A staggering 20-25,000 pilgrims still climb Croagh Patrick mountain – a soaring cone-shaped 765m (2,500ft) peak that rises above Clew Bay in Co Mayo – each year on the last Sunday in July (the nearest Sunday to the original pagan festival of Lughnasa), often barefoot."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Mar 24 - 07:25 PM

This is a fascinating folklore thread, and worth refreshing
for Holy Week this year.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Mar 24 - 09:30 PM

To add to similar mentions earlier in the thread, when my brother and I were little lads we would climb Pendle on Good Friday with our dad, usually from the Nick o' Pendle via Pendle Water. In 2018 my brother, sister and I scattered our dad's ashes to the wind by a rock on the little hill next to the Nick, in a spot overlooking his beloved Pendle on one side and the Ribble Valley on the other.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 02:02 AM

Ramsbottom, Lancashire; Hundreds of people climb Holcombe Hill on Good Friday. A smaller gathering keeps alive the tradition of egg rolling before the start of the climb.

Bristol Live; Vale Street in Bristol is known as the steepest street in England, with a formidable incline which has seen cars tied up to stop them from slipping and the lamp post being knocked over innumerable times. In past years it has also been the gathering place for Totterdown residents on Easter Sunday for an annual egg rolling contest.

Preston, Lancashire; Egg Rolling is a big Easter tradition, going back over 150 years, that takes place on Avenham and Miller Parks in Preston every Easter Monday.

Furness Morris Pasche Egg Play 2024; Easter Monday (1st April) this year, we are again taking the Pasche Egg Play around Furness from Baycliff to Broughton during the day. If you don't know what the play is about then have a look at the dedicated page where there is a video of the performance outside Dalton Castle last year (2023).
Baycliff        10:00am
Dalton Castle        11:00am
Great Urswick        12 Noon
Coronation Hall, Ulverston        2:15pm
Broughton Square        3:45pm

The Mail 1990; Ulverston's traditional pasche egg milling on the slopes of Hoad Hill proved to be a big attraction for hundreds of people, despite the day being plagued by chilly strong winds. Town crier Alf Jarvis heralded the start of the proceedings, on Easter Monday, with his loud bell and equally loud voice. Music was provided for the event by the Ulverston Town band and led by conductor Richard Foden. A new event was a competition for ‘egg jarping’, a game once played by Ulverston born Stan Laurel when he was a young boy in the town.

National Trust 2024 Egg rolling at Box Hill, Surrey Hills; Come along to Box Hill over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, and take part in the grand old tradition of egg rolling down the big hill at 11am and 3pm. The best decorated egg wins a prize!

From Wikipedia; Other traditional egg rolling sites are the castle moat at Penrith, Bunkers Hill in Derby, Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, and on Penshaw Hill in Tyne and Wear at Penshaw Monument. In Scotland, pace-egging is traditional from Shetland to The Borders although the day varied with location. Pace-egg day variously was Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday, or Easter Monday. Paiss-braes, hills, were used or other grassy slopes or areas such as seaside links.

From Wikipedia; Traditionally, the eggs were wrapped in onion skins and boiled to give them a mottled, gold appearance (although today they usually are painted), and the children competed to see who could roll their egg the farthest. The eggs were eaten on Easter Sunday or given out to pace-eggers – fantastically dressed characters who processed through the streets singing traditional pace-egging songs and collecting money as a tribute before performing traditional mumming plays. At the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere, there is a collection of highly decorated eggs made for the poet's children.

In the United States, the Easter Egg Roll is held on the White House South Lawn each Easter Monday for children (age 13 and younger) and their parents. It is hosted by the President of the United States and the First Lady of the United States.

From Wikipedia; The Bank Holidays Act 1871 designated four bank holidays in England, Wales and Ireland (Easter Monday; Whit Monday; First Monday in August; Boxing Day if a weekday) and five in Scotland (New Year's Day, or the next day if a Sunday; Good Friday; First Monday in May; First Monday in August; and Christmas Day, or the next day if a Sunday). In England, Wales and Ireland, Good Friday and Christmas Day were considered traditional days of rest (as were Sundays) and therefore it was felt unnecessary to include them in the Act.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Speciality Ken
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 05:18 AM

Don't forget The Pace Egg Plays in Calderdale - The Heptonstall Pace Egg Play is a traditional Mumming Play performed in Heptonstall’s Weavers Square on Good Fridays. Begins at 11.15am - repeated through the day - with Midgely Pace Egg Play at 3.00pm. The HillMillies Morris Team will dance between plays.
https://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/news/2024/030.html

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 07:27 AM

The neighbouring Midgley Pace Egg play also takes place on Good Friday.

It starts at 8.45am in Mytholmroyd and finishes its tour in Heptonstall at 3.00pm. For the stops in between, see their Facebook page.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 09:45 AM

Noting the 2020 entry above mentioning Bury pace eggers, we now tour on Palm Sunday, as mentioned in the palm Sunday thread.
£400 collected for Bury Blind Society this year.

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 11:41 AM

Heptonstall Pace Egg Play is a traditional Mumming Play

Some of these UK traditions - it's like we're all not even speaking English any more. Is Heptonstall Pace a place? Or is there something called a "Pace Egg Play," in which what is Pace about and what is an egg play? I have an idea about Mumming, so is this a dance that reenacts some event with the easter bunny or does it go way back into pagan traditions about something else?

Curious folks across the pond await the explanation. (I could look it up but am interested to see what the answer is here.) :)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 03:27 PM

The basis of a pace egg play, or mumming play, is that Saint George is challenged by another knight, kills him, a doctor is found who restores the other knight to life and a strange set of other characters come on and introduce themselves at various points. It usually end up with a song and the audience is asked nicely/threatened until they make a donation.

There is always at least one fight, one death and one resurection. The Lancaster mumming play had three fights.

There are also Christmas versions that sometimes include Santa Claus.

When you start looking into the name " pace-egging" it all gets a bit complicated with references to easter and pre-christian derivations.

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 03:31 PM

I hadn't seen mention of Steve Roud's The English Year when it was originally posted. Sounds fascinating. I ordered a copy right away.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 04:05 PM

I should add that one of the most inventive mummers plays that I have seen was a "one-man mummers play", performed by a member of Camm Valley Morris. It involved using a doorway as a stage and multiple hats to show which character was the one on stage.

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 09:10 PM

Yikes, the fat finger strikes again! Ahem: pace-egging is a traditional thing (there's a folk song about it which I'll let the more knowledgeable among us expand on), and Heptonstall is a rather beautiful village near Hebden Bridge, a cockstride away from where me sister lives and a shortish drive from where I was born and bred. All lookupable!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 09:19 PM

The chorus thereof:

Here's one two three jolly lads
All in one mind
We are come a-pace-egging
And I hope you'll prove kind
And I hope you'll prove kind
With your eggs and strong beer
Or we'll come no more pace-egging
Until the next year

Bejaysus, I last "sang" that song (suitably lubricated) in the Buck Inn in Malham on a botany field course at Malham Tarn in 1970!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 03:12 AM

Heptonstall
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Heptonstall
HEPTONSTALL from en.wikipedia.org
Heptonstall is a small village and civil parish within the Calderdale borough of West Yorkshire, England, historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.
The Pace Egg Play has roots in Celtic, Egyptian and Syrian traditions and was once performed all over the country. It was revived in Calderdale during the 1930s. The word 'pace' may be derived from the Latin 'pasche' meaning passion. Hence, the reason why the play is performed at Easter time,
We speak English in England.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 03:36 AM

We used to do the Abram Pace Egg Play in Lancaster on Good Friday while the Maritime Festival was on. Sadly the festival fell by the wayside and I have lost touch with the Abram team. As part of that 'tradition' one of our number was always kidnapped by the press gang and only released upon a payment to charity. We also used to partake in a few libations and always end up at the Pusser's rum promotion :-D

Heptonstall has another claim to fame that few people know about - Sylvia Plath is buried there!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 03:51 AM

And the Lancaster Pace eggers performed on the Saturday at the Maritime Festival.

They used to precede the play with a performance of the Dolphinholme 3 man dance also known as "the old mans' dance" or "kick my arse".
The figures for this dance are included in the Book of Kells in some of the side illustrations, so quite old. The tune used for this dance is "Old greensleeves", a subtle variation on the normal rendition.

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 06:06 AM

I think we were invited because it is almost the same play Robin!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 07:40 AM

Oxford Reference; In northern England they were called ‘pace eggs’, ‘peace eggs’, or ‘paste eggs’, corruptions of pasche, the Latin-based medieval word for Easter, here confused with pax = ‘peace’. Aubrey described how children from poor families went from house to house asking in rhyme for eggs to celebrate the death of Jack o' Lent. The custom was called pace-egging, and persisted until late in the 19th century; in the Wirral (Cheshire), one of the rhymes was still remembered in the 1930s (Hole, 1937: 77–8).

At Carlisle on Easter Monday crowds of children gathered in a field to play a game like conkers: two eggs would be tapped together, end to end, till the shell of one cracked, where upon it was forfeit to the owner of the uncracked egg.

Could this be ‘egg jarping’, a game once played by Ulverston born Stan Laurel when he was a young boy in the town?

Annie G Gilchrist collected Beg Your Leave, a Lancashire pace egging song, at Easter 1906. It was sung at Sunderland Point by jolly boys from Overton village. The Gilchrist family still owns property there. Overton is protected from the tide by a high sea wall, but Sunderland Point is still cut off twice a day by the tide. I had a hand in raising the sea wall, which I now call the biggest road hump in the world. Unless, of course, you know better.

So we're jolly boys. We do no harm wherever we may go.
For we've come the pace-egging, as you very well do know.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 08:41 AM

Well now you’ve seen us all, think of us as you find,
If you’ll please to give up a trifle it would be very kind.
So cheer up your spirits while we drink a pint of beer,
And we’ll drink you health and store your wealth until the very next year

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: G-Force
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 11:08 AM

I always assumed that 'pace' was from 'pacques', French for Easter.

Mummers plays with Santa Claus! Noooooo! (Father Christmas yes.)

And I once took part in one from Northern Ireland in which George was the villain.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 11:53 AM

Paques[Fr], Pasen, Paas ei (easter egg) [Dutch],

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 12:13 PM

wikipedia; In Latin and Greek, the Christian celebration was, and still is, called Pascha (Greek: ??s?a), a word derived from Aramaic ???? (Paskha), cognate to the Hebrew ??????? (Pesach). The word originally denoted the Jewish festival known in English as Passover, commemorating the Jewish Exodus from slavery in Egypt.

chabad.org The eight-day Jewish holiday of Passover (Pesach) is celebrated in the early spring, from the 15th through the 22nd of the Hebrew month of Nissan, April 22 - 30, 2024.

French Today; The French word “Pâques” derives from the Latin “pascha”, meaning “Passover”, which comes from the Hebrew “Pesah” meaning “passing way” (hence the word “passage”) and is the Jewish name for the Passover celebration, which remembers the Exodus out of Egypt.

Oxford Reference; ‘pace eggs’, ‘peace eggs’, or ‘paste eggs’, corruptions of pasche, the Latin-based medieval word for Easter.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 05:20 PM

Rivington Pike Easter Fair, Horwich, Bolton

On Good Friday, hundreds, if not thousands, of people will climb to the tower on the top of the pike. Many families spend the rest of the day strolling around the Terraced Gardens. At this time you may see Lord Leverhulme’s gift to Bolton as he intended, with local people and vistors enjoying the gardens, away from the industry and work of town and city.

Great House Barn, a 16th-century barn, now houses a popular cafe. Built using cruck framing of oak, the original building is of, at the latest, 16th-century construction, but is likely to be older. Architecturally, the barn is as Lord Leverhulme had it restored, with the cruck beams infilled with sandstone block walls and a slate roof.

Rivington Hall Barn adjoins Rivington Hall. The tithe barn foundation stones support a mediaeval cruck construction and possibly date to the between the 9th and 15th centuries. The structure was restored, altered and enlarged in 1905 by Jonathan Simpson for Lord Leverhulme. From wikipedia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 06:28 PM

Oops! My post said that I remember Rivington Pike well, though it's more than half a century since I last climbed up there. Ye gods, time flies...

Steve (Bolton schoolboy)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 06:30 PM

Dammit! That was me...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 03:07 AM

My wife's family, and many others, used to walk up Pendle hill every Good Friday. I don't think we are doing it this year.

Robin

Subject: RE: Folkloreq: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 06:15 AM

I often climbed Pendle from Barley, but on Good Friday we generally started from the Nick. I remember on Good Friday one year the most viciously penetrating east wind ever up there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 08:22 AM

Pendle, old Pendle, thou standest alone
Twixt Burnley and Cltheroe, Whalley and Colne
Where Hodder and Ribble's fair waters do meet
With Barley and Downham contect at thy feet

Passed it yesterday twice - On the way to and from Salford

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 08:36 AM

Stemming from my Catholic upbringing we are, of course, having fish for tea :-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 09:51 AM

For about a 10 year period when I was living as a hermit I would shave my beard on Good Friday and go barefoot. Mrrzy, it's called Good because of Christ's Sacrifice.


PS: regarding going barefoot; went over a year barefoot once and let me tell you it's a very good way to learn not to step in anything unpleasant.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 10:14 AM

It's a Good Friday (and Christmas Eve) tradition for Bude Morrisons to be filled (or overfilled) with nasty, grabbing, pushing and shoving hordes of people. I think they were mostly emmets. (Note to self: you never learn, Shaw. Avoid!!)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 12:45 PM

I've just heard a belter. Christ did not give up his life for our sins, he only gave up his weekend because he cane back on Sunday :-D

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 02:10 PM

I've just realised that the reason the Lancaster mummers could not do the Maritime festival on Good Friday was that they were all members of John o' Gaunt Morris and were out on their Good Friday tour, dancing at Milnthorpe and Arnside.

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: Good Friday customs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 29 Mar 24 - 04:12 PM

The sun beat down on Heptonstall this afternoon! Both the Heptonstall and Midgley Pace Eggers performed enthusiastically, while the Hebden Bridge Hill Millies entertained in between. Much appreciated by the watching crowd. Money raised for charities. Well done, everybody!