Easter Folklore And Customs
In the British Isles.
The week leading up to Easter was traditionally a very busy time for our ancestors. This was spring cleaning week and everyone had to roll up their sleeves and get down to work. Women scrubbed and polished every surface and ornament in the home as well clothes, blankets and linens. Any moth that had been hunkering down for the winter had to move out! Men had the responsibility of cleaning outbuildings, painting wood and whitewashing walls including the home; both inside and out. It would have been seen as lazy by your neighbours if you did not have a clean and tidy yard.
The egg symbolised the resurrection of Christ and was a common gift begged for by children as well as adults. The name of the game was to eat as many eggs as possible on Easter morning and absolutely nobody could be left without one. Children had fun putting together their own Easter feast made up of cakes, bread, butter, sweets and eggs. This week had them running around collecting treats in anticipation of the big day. In Derbyshire and Lancashire, children carried small baskets lined with moss for collecting oatmeal cakes, gingerbread and money from their family, friends and neighbours.
A whole array of natural dyes was used to colour the eggs. Onion skins (brown), gorse (yellow), spinach or anemone leaves (green), logwood (purple) and cochineal (scarlet) were just some of the flowers, herbs and vegetables that were used. In the north of England, these dyed eggs were called ‘Pace Eggs’ and were eaten four days either side of Easter including Easter Sunday.
On the Isle of Anglesey, children participated in a custom called ‘Clapping’. During Holy Week, they walked around their village with wooden clappers or two pieces of slate as they chanted for eggs. Each child could end up collecting two hundred eggs which were later displayed on the kitchen dresser, with the eldest child's eggs on the top shelf and their younger siblings’ eggs on the lower shelves. This activity meant that children were not going to school and eventually this week became a holiday. As the years passed, people had less and less time to dye Pace Eggs so cakes, sweets or money were given instead until the custom finally died out. The word ‘pace’ comes from ‘paschal’ which is Latin for Easter. Pace Eggs were first mentioned in the early 1700s and were popular in north west England and Wales until the 1950s.
A Scottish tradition was for boys to steal eggs during Holy Week and hide them in a secret place until Easter. On Easter Sunday, they all got together in an isolated place to cook themselves a pancake feast and only stolen eggs were seen as worthy. The adults of course were aware of this, as the local men would have done this when they were boys, so for them it was not seen as theft. I believe that this test of daring could have possibly been a relic from an ancient initiatory practice. What do you think?
Egg-rolling was a popular custom across Britain and Ireland where hard boiled eggs were rolled down hills and symbolised the rolling away of Christ’s tombstone. Taking place on Easter Sunday or Easter Monday, the aim was to roll your egg down the hill as many times as possible without it cracking. The one whose egg was the last to crack won all of the other cracked eggs. People would also roll themselves down the hill. Hopefully before eating the eggs and not after!
The ‘Egg Pace Play’ was the Easter equivalent of a Mummer’s Play. Young men and boys wore paper streamers sewn to their costumes and their faces were blackened or covered by a mask. In Lancashire, they were known as Jolly Boys and fought each other with wooden swords. The play had wonderful characters such as Old Tosspot with his straw tail that associated him with the Devil and Betsy Brownbags. Old Tosspot carried a basket around with him into which people would put eggs and money. The Jolly Boys sang traditional songs that had been passed down through the generations, but sadly by the end of the 1800’s the play had died out.
“Here’s one or two jolly boys all of one mind
We’ve come a-pace-egging, I hope you’ll prove kind
I hope you’ll prove kind with your eggs and strong beer
And we’ll come no more nigh you until the next year.”
Around the area of Rossendale, a horse's skull on a pole which had bottle ends for eyes, a clashing jaw and a sack cloth covering the person holding it would chase people around the streets. Six men with blackened faces or wearing masks accompanied the horse. I imagine that this custom was a memory of a much older fertility rite.
The Sunrise Mass became an Easter tradition in 1972 in the town of Southborough in Kent. During the service, parishioners encircled a cross made from planted daffodils. Waking up early on Easter Sunday to watch the sunrise is a much older tradition that was popular in the 1700s and continued up until the First World War. People in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset climbed to the top of hills to watch the sun rise because they believed it danced and rejoiced for the resurrected Lord. If the sun did not dance it was the fault of the Devil who had blocked the view on purpose with clouds or by magically making the hills in the distance appear taller. Children were not allowed to look up at the sun due to its brightness (good advice for all of us!) so a bucket was filled with water to allow the child to experience the sun’s reflection within it. The water was splashed about to make it look like the sun was dancing as its rippling light reflected on the ceiling and walls.
On Easter Sunday, churches were decorated with spring flowers and yew, the latter not only symbolising mourning but eternal life as too. Easter lilies, daffodils, primroses, white or yellow polyanthus, white violets, ivy and catkins were gathered to make Easter garlands for the home, and branches of greenery were placed near west country front doors, but they were never from an elder or whitethorn tree. Homes were also decorated with beautiful willow and hazel catkins. People would wear new clothes to church as it was seen as lucky and those who were unable to afford a new outfit, got creative by up-cycling the clothes they already had with ribbons and lace.
Clipping the Church is an ancient ceremony that dates back to the Anglo Saxons. ‘Clypping’ comes from the old English word ‘clyppan’ meaning to encircle or embrace. Parishioners would dance around the exterior of the church building three times in a sunwise direction while holding hands and singing a traditional clipping hymn. Originally a spring ritual that happened at Easter or on Shrove Tuesday, it also took place on parish saints’ feast days. Some churches still do this today.
‘Thread the Needle’ was another ancient spring custom where young people would run through the streets as couples, weaving in and out of the raised arms forming an arch by the leading couple. As soon as everyone had passed under the arch, the next couple raised their arms to make a new arch. This continued until every couple had taken a turn. During this time a traditional rhyme was sung. The ritual began at dusk and continued until there was enough people gathered to perform the Clipping the Church ceremony. This too could well be a relic of a pre-Christian fertility rite. It survives today as a children’s game.
Traditional Easter Sunday fare was roast lamb with mint sauce, duck, veal or pork with a sage, parsley and thyme stuffing, spinach tarts, custards, clotted cream and pudding-pies. In Scotland it was ‘pesse’ or pasch pie or a chicken pie decorated with feathers. Some people made a ‘Sugar-Cupping’ mixture from sugar and water from the holy well. This was a tradition in the Midlands.
Spring blessings to you all and I hope to do one more Easter post before I move on to May Day traditions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
English Traditional Customs by Christina Hole (1975)
Folklore And Customs Of Rural England by Margaret Baker (1975)
A Year Of Festivals by Geoffrey Palmer & Noel Lloyd (1972)
A Calendar Of Country Customs by Ralph Whitlock (1978)
Curious Country Customs by Jeremy Hobson (2007)
A Calendar Of Scottish National Festivals Vol 2 by F. Marian McNeill (1959)
The Year In Ireland by Kevin Danaher (1972) free on archive.org
Maypoles, Martyrs & Mayhem by Quentin Cooper and Paul Sullivan (1994)
The Stations Of The Sun by Ronald Hutton (1996)
The Celtic Calendar by Brian Day (2003)
A Dictionary Of British Folk Customs by Christina Hole (1976)
Winters In The World by Eleanor Parker (2022)
A Chronicle Of Folk Customs by Brian Day (1998)
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