Kent.
Hasted (History of Kent, vol. iii. p. 380) says there was a singular custom used of long time by the fishermen of Folkestone. They chose eight of their largest and best whitings out of every boat when they came home from the fishery and sold them apart from the rest, and out of the money arising from them they made a feast every Christmas Eve which they called a “Rumbald.” The master of each boat provided this feast for his own company. These whitings, which are of a very large size, and are sold all round the country as far as Canterbury, are called Rumbald whitings. This custom (which is now left off, though many of the inhabitants still meet jovially on Christmas Eve, and call it Rumbald Night) might have been anciently instituted in honour of St. Rumbald, and at first designed as an offering to him for his protection during the fishery.[89]
[89] Cole, in his History and Antiquities of Filey (1828, p. 143), gives the following account of a custom that existed in his time in connection with the herring fishery at that place. He says, during the time the boats are on the herring fishery the junior part of the inhabitants seize all the unemployed waggons and carts they can find and drag them down the streets to the cliff tops; then leaving them to be owned and taken away by their respective proprietors on the following morning; this is carried into effect about the third Saturday night after the boats have sailed from Filey, under a superstitious notion that it drives the herrings into the nets. Previously to the fishermen setting out upon their expedition they send a piece of sea-beef on shore from each boat to such of their friends at the public houses as they wish “weel beea;” this occasions “a bit of a supper,” at which those who are going away and those who stay enjoy good cheer, heightened by mutual good-will. The Sunday preceding their departure is called Boat Sunday, when all their friends from the neighbouring villages attend to bid them farewell.