Somersetshire.
An odd practice seems to prevail in some parts of Somersetshire, and also in Devonshire and Dorsetshire on Shrove Tuesday, which is locally nick-named Sharp Tuesday. The youngsters go about after dusk, and throw stones against people’s doors, by what is considered by them an indefeasible right. They at the same time sing in chorus:
“I be come a shrovin
Vor a little pankiak;
A bit o’ bread o’ your baikin,
Or a little truckle cheese o’ your maikin,
If you’ll gi’ me a little, I’ll ax no more,
If you don’t gi’ me nothin, I’ll rottle your door.”
Brand, Pop. Antiq. (Ed. Hazlitt), 1870, vol. i. p. 48.