A weather prophecy for this day runs:
If it thunders on All Fools Day,
It brings good crops of corn and hay.
SIMNEL OR MOTHERING SUNDAY.—It is a very old custom to make rich cakes during Lent and Easter, which are known as Simnel cakes. In South Lancashire the fourth Sunday of Lent is known as Simnel or Mothering Sunday, and young people provide themselves with delicious cakes "'gainst they go a-mothering." The sons and daughters present these to their mothers, who in turn regale their families with "furmenty" or "frumenty," derived from froment (wheat), as the dish was made of wheat and milk, with the addition of a few raisins. For children to fail in paying this compliment to their mothers is sometimes taken as a sign that they will have no further opportunity of doing so.
GOOD FRIDAY.—It is a misnomer to name the world's blackest Friday thus, but the words are a corruption of GOD'S FRIDAY. Many quaint and curious customs are connected with its celebration, the origins of which are not merely secular but pagan, as well.
For instance, the worship of Terminus, the Romans' pagan god, has still left its mark on Christian England, where, in certain parishes, the custom known as "beating the bounds" is still kept up. Terminus decreed that everyone possessing land should mark the boundaries with stones and pay honor to Jupiter once a year. Failure to do this would invoke the wrath of Jupiter and the crops growing on the land would be blighted. Good Friday or the days previous were marked out for the ceremony.
A wet Good Friday has always been considered favorable for crops, although people on pleasure bent will think otherwise:
"A wet Good Friday and a wet Easter Day foreshows a fruitful year."
It may be useful to add here a saying about the day previous to Good Friday; it runs, "Fine on Holy Thursday, wet on Whit-Monday. Fine on Whit-Monday, wet on Holy Thursday."