Old Customs.
Possibly the custom associated with Westmorland which can claim to be at once among the oldest, as well as having been the most carefully followed, is that connected with the familiar Countess’s Pillar in the parish of Brougham. The famous Countess Anne of Pembroke erected this structure in 1656, as the still perfect legible inscription on the southern side tells us, for a laudable purpose: “This pillar was erected in 1656 by Anne, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, etc., for a memorial of her last parting in this place with her good and pious mother, Margaret, Countess Dowager of Cumberland, the 2nd day of April, 1616, in memory whereof she has left an annuity of £4, to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham every second day of April for ever, upon the stone placed hard by. Laus Deo.” The custom is scrupulously observed, the money being distributed on April 2nd as directed, except when that day falls, as this year, on a Sunday, and then the little ceremony is conducted on the following day. When asked as to the regularity of the observance shortly before this year’s distribution, the Rev. W. S. Salman, the venerable Rector of Brougham, said the details were carefully attended to; and, he added, “we should soon hear about it if they were not.”
How far the custom of rush-bearing goes back there is nothing in local records to show, but there are some very old entries in the registers concerning the practice. In spite of the Puritans the villagers were keeping up the festival at Kirkby Lonsdale; there is this item among the churchwardens’ accounts for 1680: “Paid at the rush-bearing in drink, 3s.” Although the ceremony had in each place the same general features, different parishes varied the proceedings. Flowers as well as rushes were carried by the children, many of the blooms being made into garlands. After the sermon, the roses and rushes brought the preceding year were taken out, and the fresh ones put in their places. An old writer made the following suggestion as to the origin of the custom: “That our forefathers appointed a day on which they rendered public thanks to the Almighty for His kindness in causing the earth to bring forth fruit for the sustenance of man and beast, and that on these occasions they brought rushes, or other productions of the soil, to the sanctuary, which they spread out as a memorial before the lord.” The theory is doubtless correct, as is proved by the fact that at Warcop and other places where “rush-bearings”—minus the rushes—are still kept up every summer, the service and other proceedings are in the nature of a public thanksgiving.
COUNTESS’S PILLAR, BROUGHAM.
From a Photo by Mr. John Bolton, Penrith.
Nut Monday has passed into the region of forgotten things, even at such places as the schools, where it was once a popular observance. It was, however, kept so recently as 1861, when September 12th was held in Kendal as a general holiday, almost every shop being closed. Possibly the failure of the nut crop in several successive years was a factor in changing the holiday to another time, and thus the day losing its distinctive character. This, it will be noted, had nothing in common with another custom observed in some other parts of the country—Crack Nut Sunday. The latter was simply a desecrating practice, without a single good feature.
“Sunday observance” had more than a nominal meaning in bygone days, though there is nothing to indicate that the people of the two counties had any particular liking for the restrictions imposed. It was the practice in nearly every town and village for the churchwardens to leave the church during service time and walk through the town in search of people who ought to have been at church, and special attention was paid to licensed premises. Possibly, by the time the hostelries were reached, the churchwardens felt the need of liquid refreshment; at any rate, they frequently obtained it. Carlisle, in 1788, was divided into districts, through each of which two constables and two of the principal inhabitants, who took it in rotation, patrolled the streets from ten in the morning till one, and from three to five in the afternoon, during which hours the doors of all the public-houses were kept shut, the patrol having first visited them to see that no person was tippling in them. “So much respect is paid to this regulation,” wrote a chronicler of the period, “that during these hours no person is seen in the streets but those who are going to or returning from some place of worship.” Fines were occasionally imposed for non-attendance at church; that does not seem to have been the rule, moral suasion apparently sufficing to meet most requirements. The Corporation of Kendal took powers to inflict what were then—three hundred years ago—heavy fines for selling ale during service hours.
Among the customs and beliefs noted as prevalent at Whitbeck, in West Cumberland, in 1794, were these: “Newly-married persons beg corn to sow their first crop with, and are called corn-laiters. People always keep wake with the dead. The labouring ox is said to kneel at twelve o’clock at night, preceding the day of the Nativity; the bees are heard to sing at the same hour. On the morn of Christmas Day breakfast early on hack-pudding, a mess made of sheep’s heart mixed with suet and sweet fruits. To whichever quarter a bull faces in lying on All Hallows’ Eve, from thence the wind will blow the greater part of the winter.” It has been surmised that the hack-pudding resembles sweet-pie, which is not unlike a mince-pie on a large scale, mutton being used instead of beef, and the ingredients not finely chopped.
Here, as in other parts of the country, beating the bounds, both of parishes and manors, was a popular, though oft-times toilsome, observance. In a few registers, records have been preserved of the old-time landmarks, a precaution of special value in days before the Ordnance Survey was thought of. Dalston registers not only supply this information, but a description of the ceremony of perambulation. Curiosities of divisions are not lacking. An old man, once a parishioner of Dalston, told the Rev. J. Wilson[21] that he had a vivid recollection of taking part in the ritual of beating the bounds many years ago, and throwing a rope over a house, part of which stands in Castle Sowerby, in order to mark the division of the contiguous parishes. The walls of the house exist still, though unroofed, where the inhabitants were wont to say, half a century ago, that they always slept in Dalston and breakfasted in Castle Sowerby.
“Furth” was a word used by the inhabitants of Orton long ago. In those days, before the era of coal burning, most of the houses had what were called hearth fire-places, with big open chimneys but no fire-grates. Householders had the privilege of getting turf on the moors, and during the winter nights neighbours used to assemble in one another’s houses in succession. Orton and Ravenstonedale were famous places for knitting, and the folks all sat round the blazing turf fire knitting away at top speed. Both men and women were thus occupied, and made a peculiar rattling noise with so many needles working at once. The conversations at these Furth Neets were very amusing, the talk ranging from the state of the crops, such as they were in those days of what would be called low farming, to the prices of produce and the latest doings of Mary Baynes, the local witch.