Eastertide is marked in the northern counties of England by the custom of Pace-egging. The phrase itself is interesting, for we have in it the preservation of the Latin name beside our English Easter, cp. M.Lat. pascha, the feast of the passover. The form Pace or Paas is found in English literature as far back as the early fifteenth century. During Holy Week children, and sometimes grown-up persons too, go round to the farmhouses begging for Pace-eggs. Some of the eggs are used for special Easter Day cakes and custards, but the Pace-egg proper is stained and hard-boiled like the German Oster-Ei. On Easter Monday these coloured eggs are trundled or rolled against each other till they are broken, when they are eaten, and hence Easter Monday is termed Troll-egg-day. Another form of this game is known as jauping paste-eggs. One boy holds his egg, exposing the small end, and the jauper, or striker, knocks the end of his egg against it. The egg remaining unbroken is the conqueror, and the broken egg is forfeited. Occasionally one or two Pace-eggs are kept as ornaments. One such, stained pink, and inscribed with a child’s name, and the date, ranked among the ornaments on the parlour shelf in the Yorkshire farmhouse where we were staying this August (1912). In the days when mumming was still popular, the play of St. George was performed at Easter by mummers who called themselves Pace-eggers. No doubt originally they collected Easter eggs on their rounds; indeed, a writer on Lancashire customs says the company included a personage styled Dirty Bet, whose duty it was to carry a basket for the collection of eggs, but usually they played for money only, so that Pace-egging came to be synonymous with mumming. A Lakeland play began with an introductory verse as follows:
The first that comes in is Lord Nelson, you see,
He’s a bunch of blue ribbons tied round on his knee,
A star on his breast, like silver it shines,
Ah hope you’ll remember it’s piase-eggin’ times.
An Easter custom once very common in Cheshire, Lancashire, and the Midlands is variously termed Heaving, Hoisting, and Lifting. Parties of men went round from house to house on Easter Monday carrying a chair decorated with evergreens, flowers, and ribbons. Wherever they came, they seized in turn every woman of the household, and made her sit in the chair, which they then raised as high in the air as arms could reach, three times in succession. On Easter Tuesday the women returned the compliment to the men. A small fee was often paid by the lifted to the lifters. Folklorists tell us that this strange practice was originally designed to typify the Resurrection.
Easter-Day Observances
The prevalent practice of wearing some new article of clothing for the first time on Easter Day is not confined to any particular district but may be met with anywhere. A Lincolnshire name for Easter Day is Crow-Sunday, from the belief that rooks let fall their droppings on those that wear nothing new on that day.
Herb-pudding (Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks.) is a dish peculiar to Easter Day. It is made of the leaves of the bistort, Polygonum Bistorta—the so-called Easter-giants, or Easter-magiants—boiled in broth with barley, chives, &c., and served as an accompaniment to veal and bacon.
The old tradition that the sun rises dancing on Easter morning, which we remember because of Suckling’s allusion to it in the lines: