NEW YEAR'S DAY AND OLD CHRISTMAS DAY.
Some persons still keep Old Christmas Day. They always look for a change of weather on that day, and never on the 25th December. The common people have long begun their year with the 1st of January. The Act of 1752, so far as they were concerned, only caused the Civil and the Ecclesiastical Year to begin together. In Hopton's Year Book for A.D. 1612, he thus speaks of January 1st:—"January. New-yeares day in the morning being red, portends great tempest and warre."
AULD WIFE HAKES.
Christmas and New Year's tea parties and dances are called "Auld Wife Hakes" in the Furness district of Lancashire. The word hake is never used in the central part of the county.[146] Can this be from hacken (? from hacking, chopping small), a pudding made in the maw of a sheep or hog. It was formerly a standard dish at Christmas, and is mentioned by N. Fairfax, Bulk and Selvedge, 1674, p. 159.[147] [To hake, is to sneak, or loiter about.]
NEW YEAR'S GIFTS AND WISHES.
It was formerly a universal custom to make presents, especially from superiors to dependents, and vice versâ. Now the custom is chiefly confined to parents and elders giving to children or young persons. The practice of making presents on New Year's Day existed among the Romans, and also amongst the Saxons; from one or both of which peoples we have doubtless derived it. The salutation or greeting on New Year's Day is also of great antiquity. Pieces of Roman pottery have been found inscribed "A happy new year to you," and one inscriber wishes the like to himself and his son. In country districts, the homely phrase is: "A happy New Year t'ye, and monny on 'em." In more polished society, and in correspondence, "I wish you a happy New Year," or "The compliments of the season to you."
SHROVETIDE.
This name, given to the last few days before Lent, is from its being the custom for the people to go to the priest to be shriven, i.e., to make their confession, before entering on the great fast of Lent, which begins on Ash-Wednesday. Tide is the old Anglo-Saxon word for time, and it is still retained in Whitsuntide. After the people had made the confession required by the ancient discipline of the church, they were permitted to indulge in festive amusements, though restricted from partaking of any repasts beyond the usual substitutes for flesh: hence the Latin and continental name Carnaval,—literally "Carne, vale," "Flesh, farewell." In Lancashire and other Northern counties, three days in this week had their peculiar dishes, viz.: "Collop Monday," "Pancake Tuesday," and "Fritters Wednesday." Originally, collops were simply slices of bread, but these were long ago discarded for slices or rashers of bacon. Fritters were thick, soft cakes, made from flour batter, with or without sliced apples intermixed. Shrovetide was anciently a great time for cock-throwing and cock-fighting, and indeed of many other loose and cruel diversions, arising from the indulgences formerly granted by the church, to compensate for the long season of fasting and humiliation which commenced on Ash-Wednesday. As Selden observes—"What the church debars us on one day, she gives us leave to take on another; first we feast, and then we fast; there is a carnival, and then a Lent."
SHROVE-TUESDAY, OR PANCAKE TUESDAY.
The tossing of pancakes (and in some places fritters) on this day was a source of harmless mirth, and is still practised in the rural parts of Lancashire and Cheshire, with its ancient accompaniments:—