To make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.
The day was once also noted for foot-ball kicking in some districts, and also for throwing at cocks, that is hens which had laid no eggs before that day were threshed with a flail as being good for nothing.
Mr. Williams in his excellent Welsh essay on the Folk Lore of Carmarthenshire, says that he had been informed by a middle aged person of a curious old custom of playing with eggs. Mr. Williams’s informant when a child and other children with him, had been taught by an old woman how to play some peculiar game with eggs on this day, which was something as follows:—Eggs were boiled for two or three hours till they were as hard as stones. The children used to colour their eggs for the prettiest by boiling them in coffee with certain herbs, etc., then for half of the day, they kept throwing the eggs at each other. This curious kind of play reminds me of a similar practice which I noticed in South America many years ago, more especially in the Argentine Republic, where it was customary for the first half of the day for people to throw eggs, water, etc., at each other, and this was done even in the sheets of Buenos Ayres. The custom was known as “El Carnival,” that is giving way to the flesh before the beginning of Lent or Fasting Time.
In the North of England boys play with eggs on Easter Eve, and centuries ago eggs were blest by the Priest and preserved as Amulates.
It was once customary for the tenants of Nanteos, in North Cardiganshire, to give to their landlord Shrove Hens and Eggs (ieir ac wyau Ynyd). This was undoubtedly a survival of the old custom of paying rent, or a portion of it, “in kind.”
To render in kind ducks and geese, loads of coal, etc., was continued yearly, both in Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire within living memory.
LENT.
There was an old custom once in Wales of taking an egg-shell, filled with water, little meat, flour, etc., to a house of a neighbour, and leave it on the outside of the window while all the family were having their supper, and then run away, for if they were caught in doing it, they were obliged to clean old shoes as a punishment. The egg-shell used on the occasion was called “Crochan Grawys” (Lent Cauldron). Some old people remember this in Carmarthenshire.