Custom and folklore are so interwoven that it is quite impossible to write of them separately. The North Riding to-day is par excellence the home of both. This is easily accounted for. Many of the dales are far removed from the varied influences of the outer world; they are little communities; they belong to themselves. Many of the older people have never seen a locomotive. It is in and about such places the student may gather a rich harvest of folklore, always remembering that any given area is not the whole of the riding, much less of Yorkshire. I mention this because a custom, superstition, or peculiarity of dialect, which may still flourish in one dale, may be quite unknown in some other part of the riding. Bear in mind the riding, within a very few miles, stretches from the North Sea to St. George’s Channel; so it will be readily conceived that over such an extensive area, much of which is sparsely populated and not easy of access, custom and superstition still go hand in hand.
Our greatest observance of custom is, as it should be, in connexion with Christmastide; indeed preparation for the same really commences some weeks in advance. There is the pudding to make and partly boil; all the ingredients for the plum-cake to order; the mincemeat to prepare for the mince-pies; the goose to choose from some neighbouring farmer’s stock; the cheese to buy and the wheat to have the hullins beaten off, and to cree, for the all-important frumenty; the yule-cakes or pepper-cake to make; the hollin to gather; the mistletoe and Santa Claus presents to buy for the little folk’s stockings; the old yule log and a new one to see after, as well as the yule candles. Even long before these various duties have been taken in hand, children nightly sing their Christmas carols on our doorstep, reminding us the great event of the year is fast approaching, when peace and good will should be extended to all men. The ’vessel-cups’ (i.e. wassail-cup) still come round, with their doll in a box, decked out as the Virgin Mary, lying in pink cotton-wool and evergreens. Some of these vessel-cups are in their way quite little works of art. I remember (up to the time I left Guisborough five years ago) Lavinia Leather travelled every year all the way from the other side of Leeds, to sing the vessel-cup throughout that part of Cleveland. As my wife had known the old body for many years, we always had a call. There was no mistaking the advent of Christmas, when, after unceremoniously opening the door, the old lady commenced saying,—
God bless t’ maaster of this hoos,
An’ t’ mis-ter-ess also,
An’ all yer lahtle bonny bairns
‘At round yer table go!
Fer it is at this tahm
Straangers travel far an’ near.
Seea Ah wish ya a merry Kessamas
An’ a happy New ‘Ear.