Worcestershire.
The parish church at Leigh is decked on this day with “funereal yew.” The same custom exists also at Belbroughton in the same county.—N. & Q. 2nd S. vol. i. p. 267.
Yorkshire.
In East Yorkshire it was customary to keep a hot-cross-bun from one Good Friday to the next, as it was reputed not to turn mouldy, and to protect the house from fire. Presents of eggs and buns are made on this day.—N. & Q. 4th S. vol. v. p. 595.
WALES.
At Tenby, as late as the end of the last century, the old people were in the habit of walking barefooted to the church—a custom continued from times prior to the Reformation. Returning home from church they regaled themselves with hot-cross-buns, and having tied a certain number in a bag, they hung them up in the kitchen, where they remained till the next Good Friday for medicinal purposes, the belief being that persons labouring under any disease had only to eat of a bun to be cured.
About this time many young persons would meet together to “make Christ’s bed.” This was done by gathering a quantity of long reed-leaves from the river, and weaving them into the shape of a man; they then laid the figure on a wooden cross in a retired part of a field or garden, where they left it. This custom is perhaps derived from an old popular popish custom of burying an image of Christ on Good Friday, which is described in Barnabe Googe’s translation of Nao-Georgus:
“Another image do they get, like one but newly deade,
With legges stretcht out at length, and hands upon his body spreade:
And him with pomp and sacred song they beare unto his grave.”
—Mason, Tales and Traditions of Tenby, 1858, p. 19.