“At Shrovetide to shroving, go thresh the fat hen,
If blindfold can kill her, then give it thy men.
Maids, fritters, and pancakes enough see you make,
Let Slut have one pancake, for company sake.”
In some places, if flowers are to be procured so early in the season, the younger children carry a small garland, for the sake of collecting a few pence, saying:
“Flowers, flowers, high do!
Shreeny, greeny, rino!
Sheeny greeny, sheeny greeny,
Rum tum fra!”
Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 68.
Buckinghamshire.
At Eaton, on Shrove Tuesday, as soon as ever the clock strikes nine, all the boys in the school cry ΤΩ ΒΑΚΧΩ, ΤΩ ΒΑΚΧΩ, ΤΩ ΒΑΚΧΩ, as loud they can yell, and stamp and knock with their sticks; and then they doe all runne out of the schoole.—Aubrey MS., A.D. 1686, Brit. Mus.
A MS. in the British Museum already alluded to (Status Scholæ Etonensis, A.D. 1560, MS. Brit. Mus. Donat. 4843 fol. 423) mentions a custom of the boys of Eton school being allowed to play from eight o’clock for the whole day; and of the cook’s coming in and fastening a pancake to a crow, which the young crows are calling upon, near it, at the school door.
Cheshire.
Pennant, in his Journey from Chester to London, tells us of a place at Chester without the walls, called the Rood-Eye, where the lusty youth in former days exercised themselves in manly sports of the age: in archery, running, leaping, and wrestling, in mock fights and gallant romantic triumphs. A standard was the prize of emulation.
In a pamphlet also, entitled, Certayne Collection of Anchiante Times, concerninge the Anchiante and Famous Cittie of Chester, published in Lysons’ Magna Britannia (1810, vol. ii. p. 585), is the following: