A custom prevailed, too, in some parts of Derbyshire which gave licence to the young men and boys to kiss any young women or girls whom they chose. This, together with the general holiday observed in the afternoon of that day, and the customary sports then indulged in, is of course a remnant of the mediæval carnival.
Devonshire.
In the south-eastern part of Devon the children at this season of the year visit people’s houses, singing:
“Tippetty, tippetty to,
Give me a pancake and I’ll be go.”
N. & Q. 1st S. vol. xi. p. 244.
At Tavistock, the following lines are sung by the children at the houses of the principal inhabitants:
“Lancrock (?) a pancake,
A fritter for my labour;
I see by the string
The good dame’s in.
Tippy tappy, toe,
Nippy, nappy, no;
If you’ll give something.
I’ll be ago (i.e., gone).”
N. & Q. 4th S. vol. v. p. 380.
Dorsetshire and Wiltshire.
In these, if not in other counties, a practice called Lent Crocking is observed. The boys go about in small parties visiting the various houses, headed by a leader, who goes up and knocks at the door, leaving his followers behind him, armed with a good stock of potsherds—the collected relics of the washing-pans, jugs, dishes, and plates, that have become the victims of concussion in the hands of unlucky or careless housewives for the past year. When the door is opened, the hero—who is, perhaps, a farmer’s boy, with a pair of black eyes sparkling under the tattered brim of his brown milking-hat—hangs down his head, and, with one corner of his mouth turned up into an irrepressible smile pronounces the following lines: