At Westminster School, London, the following is observed to this day. At 11 o’clock A.M. a verger of the Abbey, in his gown, bearing a silver bâton, emerges from the college kitchen, followed by the cook of the school, in his white apron, jacket, and cap, and carrying a pancake. On arriving at the school-room door, he announces himself, ‘The Cook;’ and having entered the school-room, he advances to the bar which separates the upper school from the lower one, twirls the pancake in the pan, and then tosses it over the bar into the upper school, among a crowd of boys, who scramble for the pancake; and he who gets it unbroken, and carries it to the deanery, demands the honorarium of a guinea (sometimes two guineas) from the Abbey funds, though the custom is not mentioned in the Abbey Statutes: the cook also receives two guineas for his performance.—Book of Days, vol. i. p. 237.

Norfolk.

It is customary at Norwich to eat a small bun called cocque’els—cook-eels—coquilles (the name being spelt indifferently), which is continued throughout the season of Lent. Forby, in his Vocabulary of East Anglia, calls this production “a sort of cross-bun,” but no cross is placed upon it, though its composition is not dissimilar. He derives the word from coquille in allusion to their being fashioned like an escallop, in which sense he is borne out by Cotgrave, who has “pain coquillé, a fashion of an hard-crusted loafe, somewhat like our stillyard bunne.” A correspondent of Notes and Queries says that he has always taken the word to be “coquerells,” from the vending of such buns at the barbarous sport of “throwing at the cock” (which is still called a cockerell in E. Anglia) on Shrove Tuesday.—N. & Q. 1st S. vol. i. pp. 293 and 412.

Formerly there used to be held at Norwich on Shrove Tuesday a most curious festivity, to which Blomefield in his History of Norfolk (1806, vol. iii. p. 155) incidentally alludes. In 1442, he says, there was a great insurrection at Norwich, for which the citizens were indicted, who among other things pleaded in their excuse:

“That John Gladman, of Norwich, who ever was, and at thys our is, a man of sad disposition, and trewe and feythfull to God and to the Kyng, of disporte, as hath been acustomed in ony cite or burgh thorowe alle this reame, on Tuesday in the last ende of Crestemesse, viz. Fastyngonge Tuesday, made a disport with his neighbours, havyng his hors trappyd with tynnsoyle, and other nyse disgisy things, corouned as Kyng of Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson should ende with the twelve monethes of the yere: aforn hym [went] yche moneth, disguysed after the seson requiryd, and Lenton clad in whyte and red heryngs skinns, and his hors trappyd with oystyr-shells after him, in token that sadnesse should folowe, and an holy tyme; and so rode in diverse stretis of the cite, with other people with hym disguyssd, and makyng myrth, disportes, and plays.”

Northamptonshire.

In many parts of this county the church bell is rung about noon, as the signal for preparing pancakes. At Daventry the bell which is rung on this occasion is muffled on one side with leather, or buffed, as it is termed, and obtains the name of Pan-burn-bell. Jingling rhymes in connection with this day are repeated by the peasantry, varying in different districts. The following are the most current:

“Pancakes and fritters,
Says the bells of St. Peter’s.
Where must we fry ’em?
Says the bells of Cold Higham.
In yonder land thurrow [furrow],
Says the bells of Wellingborough.
You owe me a shilling,
Says the bells of Great Billing.
When will you pay me?
Says the bells at Middleton Cheney.
When I am able,
Says the bells at Dunstable.
That will never be,
Says the bells at Coventry.
Oh, yes it will,
Says Northampton Great Bell.
White bread and sop,
Says the bells at Kingsthrop.
Trundle a lantern,
Says the bells at Northampton.”

That the bells of the churches of Northampton used also to be rung on this day may be inferred from the following similar doggerel:

“Roast beef and marsh-mallows,
Says the bells of All Hallow’s,
Pancakes and fritters.
Says the bells of St. Peter’s.
Roast beef and boil’d,
Says the bells of St. Giles’.
Poker and tongs,
Says the bells of St. John’s.[13]
Shovel, tongs, and poker,
Says the bells of St. Pulchre’s.[14]”