Shrove Tuesday Custom
About Whaley, near Chapel-en-le-Frith, they used to bake pancakes (which are eaten as soon as they are ready) on Pancake Day, i.e., Shrove Tuesday. If a girl could not eat a pancake between the time when the last pancake was done and a fresh pancake was ready, she was thrown into a gooseberry bush or upon the ash midden. At Abney on this day they called the one who was last in bed the “bed-churl” or “bed-churn,” and they threw him or her on the ash-midden. It was a common thing in the village to ask who had been the “bed-churl” that day.
Yule Loaf, Posset, and Candle
On Christmas Eve at Bradwell they have a large candle on the table and a large bowl of posset, which is made of ale and milk. They all sit round the table whilst the candle is burning, put their spoons into the bowl, and sup from them. The grocers still give candles to their regular customers for this purpose.
Mrs. George Middleton, of Smalldale, told me that the posset bowl used on Christmas Eve in that hamlet is a pancheon or milk bowl. They sit round the table, and put their spoons into the bowl. Any stranger who happens to come in can also put his spoon in. Posset is made of milk, which is warmed and spiced with nutmeg, ale being poured in until it “breaks” or curds. The Yule loaf was baked all in one piece. It was “like a round loaf put on the top of a four pound loaf.”
Robert Bradwell, of Bradwell, aged 88, said that the posset pot went round the table from one to another. There was a bit of a figure on the top of the Yule loaf to please the eye. The Yule candle was much longer than an ordinary candle.
The last of the Cave-dwellers
Two old women, called Betty Blewit and Sall Waugh, lived in a hut within the opening of the great cave at Castleton. It was one storey high; it had a mud roof, and “a bit of a lead window in front.” The bed was in one corner. These old women used to say that they “lived in a house on which the sun never shone, or the rain ever fell.” They begged of gentle people in the summer.[122] Writing of the cavern in 1720–31, the Rev. Thomas Cox says: “Within the arch are several small buildings, where the poorer sort of people inhabit, who are ready at all times with lanterns and candles to attend such travellers as are curious to enquire into these territories of Satan. These people resemble the Troglydites, or cunicular men, who, as Dr. Brown describes them, lived under the ground like rabbits.”[123]
First Foot
At Castleton a dark-haired man “takes the New Year in” immediately after twelve o’clock on New Year’s Eve. He must be a dark man, i.e., “a man with a black head or black hair.” The parish clerk who had very black hair took the New Year in to some houses in Castleton. When the dark-haired man comes in “a glass of something good is given to him.” I was told that young dark-haired lads “get a ruck o’ money” in Castleton for taking the New Year in. Black or dark hair is obligatory in the High Peak. Miss Barber, of Castleton, aged 76, said that the black-haired man ought to be a stranger, and not a member of the family visited. In Bradwell, as in Castleton, the New Year is brought in by a dark-haired man.[124] The term “first foot” seems to be unknown in the High Peak.