You must put on something new on Easter Sunday, or the birds will spoil your clothes.
Paste-eggs boiled hard and dyed with ribbons or wool, whinblossoms or onion peelings, are rolled on the grass, or "jauped" against each other till broken, and tansy puddings should be eaten.
Balls are often given to children and played with by them, this being a relic of the custom of playing at "handball" at Easter.
On Easter Sunday the boys may pull off the girls’ shoes; but on Easter Monday the girls may retaliate by pulling off the caps of the boys.
"All Fools’ Day" is still kept to some extent, chiefly by schoolboys, who send their victims to the chemist for oil of hazel, or "strap oil," which they receive in a dry form from the irate shop-keeper!
They also wear oak-leaves on Royal Oak Day; and the choristers of Durham Cathedral go to the top of the central tower and sing anthems. This, though now done in honour of the Restoration, was originally in thanksgiving for the victory of Neville’s Cross, and used to take place in October.
And it is schoolboys, too, who keep Guy Fawkes’ Day in remembrance, for the noise of crackers and fireworks and the excitement of a bonfire do very much appeal to them. Guys are now seldom carried about, but are sometimes burnt.
The "mell-supper" in the county of Durham (from the Norse melr, corn) is akin to the Northumbrian "kirn-feast," and is held when the last sheaf is brought in. When this is done, the farmer’s headman proceeds to "shout the mell":
"Blest be the day that Christ was born.
We’ve getten mell o’ Mr. ——’s corn.
Weel won and better shorn.
Hip, hip, hip, huzza, huzza!"
This last sheaf used to be dressed in finery and crowned with wheatears, hoisted on a pole, and all the harvesters danced round this "kern-baby," or harvest-queen, who afterward presided over the supper. Mummers, or "guisers," used to attend the feast, but all these usages are dying out, and the master often gives the harvesters money or ale instead of the supper. This is the old autumn feast of the ingathering of the corn, and in Brito-Roman times the image was that of the goddess Ceridwen, answering to Ceres. Later, it stood for the Virgin Mary.