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Folklore & Custom

Folklore & Custom

Most of these still happen. A garland king ridden blind through a Derbyshire village, a tar-and-canvas horse danced through Padstow on May morning, six wells dressed in pressed petals for Ascension Day. Beside the customs sit the harder things – a skull that will not leave its farmhouse, a bell that answers from the harbour mud – kept by the people who still will not break them.
17
Jun
Morris dancers performing in a bunting-strung English market-town street, a crowd watching from both pavements and a tall inn on the right, watercolour.

The Mayor of Ock Street: Abingdon's Ox-Horn Election Custom

On the Saturday nearest 19 June, the residents of one street in Abingdon elect a mayor of their own. The prize is a sword, a sash, and a pair of ox horns dated 1700.
3 min read
11
Jun
A pewter dish of strawberries on a dark wooden table, two stray berries beside it and a green strawberry leaf on the rim, lit against a near-black background.

The Bishop's Strawberries: Richard III's Coup of 1483

A bowl of strawberries from the Bishop of Ely's Holborn garden, asked for on 13 June 1483, sits at the start of the three weeks that carried Richard from Lord Protector to crowned king.
3 min read
05
Jun
Fresh green rushes strewn across the bare earth floor of a plain old parish church, soft light falling from a leaded window, a stone pillar and a dark wooden bench beyond.

Rushbearing: The Year's Rushes Carried Into Church

English churches once had floors strewn with rushes, renewed each summer in a festival. Grasmere, Sowerby Bridge, and Warcop still keep it.
3 min read
05
Jun
A piebald cob stands alone in a shallow river, its wet coat shining and rings spreading from its legs, with painted bow-top caravans gathered on the far bank below green fells.

The Appleby Horse Fair: The Gathering That Runs on No Charter

For one week in early June, Appleby fills with horses washed in the River Eden. The fair has no charter and rests on prescriptive right alone.
3 min read
23
May
The Nitch Ladies on the green outside Salisbury Cathedral: four women in nineteenth-century fieldworker dress with bundles of hazel and oak twigs balanced on their heads.

The Grovely Forest Rights of Wishford Magna: Oak Apple Day on the Cathedral Green

The Wiltshire village of Great Wishford walks to Salisbury before dawn on 29 May to defend a forest right confirmed in 1603 and held since 1292.
4 min read
23
May
Watercolour of the Castleton Garland King on a grey shire horse. The rider in a red coat is hidden from chest up inside a floral cone of red, blue and white flowers on a wooden frame.

Castleton Garland Day: The Garland King Rides Blind Through the Village

On 29 May the Garland King rides through Castleton invisible from the waist up, a beehive of flowers on his shoulders. The custom dates to 1749.
3 min read
23
May
Tissington well dressing on Ascension Day: a wooden board taller than a person set behind a low stone village well, a biblical scene of a haloed figure built petal by petal in wet clay.

Tissington Well-Dressing: Six Wells, Six Days, Ascension Day in Derbyshire

On Ascension Day, the Derbyshire village of Tissington dresses its six wells with biblical scenes built petal by petal on wet clay boards.
2 min read
23
May
The Jack-in-the-Green at Hastings: a tall foliage figure with green-painted face, flower crown and cascading rainbow ribbons, with a green-tunic'd drummer and woman crowned in flowers.

Jack-in-the-Green: The May Day Figure Walked Through the Parish

A figure covered in greenery walked the parish on May Day. The custom survives at Hastings, Knutsford, and a handful of other towns.
4 min read
23
May
Teenagers in white dresses and shirts wearing lily-of-the-valley crowns dance hand in hand down a crowd-lined street between stone buildings, the road climbing the hill ahead.

The Helston Furry Dance

On 8 May the principal dancers of Helston's Furry Dance walk through private houses, kitchens, and gardens to a single tune.
4 min read
22
May
A vicar in black cassock leads two churchwardens carrying long willow wands and three small boys with shorter wands, past a weathered moss-covered boundary stone on a field path.

Beating of the Bounds – walking the English parish boundary

Before printed maps, the parish boundary lived in collective memory. On Rogation Days the procession walked it, and at the boundary stones a boy was bumped against the stone rather than the wand.
4 min read