Sat 29/4 at #Maidstone Museum: #folkcustoms inc. #autohoodening, talks by @thefolklorepodcast & artist #BenEdge, etc. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b60quA_gNy0 for previous curator's tour inc. #BroadstairsFolkWeek #hoodenhorse herd…

Ac oherwydd fy mod i ar y gweinydd'ma:

Dydd Sadwrn yn #Amgueddfa yng Nghaint: traddodiadau gwerin, sgyrsiau gan celfydd ac ati. Gwyliwch y fideo am daith curadur flaenorol (Saesneg)…

#freeevent #freeentry #folklorethursday #hoodening @folklorethursday @folklore @EFDSS

New blogpost about wassailing

https://dowsingfordivinity.com/2023/01/15/wassailing-3/

#wassailing #wassail #applewassail #folklore #folktraditions #folkcustoms #folkloreThursday

New blogpost about wassailing

https://dowsingfordivinity.com/2023/01/15/wassailing-3/

#wassailing #wassail #applewassail #folklore #folktraditions #folkcustoms #folkloreThursday

Happy Plough Monday!

"For Plough Monday was the day when village life in many agricultural areas focused on the dragging of a decorated plough, sometimes a real one but often just a replica, around a community by bands of young men who would knock on doors and ask for money, food or drink. These men were [known as Plough Stotts in the North East]"

via @EFDSS

https://www.efdss.org/learning/resources/beginners-guides/48-british-folk-customs-from-plough-monday-to-hocktide/3366-plough-monday

No sign of a plough or Plough Stotts in Whitley Bay sadly!

#PloughMonday #Folk #FolkCustoms

Perfect Boxing Day, out to Grenoside for the famed longsword and mulled wine, then the race over to Dungworth for the last Royal village carols of the year. All on a bright blue day. Hope you’re having a good day, wherever you are. #folk #folkcustoms #tradition #grenoside #dungworth #longsword #villagecarols #sheffield #ritual

A 'Lost' Christmas Custom of the North:

"They haven't gone guising here for a long time," said the old folk of Cambo in 1922.

"There was no 'guisering' at Christmas 1903," wrote Hastings Neville in Ford in his notes of that year.

'Guising' (apparently derived from 'disguising', referring to the costumes and masks worn) was the local version of the Mummers Plays that exist elsewhere.

In both Ford, in the far north of the county, and Cambo, 40 miles to the south, we have records of the old custom, which happened in the days leading up to Christmas. Both apparently involved the key character of a doctor, but in Ford, Revd Neville has preserved the entirety of the script, including 'King George', a young hero, Goliath, and a battle, and finishing with the rhyme:

"Your bottles are full of whisky,
Your barrels are full of beer,
I wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year."

Neville puts the dying of the custom down to the reduction of young people in the villages in an age of increased mechanisation and rural depopulation. But when I was growing up in Northumberland in the 1990s, 'guising' was what we called Trick or Treating at Halloween! Maybe it hasn't so much died as shifted.

#FolkHistory #LocalHistory #Folklore #FolkCustoms #Traditions #Christmas #Midwinter #ChristmasTraditions #RuralTradition #History #Northumberland #Mummers