Francis Young

In a few communities in Victorian England, there was a custom of men tying women to chairs with ribbons on Easter Monday and lifting them up, all the while singing the hymn ‘Jesus Christ is risen today’. On Easter Tuesday the custom was repeated, only this time it was the women who ‘lifted’ the men. The Victorian practice of ‘lifting’ can be traced back to the 18th century, but in reality it was an echo of a much earlier and stranger practice that originally took place a week later – at ‘Hocktide’, the Monday and Tuesday following Low Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter).

To most modern Britons the words ‘Yule Log’ probably bring to mind that masterstroke of marketing that has enabled supermarkets to sell an ordinary chocolate roulade (with the addition of a plastic sprig of holly) as a speciality item for the Christmas table. But the edible Yule Log of our own day – to an even greater extent than the meat-free mince pies of modern Christmas – is a mere shadow of what it once was. The original Yule Log was an actual log – in theory, an enormous one that was large enough to burn between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night (5 January). Its evocative name preserved the pre-Christian Old English word for the midwinter festival, Geol.

In some countries Shrove Tuesday (the day of merrymaking before the rigours of Lent) developed into a ‘carnival’ that lasted several days, but in England it was only ever a half-day holiday, since it was not an official Church feast day. Apprentices and schoolchildren claimed the right to an afternoon of ‘sport’, and from at least the 15th century the most popular Shrove Tuesday recreation was ‘throwing at cocks’. This was a cruel custom that involved immobilising a cockerel, either by tying its foot to a stake or half burying it in the ground, while bystanders took turns throwing stones, tools and bricks at the cockerel in an attempt to kill it.

For anyone who is even a little superstitious (and superstition sometimes feels more like an unavoidable burden than a conscious choice) the arrival of yet another Friday the 13th sends a little chill down the spine. Yet whatever its psychological effects, Friday the 13th is not one of the ancient unlucky days. There used to be many days in the year, which varied according to region, when it was considered unlucky to do anything because it would inevitably end badly – Epiphany (6 January) in some parts of England, 29 December in others, and even St Martin’s Day (11 November). But these traditions were tied to a day in the calendar rather than a specific day of the week.

Among the many options available for Halloween costumes and decorations these days, from witches to zombies, from mummies to serial killers, there is one traditional Halloween character you are unlikely to see: fairies. But in Irish and Scottish folklore, which provides the basis for modern Halloween traditions, fairies were central to this festival. In Scotland, it was on Halloween night that the ‘fairy rade’ (procession) was said to be seen going through the countryside, bearing the souls of the unbaptised dead or those who were snatched away in life by the fairies. In the ballad of Tam Lin, Janet has to wait until the fairies ride at Halloween to rescue her otherworldly lover from the clutches of the Fairy Queen.

If you get up early enough on Easter morning, according to old English folklore, you might be lucky enough to see the sun dancing in the sky as it rises, rejoicing at the resurrection of Christ – although tradition also records that the devil usually manages to put a hill in front of the dancing sun to stop people seeing it. Easter is one of the richest periods of the calendar for traditional English folk customs. A few are still well known and even recognised by supermarkets, such as the eating of hot cross buns and simnel cake. But many other customs are either confined to one location or are long forgotten, replaced by the generic, confected ‘fakelore’ of the Easter Bunny and egg hunts.

Bonfire night festivities in Britain today are increasingly highly choreographed events: council-sponsored firework displays mounted by professional companies, sponsored by local businesses and charities and monitored by health and safety professionals – all very worthy and respectable. It is difficult to believe that, just a few decades ago, bonfire night was a night of anarchy. Ironically for a festival celebrating the preservation of order and hierarchy, bonfire night became a time of disorder and chaos There is a long history of unrest on 5 November, which began life as a day of solemn thanksgiving for the deliverance of King and Parliament.

One of the stranger events of the summer of 2023 is the sudden and unexplained appearance, one night in early August, of an eight-foot tall carved wooden pole on a coastal path in Kent depicting the Baltic thunder god Perkūnas. The impressive sculpture is carved from a single piece of wood crowned by four stylised bearded faces, with an inscription in runic-style lettering up one side, ‘PERKUNAS 2023’. No permission was sought to erect the carving, and its creator is unknown – as is the purpose of the installation. Is it a gift from the artist? A pagan religious act? An image set up for protection?

It is a cliché to say that Britain’s customs were invented by the Victorians. In the case of the coronation, it is also not true: the 1838 coronation of Queen Victoria was possibly the most underwhelming in British history, even if it did give us the Imperial State Crown and Coronation Ring. It is true that some of what we think of as ‘ancient’ in the coronation rite isn’t quite as old as you might expect. While St Edward’s Crown is from 1661, for example, it has only been used in modern times since the coronation of George V and lay abandoned, stripped of its jewels, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.   But on the whole, an astounding amount of Britain’s coronation rite has survived from a truly remote period of history.

It’s as much a part of the season now as baubles, tinsel and the Christmas Number One: those articles, blogs and memes that pop up during the festive season claiming that Christmas, in spite of the name, is actually a pagan festival. Certainly, the visitor to contemporary Britain would be forgiven for thinking that Christmas has little or nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ; and indeed there are many things we do at Christmas, and have done for centuries, that seem to have scant connection to any sort of religious celebration. What does decking the halls with boughs of holly have to do with Jesus? Or Christmas pudding? Or Christmas ghost stories? Or the older traditions of misrule, riotous mumming and reversing positions of authority?